Maritz, LLC

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Maritz
Company typePrivate
Industry
  • Incentives
  • Rewards
  • Loyalty
  • Engagement
  • Business Events
Founded1894; 130 years ago (1894)
FounderEdward Maritz
HeadquartersFenton, Missouri,
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Steve Maritz (Executive Chairman)

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

Steve Gallant (General Counsel)
Number of employees
4,250[1] (2016)
SubsidiariesMaritz Global Events, Maritz Motivation, Maritz Automotive, Quality Reward Travel, Impact Dimensions
Websitewww.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[edit]

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[edit]

  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. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "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[edit]