On one enchanted evening, 400 people took to a dance floor under the Eiffel Tower. They swooned and swayed, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes gracefully. Husbands and wives found themselves in Paris, the most romantic city in the world. Many had never tried ballroom dancing before. Many would probably never do it again. Yet for that evening the top 200 incentive winners of a U.S.-based insurance company did their best Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers impersonations.
The catalyst behind these folks suddenly soft-shoeing it was Cynthia Glinka, owner of On the Dance Floor, a San Francisco-based dance school. A professional ballroom dancer by trade, Glinka has been recruited by incentive planners for corporate programs for the last 15 years. Glinka, who claims she can teach anyone to dance in an hour, says: "My goal was to keep these people up and moving in Paris. That's why my company is named On the Dance Floor."
While her business has been sound for the last decade and a half, something strange has happened of late. Ballroom dancing has gotten hot, and now her phone is ringing off the hook. "I have lots of interesting events booked for 2006. All of these corporations are calling me now. They're getting on the bandwagon."
Look out, Denny Terrio—dance fever has gripped the corporate world. Due to the popularity of the show Dancing with the Stars and a handful of recent movies showcasing ballroom dancing, people are suddenly becoming motivated to waltz, do the Charleston, and even lambada a little.
Trend, two, three, four . . .
"Ballroom dancing is a trend. I don't know if you've been keeping track of what's going on with the shows on TV like Dancing with the Stars. There was a lot of skepticism as to whether it would be successful," says Dave Peer, senior director of merchandising and fulfillment for Carlson Marketing Group in Minneapolis. "It surprised the hell out of the network."
Just how successful was this show for ABC? The reality-based series averaged 16.8 million viewers during its six-week run, besting the ratings of the inaugural season of American Idol. Its finale even beat this year's incarnation of Survivor, the reality show that started it all. Not surprisingly, a sequel to the network's highest rated summer show in a decade is in the works. And Fox has already launched its own version of the series, called So You Think You Can Dance. This, combined with films like Shall We Dance? and Strictly Ballroom have piqued people's interest. How much so? The Coral Gables, FL-headquartered chain of ballroom dancing schools, Arthur Murray International, which controls a 30-percent share of the dance instruction industry, has seen business increase 28 percent since January.
"It's been a combination of things, but there has been a definite increase in interest in ballroom dancing. There has been an increase in corporations wanting to do dance activities as well," says Thomas Murdock, vice president of dance competition and public relations for Arthur Murray. "Some are buying gift certificates to give top producers. Others are giving discounts of up to 20 percent for everyone who works in that corporation. If employees choose to, they can go into a studio, show their company ID, and get a percentage off a course."
Carlson Marketing Group has seen an increase in the desire to dance during cruise incentives of late. "[Cruise planners] are always looking for new activities. This is consistent with the health and wellness trend. Everybody is getting into that," says Peer. "Ballroom dancing is exercising, but it's sexy and fun. It gets couples together. It has emerged as a fun activity."
Indeed, beyond just being an intriguing option during a travel incentive, ballroom dancing is beginning to find its way into corporate health and wellness programs. "Companies offer discounts to health clubs and smoking cessation programs and so on. One of the new things we're offering is ballroom dancing," says Peer. "We're looking at dance schools to partner with and negotiating deals right now."
Fit to Dance
In many ways this is still a fledgling trend, according to Louise Anderson of Anderson Performance Improvement in Hastings, MN. Anderson puts together programs in which top performers can select any prize once they hit the highest tier. If they choose to go dancing, they can go dancing; however, it has yet to register as a top selection. "That's not to say it won't catch on," she says. "While we do not have any information to show a trend toward participants choosing ballroom dancing as a lifestyle choice, ballroom dancing is a great activity for companies to publicize and encourage employees to incorporate into their lifestyle choices—not only for the fun of dancing, but to increase awareness of the relationship between wellness and dancing."
Whether it's for enjoyment or inclusion in a health and wellness incentive, offering gift certificates for dance lessons may be difficult to implement on a national basis. Arthur Murray, for example, despite being the largest of the dance studio chains, does not currently offer a chain-wide gift certificate. Rather, franchisees offer different programs with different rates on a location-by-location basis.
Still, franchisees have courted corporate business and vice versa, says Murdock. "There's been more interest by corporations in seeking out ways to improve employees' health as well as reward them."
Still, Glinka can provide numerous examples of companies using dance as an incentive, such as the event she organized for 400 incentive qualifiers from the now-defunct GTE Mobile that involved doing the Charleston in a sugar cane field on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. But, perhaps her favorite memory was when Steve Jobs called her and asked her to teach all of the animators at Pixar to do the Vienna waltz. She held workshops for the computer animators prior to a gala event celebrating the launch of the original Toy Story movie. Later they performed at the Garden Court restaurant at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco accompanied by a full symphonic orchestra.
"If you could have seen these 500 long-haired computer animators dancing, then at midnight all doing the grand curtsy and bow like I taught them. They had me in tears," she says. "That's what I want to see, people having fun."
The biggest group Glinka ever instructed was 3,000 employees as part of a Microsoft event. Typically she will bring in "shills," a.k.a. hired male and female dancers, to help out even if the event is booked overseas. She has also as hired local talent.
Adding dancing instruction to an event just makes sense, she says. "Corporations go through all the time, expense, and energy of getting a nice venue; and they throw a big party and then people just plop in their chairs. This is definitely an icebreaker. It gets people moving."
Kenneth Hein did a jig once at a wedding with mixed results. He is currently senior editor of Brandweek magazine.