Banana Ball and the Business of Belonging
The first thing Jesse and Emily Cole did when they bought a dying baseball team wasn’t scout players - it was buy 7,000 yellow tuxedos. They called them “uniforms for joy.”
Back in 2016, the Savannah Bananas were broke, attendance was tanking, and the stands looked emptier than the dugout. Jesse and his wife, Emily, didn’t inherit a business; they inherited a question: what would make people care enough to show up?
So they reimagined the game. They banned bunting because “it’s boring.” They turned foul balls into outs if fans caught them. They added dance breaks between innings. Before long, players were learning choreography as often as they practiced pitches.
The result? Sold-out stadiums across the country. The Bananas stopped being a baseball team and became a traveling show, a brand built on joy.
The Coles didn’t just sell tickets - they sold an experience. And that, more than any scoreboard, is what turned a $200,000 franchise into a business now rumored to be worth hundreds of millions.
It’s also a mirror for what’s happening inside the world of incentive marketing. The companies winning in 2025 are the ones learning the same lesson the Coles did: people don’t buy the game. They buy how it makes them feel.
The Quiet Revolution in Rewards
The incentive world used to be predictable. You hit quota, you earned a trip. You sold the most, you got the bonus. The formula was simple - and for decades, it worked.
But something’s changed. After years of remote work, global uncertainty, and nonstop digital noise, people are craving something money can’t buy: meaning.
A growing number of leaders are discovering that emotional connection is the real performance driver. They’re learning that rewards rooted in experience don’t just motivate - they transform.
You can see it in the data, sure: travel and merchandise rewards consistently outperform cash in engagement and retention. But numbers miss the deeper truth. Cash disappears into bills. Experiences live on in stories.
A trip you choose yourself - whether it’s exploring Iceland’s glaciers, a long weekend in Napa, or a quiet cabin retreat - becomes a personal story. Incentives, when done right, shift from being transactions to becoming memories. And memories, it turns out, have staying power.
Why the Old Game Stopped Working
For years, many companies treated incentives as levers: push harder, get more sales. That made sense when the workforce was largely homogenous and work itself was mostly mechanical.
Today’s workforce doesn’t fit that mold. Gen Z and Millennials aren’t chasing corner offices; they’re chasing connection. Gen X wants autonomy. Boomers crave recognition and legacy.
A one-size-fits-all reward no longer fits anyone.
The shift isn’t just generational - it’s philosophical. People don’t want to earn things that make them look successful. They want to experience things that make them feel alive - and on their own terms.
That’s why the smartest brands are quietly pivoting from programs built on points to experiences built on personal choice. They’re asking: how can we make people feel proud, seen, and trusted to choose what matters most to them?
Because when someone feels like they belong, loyalty stops being a strategy and starts being a reflex.
From Transaction to Transformation
Consider the difference between writing a $1,000 check to a top salesperson and empowering that same person to design their own once-in-a-lifetime experience - choosing when, where, and with whom to celebrate their win.
The check ends when it’s cashed. The freedom to plan a self-chosen adventure - whether that’s a fly-fishing trip in Montana, a private villa in Santorini, or a week exploring Japan - lives on long after.
Choice isn’t just a perk. It’s the modern definition of value.
Group travel once symbolized status; individual choice now symbolizes respect. Today’s top performers don’t want an itinerary - they want agency. When you hand them the keys to shape their own reward, you signal trust. And trust is the strongest motivator of all.
“People don’t buy the product - they buy the way it makes them feel,” says one CMO I worked with recently. “That’s not marketing fluff. That’s behavioral economics.”
He’s right. Our brains are wired to remember emotional peaks. A paycheck satisfies. A moment captivates.
“Cash satisfies. Experiences captivate.”
The New ROI: Return on Inspiration
Every executive I talk to still asks the same question: how do we measure this?
They want to see the spreadsheet. They want proof that emotion pays. Fair question.
Here’s the answer: it already does.
A mid-sized tech company I know replaced their old cash-based incentive structure with a flexible individual travel program. Each participant could select from curated experiences aligned with their lifestyle and schedule. Within a single quarter, they saw a 35% increase in performance - and even more telling, a 20% increase in customer satisfaction.
Not because the reward was expensive. Because it was human.
Recognition, when designed as a story, creates identity. It tells people who they are and why they matter. That’s far more valuable than another line item in a budget.
You can’t fake genuine appreciation - and you can’t measure belonging in decimals. But you can feel it in culture, retention, and results.
When Loyalty Becomes Emotional
Loyalty is no longer earned through repetition - it’s earned through resonance.
