Mobile Loyalty Tied To Payments Developing In Many Forms

With analysts touting mobile phones as the future of loyalty and payment card programs, several companies have launched initiatives this year to fill the growing niche. But despite their differences in delivery methods, no one technology has yet to win over another.

“With consumer demand and the proliferation and innovation around mobile loyalty, it is a bit of old-school thinking that one technology has to win over another,” says Kelly Hlavinka, a managing partner in Colloquy, a Cincinnati-based loyalty marketing research and consulting firm.

Because Starbucks Corp. is such a popular retailer, barcodes could be an early leader in the technology adopted for mobile loyalty and payments, says Andrew Davidson, senior vice president at Mintel Comperemedia, a New York-based card marketing research company (see story). “Starbucks certainly is setting the pace for mobile-loyalty applications,” says Davidson.

But other methods to tie mobile payments with merchant loyalty also are getting market plays.

American Express Co., for example, is connecting cardholders to Foursquare Labs Inc.’s location-based social media accounts to give cardholder statement credits for making purchases at designated merchants (see story).

Meanwhile, Mocapay uses SMS text messaging to supply mobile coupons to loyalty customers at a Chicago restaurant (see story).  And loyalty marketer Maritz Real-Time is working with Vivotech’s Near Field Communication system to link shoppers with instant loyalty redemptions via mobile phones (see story).

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