With the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games set to begin Friday, Affinity Solutions Inc. this week announced a partnership with the U.S. Olympic Committee that enables online shoppers to earn cash back through merchant-funded rewards. Participants also may donate funds to help athletes train and travel to the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.
MyFan Rewards LLC, a loyalty program manager that does business with sports teams and performing artists, also is partnering with the Olympic organization and Affinity. The Olympics organization is MyFan’s first partner.
The program enables consumers to earn up to 15% cash back from hundreds of online retailers, including Nike Inc. and AT&T Inc. Consumers choose retailers from an online mall on the Olympic committee’s Web site. For each dollar a consumer earns, participating retailers donate a matching dollar to the Olympic organization and Team USA.
“First and foremost, this speaks to ‘cause’ marketing,” Jonathan Silver, Affinity president and CEO, tells PaymentsSource. “[The Olympics] is a sporting event, but this [program] is the integration of cause and sporting event. People get very passionate about sports, but they are also passionate about supporting a cause they believe in.”
Consumers receive a Visa prepaid debit card each time they reach $10 in rewards, according to Silver. Affinity believes delivering additional cards creates the best customer-service experience because it found consumers tend to use a card once and throw it away. “And that creates a lot of customer-service issues.” Silver says.
Affinity is using multiple prepaid card issuers, but Silver declined to name them. No fees are applied to cardholders.
The prepaid card is scheduled to feature the Olympics logo, according to Charles Rosenblatt, MyFan Rewards chief operating officer.
Affinity only realized a couple of months ago a potential partnership with the Olympic committee. New York-based Affinity, which manages merchant-funded programs for some 200 banks, wanted to get involved in the “events space,” Silver says, noting the Winter Olympics provided the perfect opportunity.
“This partnership was a convergence of events of, ‘where can we apply our model to already existing deep affinities?’” Silver says.
The rewards program is scheduled to last at least a couple of months after the conclusion of the Winter Olympics, which runs through Feb. 28. A special deal will be featured each day during the games, according to Rosenblatt says.
Though consumers can earn up to 15% cash back in the program, Silver estimates 6% will be the average amount. “If you spend $1,000 a month through the [Olympic committee] Web site, you can come away with $720 in cash back [for the year],” he says.
Consumers also can donate their rewards to Team USA.
