Hello again everyone,(TL:DR available at bottom)
Background: Today I stumbled upon the future of reading websites. Similar to any other Monday, I like most men in America clicked on ESPN to check out the football scores and check our fantasy. Today however I wanted to check something else out on NFL.com, after clicking around for a couple of minutes I realized at the bottom I had accumulated some reward points. It was bright and engaging, so like any normal college student I clicked it. This is when I was introduced into the NFL.COM Fan Rewards program, which I have to admit blew my mind.
It seemed so simple to me, but yet I had never see anything like this before. A website offering rewards for the readers, creating an experience rather than just a one-way channel. I know the site worked on me today, rather than just reading a few articles as I would on ESPN.com; NFL.com tricked me into touring the whole site and watching countless videos on a quest to achieve badges and more reward points. That is the beauty of this reward program, NFL.COM rewards me for activities I would already be engaging in and on the other side, they can push products to me by offering extra reward points. Every week NFL.COM puts up challenges or what they call "Fan Drives", which is a series of tasks that if completed will offer some extra reward points. By using these "Fan Drives" NFL.COM can persuade the readers to check out certain content on the website.
Real Example Fan Drive: Crucial Catch Campaign Drive
Task 1 - View the NFL Crucial Catch Campaign Page (10 Points)Task 2 - Watch Video of Drew Brees supporting campaign (20 Points)
Task 3 - View the Donation and Registration Page (10 Points)
Bonus - Completion of Drive (5 Points)
Just today I already earned over 700 points or about half-way to earning a cool pen with the NFL's logo on it. I know this sounds lame, but its a lot more than ESPN has ever given me. And now I am addicted to accumulating more points, so I will be heading to NFL.COM for all my football news and maybe even sometimes when I am bored to get my scores up.
Advertising Related: Basically this program got me to thinking. As every company struggles to find a way to stand out in the social media universe, NFL.COM has found a creative way to make a connection. I have seen this before on survey websites, but no one likes taking surveys without rewards. NFL.COM has used this same formula of rewarding points, and putting it on content that is valuable to the reader. Then by creating user leader boards, and encouraging readers to share these scores for extra reward points, NFL.COM has created viral content that people will want to share with their friends.
NFL.COM had a consumer insight that consumers had no brand loyalty when reviewing sports news. Whether it is viewing the scores on ESPN, Yahoo, or NFL.COM the reader has no incentive to picking a favorite. Although this is not an advertising campaign, creative teams for designing websites still face many of the same problems and issues. In this case, the creative team needed to add value to what you do online. They discovered it can be something as simple as a badge for viewing 5 videos that you can share with your friends. By building off these rewards the website creators made it simple to share these rewards and encourage readers to feel they are accomplishing challenges every time they log onto the website.
In class the other day we had a speaker who discussed the importance of creating an experience with the consumer, rather than a one-way channel. He said the biggest problem when offering a service online is creating a personal experience with the consumer on the other side. By using "Fan Drives" NFL.COM can lure readers into checking out content that would probably otherwise be overlooked. Now if NFL.COM can do this for sports videos and articles, imagine what CNN or Wall Street Journal can do to create an experience with their readers.
TL,DR: NFL.COM has created a reward points system that gives you points towards prices and sweepstakes for interacting with their website. Points are earned by watching a video, reading an article, commenting, or sharing with friends. This has changed my new favorite website for football from ESPN to NFL, and I can see other sites adding in these programs in the future.
By using this reward points system NFL.COM has created an experience for the reader rather than just a one-way channel. This program encourages readers to share the content with friends to earn tangible or real rewards outside of the internet.
So I ask you, who would not like to earn rewards for things you do on the internet anyway???
Thanks again,
Andrew Haug
Sources:
http://www.nfl.com/
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