Blings, a global company headquartered in New York, New York, is using patented AI-powered MP5 technology to help companies create personalized, interactive videos that connect with customers in real-time. The platform pulls in live data to create each video and customize loyalty offers and gamified experiences, engaging customers and boosting conversion for clients.
Loyalty 360 spoke with Yonatan Schreiber, CEO and co-founder of Blings, about how this AI-powered personalized video is reshaping loyalty programs and customer experience.
In a digital world saturated with videos, brands are increasingly searching for new tools that make customer communication more personal, engaging, and interactive. According to Schreiber, personalized videos created in real-time using customer data is the answer.
“With Blings, the company can send a video to make it relevant to the customer based on data, and [the viewer] has the ability to interact with the video. Instead of sending [just] an email, the company sends an email that opens up to a video with our technology,” Schreiber said. “There’s no need for integration. It's very easy.”
How does Blings work and differ from other video platforms? According to Schrieber, enabling clickable elements, pathways, forms, and allowing customers to build their own route throughout the video experience, in much the same way they would interact with a web site.
The concept of personalized, interactive videos came to Schreiber while working on video production for another company. “I was doing video technology for the last decade or so, and one of the things I realized is how unsuitable video is for the web,” Schreiber said.
According to Schreiber, MP4-based video is mismatched with the interactive nature of the web. Blings fixes that problem by transforming video into a dynamic, data-driven, real-time experience, allowing each individual viewer the ability to receive a completely customized video that mirrors their behavior, preferences, loyalty status, and more.
Providing Brands Creative Freedom
To create the videos, Blings offers companies a choice of two paths: either a simple web-based video builder or a professional-grade integration with Adobe tools. Both allow elements such as text, images, offers, or clickable layers. Brands can use their CDPs, CRMs, or existing data stores to personalize each video.
“We’re providing full creative freedom,” Schreiber said. “[Companies] already have tools for emails and landing pages, but we tell them you can do the same thing, but now with video. They can be very creative, build logic, and also shoot out different versions to see what works for each segment.”
McDonald’s as an early adopter
It didn’t take long for Schreiber to convince some major brands to give Blings a try, including McDonald’s, known for savvy marketing and loyalty programs that keep their customers coming back.
“McDonald’s launched a campaign that was based on past [customer] behavior. We saw that this campaign converted four times more in sales versus [the control video], and that ignited our entire work with McDonald’s,” Schreiber said.
Soon, other major brands realized the value of Blings’ new MP5 video format and the utility of interactive videos. The company had the opportunity to work with the VIP team for concert and event promoter, Live Nation, to send out personalized concert invitations to their customer base.
Each video invitation was personalized to tell the customer about seating and what specific benefits they could get by coming to a specific event. "They wanted to treat everyone as a real VIP, and the video built that ability,” Schreiber said.
Since those early successes, more brands have come to realize that Blings’ interactive videos provide a direct connection between personalization and emotional resonance.
A Lifecycle of Loyalty
Blings videos are adept at supporting the different stages of customer engagement, from onboarding and activation to win-back. The results are building long-term customer loyalty.
“As more loyalty grows, and the relationship between loyalty and personalization deepens over time, you get the ability to build more interesting [videos] based on more data,” Schreiber said.