While blockchain is most famous in the crypto world, the technology has countless other applications. It’s likely to have a huge impact on the internet in the future, acting as a way to verify the legitimacy of digital content instantly. For instance, there are already conversations about it being used to authenticate online videos.
Online brands that want to upgrade their promotions and collaborate with other companies may also turn to blockchain in the years ahead. It could make innovative cross-brand loyalty schemes possible, meaning that companies can help boost one another.
Brands Always Looking for Ways to Upgrade Their Promotions
Promotions have been around in business for decades, but they’ve never stayed the same. When industries become competitive, leading companies realise that they have to innovate with their offers and try out new ideas. One of the best places to see this is in ecommerce, where companies have come up with everything from flash deals to gamified loyalty schemes.
The online casino sector is another place where it’s obvious to see how much promotions have evolved. Every site is determined to offer the best casino bonus, and it can include things like deposit matches, mystery parcels, and special missions. Technology like blockchain can provide new ways to introduce bonuses in these bustling sectors, and there’s a good chance that leading companies will try to take advantage of it.
How Would a Blockchain Loyalty Ecosystem Work?
One of the things that’s noticeable about most of the offers found online is that they are specific to certain businesses. Loyalty schemes rarely spill out into other brands, and users are only able to redeem their points on the site on which they earned them. This could all change if businesses choose to bring in blockchain to help with the verification.
Blockchain-based loyalty programmes could allow companies to collaborate and allow their points to exist on a shared ledger. These could then be exchanged or redeemed across a network of brands who have decided to band together for the promotion. There are many ways that this would work, with businesses in similar industries able to boost each other. For example, someone who buys fitness attire from one retailer could then spend their points at a health food store that’s connected with the deal.
Are There Any Existing Examples?
Being able to earn points at one place and spend them at another is something that has already worked for a few major businesses, and these could inspire others to do something similar. For example, Singapore Airlines offers the Kris+ digital wallet, which allows customers to spend frequent flyer miles at partner merchants.
Burger King has also experimented with the blockchain when it released its WhopperCoin in 2017. This was a reward system launched on the Waves blockchain that allowed customers to earn tokens from buying food at the restaurants. They could then trade or exchange these just as they would with any other digital asset. This idea proved to be unsuccessful, but it showed that major brands are willing to integrate technology such as the blockchain if it allows them to create innovative offers.
In the years since that Burger King release, the cryptocurrency market has grown massively. Now, far more people are aware of digital currencies and may be more open to loyalty schemes that exist on the blockchain.
Cross-brand promotions have always been around, but there has been a lack of a streamlined method to collect loyalty points in one place. Blockchain offers a solution to that, and it could lead to all sorts of interesting collaborations between different businesses online.
