Maritz, LLC

Last updated

Maritz
Company typePrivate
Industry
  • Incentives
  • Rewards
  • Loyalty
  • Engagement
  • Business Events
Founded1894;131 years ago (1894)
FounderEdward Maritz
Headquarters Fenton, Missouri,
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Steve Maritz (Executive Chairman)

David Peckinpaugh (President & CEO) Rick Ramos (CFO)

Steve Gallant (General Counsel)

Contents

Number of employees
4,250 [1]  (2016)
Subsidiaries Maritz Global Events, Maritz Motivation, Maritz Automotive, Quality Reward Travel, Impact Dimensions
Website www.maritz.com

Maritz is a sales and marketing services company that designs and operates employee recognition and reward programs, sales channel incentive programs, (including incentive travel rewards [2] ) and customer loyalty programs. [3] It also plans corporate & association trade shows, meetings and events, and offers a customer experience technology platform. [4]

Subsidiaries and segments include Maritz Motivation, Maritz Global Events, Maritz Automotive, Quality Reward Travel, and Impact Dimensions. [5]

History

In 1894, Edward Maritz started the E. Maritz Jewelry Manufacturing Company, a wholesaler and manufacturer of fine jewelry and engraved watches. [6] By the 1920s, the company was concentrating on wholesaling imported watches and became one of the first in the nation to sell wristwatches. [6] When the stock market crashed in 1929, the company nearly failed. The crisis forced Maritz to look for a new direction, and it began to sell watches, jewelry and merchandise to large corporations as sales incentives and service awards for employees. [6]

Over the next three decades, the sales incentive business flourished. Each year, Maritz produced an increasingly elaborate merchandise awards catalog and added services to promote and administer sales incentive programs. [6] With the purchase of a small Detroit travel company in the 1950s, Maritz branched out again, adding group travel as an incentive award. [6] As the 1960s ended, Maritz began to diversify with new divisions that laid the groundwork for ventures in communications, marketing research, training and meeting production. [6]

The company further diversified in the 1970s. Maritz built communications and marketing research businesses, established a presence in Europe and opened a travel office in Mexico City. [6]

In the 1990s Maritz invested in automotive marketing research. They formed Maritz Canada and added offices throughout Western Europe. [6] During the late 1990s and into the new millennium, Maritz continued to grow in loyalty reward and incentive travel through strategic partnerships with companies such as American Express. [6]

In 2008, Maritz claimed to be the largest source of integrated performance improvement, travel and market research [7] services globally. [6]

In May 2014, Maritz Canada and Maritz Loyalty Marketing rebranded to form North America's first brand loyalty agency, Bond Brand Loyalty. [8] The focus of the new agency was to help clients manage customer-brand relationships. The company sold Bond Brand Loyalty in 2015. [9] Also in 2014, Maritz Holdings acquired Allegiance Software in order to combine it with Maritz Research and create a new, standalone company, MaritzCX, a customer experience and market research company.

On March 3, 2020 MaritzCX was sold to InMoment. [10]


References

  1. "Top 150 2017: No 16t Maritz". St. Louis Business Journal. March 24, 2017. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
  2. White, Martha C. (March 13, 2007). "Bon Voyage as a Bonus". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved April 18, 2016.
  3. Jennifer Godwin, "Partings and Performance", Forbes , November 27, 2000.
  4. "Maritz Holdings Acquires Growing CX Provider" . Retrieved June 25, 2016.
  5. "Our Companies". Maritz. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Encyclopedia of Company Histories". Answers.com - Hoover's Corporate Profile. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
  7. Sonderman, J. (2008). Route 66 in St. Louis. Images of America. Arcadia Publishing. p. 37. ISBN   978-0-7385-5216-3.
  8. "Press Release Maritz Canada is now Bond Brand Loyalty | Bond Brand Loyalty". Archived from the original on December 9, 2014. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  9. "Maritz Sells Bond Brand Loyalty: Incentive Magazine" . Retrieved June 25, 2016.
  10. "MaritzCX now an InMoment company". Maritz. Retrieved May 27, 2020.

Further reading