If you’ve ever received a reward that felt tailor-made for you, you know the feeling. It’s powerful because it taps something ancient: the need to belong - not to a group itinerary, but to a story that reflects you.
That’s what the Savannah Bananas tapped into. They turned a baseball game into a shared identity. Fans became part of the performance. Players became entertainers. The line between audience and team dissolved.
The lesson for every business? Make people part of the experience. Recognition is no longer about what you give - it’s about how personally you design it.
That’s what creates loyalty that outlasts any quarterly cycle.
“Recognition is no longer about what you give - it’s about how you include.”
The Experience Economy Arrives in Incentives
Across industries, the experience economy is rewriting motivation.
Hospitality brands are curating bespoke stays instead of one-size-fits-all packages. Tech companies are replacing generic team trips with flexible personal experiences. Even legacy industries are realizing: people remember how they felt when they had freedom.
That’s what the Incentive Marketing Association Summit in Austin is all about. The entire industry is waking up to the realization that motivation isn’t mechanical - it’s emotional.
“AI can automate almost anything except why we care.”
And that’s exactly what great incentive design now aims to answer.
The Emotional Architecture of Incentives
Let’s pull back the curtain for a second. Designing incentives that work in this new economy isn’t about budgets - it’s about psychology.
When you strip it down, an incentive is a story. It needs three parts:
- Anticipation – the promise that builds excitement.
- Experience – the moment that delivers emotion.
- Memory – the afterglow that sustains motivation.
That’s the emotional architecture behind every great recognition program. And it’s magnified when the recipient chooses the story’s setting, characters, and timing.
One of our clients, a global insurance company, redesigned its incentive model around storytelling. Each participant received a personalized video recapping their year’s highlights, narrated by their manager - transforming recognition into something uniquely theirs.
Weeks later, employees were still talking about it. Not because the destination was exotic, but because the experience was intimate and personal.
This is what I mean when I say incentive design has crossed into experience design. We’ve moved from rewarding behavior to reinforcing identity.
What Happens When Experience Leads
Let’s look at what happens when experience takes the lead.
Companies that invest in experiential rewards consistently report three things:
- Higher retention – Employees stay because they feel emotionally invested. People feel understood, not just included.
- Stronger advocacy – Customers become ambassadors because the story is theirs to tell.
- Faster recovery – Teams bounce back from setbacks with resilience because self-chosen experiences restore energy in ways generic programs can’t.
Why? Because experiences create trophy value. People retell them, post them, and relive them.
A bonus check is gone in seconds. A self-planned getaway to reconnect with a loved one? That’s a permanent reminder of what it feels like to win.
And it’s not just about lavish budgets. Some of the most powerful programs are small but deeply personal: handwritten notes, peer recognition rituals, surprise celebrations.
“The power is in the intentionality, not the expense.”
The Generational Factor
Let’s not forget: the workforce is now five generations deep.
What inspires one group might alienate another. Gen Z wants purpose and experiences that align with their values. Millennials want recognition that respects both ambition and balance. Gen X values autonomy. Boomers appreciate clarity and respect.
There’s no universal formula - but there is a universal truth: everyone wants to be seen.
Programs that offer choice - whether in travel options, gift formats, or experiences - outperform rigid systems every time. Because autonomy is the new incentive.
Design flexibility into your rewards and you’ll design connection into your culture.
The Next Era: Designing for Emotion
If you strip away the jargon, incentives are about one simple thing: helping people feel valued.
The way we do that is evolving fast. Travel rewards are becoming more curated, with emotional storytelling at the center. Recognition moments are being filmed, shared, and celebrated company-wide. Technology is helping tailor experiences at scale.
But at its core, it’s still about the same human need: to belong - to yourself, your work, and your story.
That’s why the Savannah Bananas matter as more than a fun story - they’re a blueprint. They took an ordinary product (baseball) and turned it into an extraordinary feeling.
That’s the invitation for every leader designing recognition today: stop rewarding effort and start celebrating experience.
Because when you design for emotion, you don’t just build loyalty - you build legacy.
Here’s what I’ve learned after decades in this business: motivation isn’t bought, it’s built.
The best programs don’t dangle rewards at the finish line - they weave recognition into the journey. They make people feel something real.
If you’re rethinking how your organization drives performance, start by asking one question: what do you want people to remember?
That answer will tell you everything you need to design incentives that actually work.
And if you’re experimenting with new ways to do it, I’d love to compare notes. Because the future of loyalty isn’t a spreadsheet - it’s a story each person gets to live.