Choose Digital today launched a plug-and-play digital marketplace for loyalty, incentive and frequent flyer programs.
Choose Digital offers organizations a white label option that can be branded and customized to match the look and feel of the existing loyalty program, or via an API that can be fully integrated into the site.
The company had earlier announced a partnership with United’s MileagePlus program, one of the largest loyalty programs in the world. Choose Digital’s proprietary marketplace delivers all the digital content for United Airline’s store via its integration with MileagePlus, including exclusive content from major artists.
Choose Digital has been working with United Mileage Plus for three months and is close to other announcements in the travel and financial services industries, according to Stephen Humphreys, Choose Digital’s co-founder and CEO. He also expects to see partnerships with retailers.
“For airlines and hotel groups, this offers perfect synergy with their products,” Humphreys told Loyalty 360. “Business travelers are always watching something or reading something. This allows [airlines and hotels] a way to deliver something of value and to provide more loyalty for their brands.”
Some travelers fly or stay at hotels so infrequently that they never build up miles/points to ear rewards. According to the Incentive Marketing Association, only 32 percent of frequent fliers use their miles for flights.
With use of points/mileage for digital downloads, Choose Digital can go all the way down to $1 for redemptions.
“Choose Digital is providing incentive and loyalty club members with premium content at attractive price points that can be easily redeemed,” Humphreys added, saying that he didn’t see a conflict with the pay-for-play movies offered in hotels and on some airlines because those revenue streams from travel related firms were already being marginalized by Nextflix and similar services.
Choose Digital’s marketplace includes content from Warner, Sony and Universal, with:
· Up to 7 million tracks and hundreds of music videos;
· Thousands of the latest movie releases and back catalog classics to rent or download;
· Thousands of TV episodes and season passes;
· More than 250,000 eBooks and 20,000 audio books;
· An expanding range of specialist content – concerts and music documentaries, sports features, instructional videos, nature videos, and content for kids.
The digital loyalty market has been slow to develop, Humphreys admitted, citing many of the licensing, intellectual property and other business agreements that have needed to be worked out over the last couple of years.
“This has been an emerging space for two years,” Humphreys said.
Those intellectual property and other agreements still need to be worked out in countries outside of the U.S. and Canada before Choose Digital can expand outside of those markets. Logistics for digital delivery outside of the U.S. and Canada provides another challenge.
Despite those challenges, Choose Digital expects to announce some international partnerships as early as 2013.
In addition to that expansion, Choose Digital in 2013 expands to add another tier of their program, enabling users to build rewards over time. “Right now, we are a point burner program,” said Humphreys.