µniverse – 2
Another company working to solve the digital advertising problem is Gener8ads. From a 2019 Forbes article: “Gener8, a U.K. based company is launching … a browser add-on, as opposed to a separate browser, that allows consumers to block ads they don’t want to see but get paid to view those they personally identify as being of interest (see graphic above). Consumers are thus allowed to select the type of ads they want to see and this applies across the web (excluding Facebook). For each ad viewed, the user receives tokens that they can either convert into currency or donate to charity… By using Gener8’s system, advertisers can reach an interested audience and collect additional data in a way that allows for even better future targeting.”
Attention is important. Brave and Gener8ads have focused on new customers and advertising. My starting point is a brand’s existing customers. What brands need is a mechanism to pay for attention (time) because the alternative in the event of a customer churning is to pay 100 times more to the adtech platforms for reacquisition. This is where “Atomic Rewards” comes in.
Search Engine Journal writes about a recent Google which shows 90% of customers will share their email address for a small incentive, such as a discount. “It’s not possible to deliver relevant ads without gathering at least some data on who the ads are being served to. Customers understand this, and are willing to cooperate to a certain extent. The study finds that consumers are most willing to share information they don’t view as invasive and identifying. That can include information such as their gender, postal code, age, interests, and previous purchases.”
In our context, consider an entity (MuCo) which creates a pan-brand attention and engagement loyalty program. Brands can buy Mu from MuCo and reward their customers for specific actions linked to attention, engagement and zero-party data. Customers collect Mu from across their favourite brands and then can redeem them at the Mu Shop.
This is akin to what happens with credit card points today. They are aggregated across spends with multiple brands and can be redeemed at the store offered by the credit card company. There are also other pan-brand programs like Payback and Intermiles which reward transactions and enable customers to aggregate points in a single account. Airline loyalty programs have also expanded their offerings to enable earning via spending at affiliated merchants. All these programs are focused on the transfer of money, while MuCo is themed around attention and engagement (time).
Let’s look at this from the viewpoint of the end customer. I get push messages from various brands. As I open these emails, click through to the brand properties (website or app), provide personal information, fill out surveys, I earn Mu. I am being rewarded for my attention. Because Mu works across brands, the earning potential in a month can be significant. (Two alternatives to Mu are the use of a brand’s own loyalty program and Brand Tokens, an attention-specific loyalty program limited to a single brand.) The rewards are a form of gamification; marketers can thus influence my behaviour with specific incentives and nudge me along the buying journey. When I have sufficient Mu, I can go to the Mu Shop and redeem the points.
Over time, the ways to earn Mu can be expanded beyond push messages to the brand’s properties and in the physical world. In essence, a brand is paying for my attention, as an alternative to incentivising only transactions or paying ad tech companies to reacquire me in the event that I churn. Today’s B2C and D2C companies spend a large chunk of their capital on discounts and reacquisition; Atomic Rewards in the form of Mu offer an alternative pathway to building loyalty via gamification.
