Attracting a fair amount of press coverage recently has been the publication of a book Scroogenomics: Why you shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays by Joel Waldfogel. In it, Waldfogel argues against buying gifts at Christmas, suggesting that people consistently value the gifts they receive as less than their actual cost.

“When other people choose for us they do a poor job compared to when we choose for ourselves,” explains Mr Waldfogel, and calculates that “dollars on gifts for you produce 18 per cent less satisfaction, per dollar, than dollars you spend on yourself.” As an economist, Waldfogel views this as value destruction, to the tune of about $12 billion per year in the US alone.

There’s some interesting ideas here, and it’s tempting to think that it leads to the conclusion that cash makes a better gift choice than a present. However, studies have consistently shown that cash gets absorbed into satisfying needs rather than wants, making it harder to justify buying something they really want. ‘Buyers remorse’ is the name for the guilty feeling that people feel for treating themselves.

Waldfogel isn’t a total miserypants – “my beef is not with level of spending at Christmas but rather with the waste that this generates”, and acknowledges that presents, if well chosen, can actually add value,

Interestingly, Waldfogel proposes that giftcards could potentially be a less wasteful way of giving, if the amount that is wasted via non-redemption (euphemistically called ‘breakage’ by the voucher industry), could revert to charitable donations when they expire. But there is a greater chance of Christmas being cancelled before retailers adopt this practice,

We believe that our online points system iD-points provides the best of both worlds. It provides a mean for a recipients to choose their own gift, and get something they really want but without the buyers remorse that comes with cash. Recipients have no alternative but to treat themselves with great products from leading brands.

I’m getting tired of reading that gift cards, and other incentive rewards, have “trophy value”. Imagine Paolo Maldini holding aloft a small piece of plastic that allows him to visit UEFA headquarters to pick up the European Cup the following week, and you’ll get an idea of the ridiculousness of this kind of statement.

What articles like this are trying to suggest is that receiving a giftcard or voucher, or points, is somehow inherently rewarding, not to mention motivating, and inspiring.

But try leaving a gift token under the Christmas tree for your kids and see the reaction you get.

Of course, gift cards, vouchers and online points can be exchanged for all sorts of wonderful goods, experiences and memories. But they are not motivational in themselves. It’s a deferred gratification, with a time-delay between getting your placeholder and then substituting it for something you want.

At this point I’m not going to argue whether vouchers or points are better in this respect – they each have strengths and weaknesses.

But, if we continue the concept of a trophy, the place at which receives the actual item itself, the iPod, the bike, or the tickets to the concert, is crucial.

If you’re redeeming a gift card or voucher, this is likely to be in a shop somewhere.

But if you’re redeeming points, the point of delivery is usually at the workplace, where the gifts are received and opened in front of colleagues. This is genuine trophy value.

One of our clients recently told us: “When that first box of stuff arrived for the sales team, and people started opening their prizes, you could see everyone gathering around, and wanting to know what they needed to do to get them. That’s when our incentive really took off.”

Never underestimate the motivational power of opening a present in front of work colleagues. Gifts have trophy value, tokens do not.