Operators spend millions of dollars to acquire customers. But keeping members is a problem that has historically been not only an expensive proposition, but problematic. Players are prone to be fickle consumers seeking the best deal.
Ember’s new partnership with Captain Up, launched Thursday, wants to solidify players’ relationships with the loyalty program by offering a gamification platform that increases not only loyalty, but fun.
Ember, Delaware North’s name for the operator’s gaming division including brick-and-mortar, igaming, sportsbook and social casino, recently struck a deal with Captain Up to provide engagement and loyalty platform that deliver real-time gamification, tournaments, VIP experiences and rewards designed around individual player behavior.
“It’s about trying to keep customers and coming up with unique and creative ways that we can engage with them that are ever changing and evolving,” Delaware North Chief Interactive Officer Lee Terfloth says in an interview with CDC Gaming.
“Our goal is to reward attention and to reward engagement in a way to create a meta game on top of the standard game, “says Uri Admon, CEO and Founder of Captain Up, adding that the company brings a variety of tools to loyalty programs, including those from behavioral psychology and game theory. “A long, long time ago we used to say we are Candy Crushing your app in the way we put it together. Now we are bringing this envelope, and this envelope is about rewarding experiences and creating an engagement scheme that is bigger than one iteration.”
Terfloth says that traditionally, players gravitate toward bonuses, rewards, and most of all, free spins. He notes the gaming industry, including Delaware North’s competitors, prop up ecosystems systems with offers of free spins.
“Rather than just relying on free spins, which gets them on the site and sort of teaches them to play, we want to give them something that they can’t necessarily buy,” Terfloth says. “Giving them more real-world, personalized experiences that are interactive, and running these on daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly basis that vary in frequency to continue to engage and utilize the great stuff that Captain Up has built is really important for us.”
In addition to free play, Captain Up may provide players with bonus funds, in-game items, exclusive access or premium features, and physical prizes.
Captain Up provides more through its programs than just free play.
“Everybody likes it when you earn them a $100 bill. Everybody likes it, but that’s not the way to build a long-lasting relationship,” Admon says. “It’s part of the mix. It’s not outside of it. But the recognition, the attention, the achievement, the challenge, the progression, all of those core elements that are part of our psychology. These are things we don’t need to teach anyone.”
By tapping into the emotions that Admon says exist in all players, Captain Up gives them space to manifest and blossom. What he hopes happens is communal in nature.
“You are enjoying entertainment with a friend that has spent so much to entertain you, to give you a good time, the best technology, the best design, but with all the things about you as a customer, what will make you feel rewarded, what will keep you engaged, and that’s what’s unique here,” Admon says. “It’s an emotional feeling that you are not buying with money.”
Terfloth says the goal is make Ember a true omnichannel experience, one in which the digital experience feeds into brick-and-mortar.
“Our goal is to get the customers off their phones and get them back into the real world to experience things that they can’t necessarily buy,” Terfloth says.
