Using mobile phones to track and redeem credit and debit card loyalty points soon may become key elements of loyalty marketing, according to Andrew Davidson, senior vice president at Mintel Comperemedia.
“Given the projected growth of smartphones as well as new applications of bar code scanning technology, there is a growing opportunity to incorporate instant redemption,” Davidson tells PaymentsSource. “Whoever cracks that first is going to be a real winner.”
Starbucks, for example, is tying bar code scanning to its closed-loop prepaid card (
During a December Web seminar, Davidson noted some examples of three-dimensional bar cubes from a company called Bar Pages. Bar Pages has created a three-dimensional cube designed to identify and give meaning to each individual bar code, so advertisers can create and customize their own bar codes to brand and promote their businesses, products and messages in a way that is useful, recognizable and captivating to their target audiences, according to Bar Codes’ product description.
“[The cubes] include space for adding promotional messages with many possibilities for loyalty programs,” Davidson notes. “Imagine a [Citibank] ThankYou network logo displayed at the point of sale where you scan with your smartphone to pay with ThankYou points.”
Mintel’s webinar focused on the changing landscape of loyalty marketing programs (
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