InterContinental Pushes for Younger Loyalty Members with Online Trivia Game
On the heels of launching a pilot program with a platform that lets users win rewards for checking in to its hotels via location-based services, InterContinental Hotels Group has enhanced its Priority Club rewards program with a travel trivia game that lets registered members win extra points in daily and weekly contests. The introduction of game play into loyalty programs is a growing strategy with marketers spending more time thinking like gamers when developing or updating their programs.
Priority Club members can enter their account number and PIN to play “Win It in a Minute”. Once logged in, they will be asked five questions related to travel destinations and be given 12 seconds to answer each one. The top 50 scores each weekday—determined by both the correctness and speed of the answers—will win 5,000 Priority Club points.
The top 100 scores each week, calculated from each player’s daily performance, will earn 15,000 Priority reward points. The contest launched on January 24, 2011 and will run until April 15.
IHG said the game, designed and administered by ePrize, is the first online daily contest to offer reward points to loyalty club members. The game is open only to Priority Club members located in the U.S., U.K. and Canada.
The introduction of a game play promotion to its loyalty program holds the promise of attracting younger members to Priority Club, said Don Berg, vice president of loyalty programs at IHG, whose portfolio of properties includes InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn Hotels and Resorts and Holiday Inn Express among other brands.
“We’ve been thinking about gaming for quite a while,” he said. “In the hotel industry, loyalty program members tend to be in the mid-40s range, and we are constantly seeking ways to establish engagement with newer, IHG-specific questions such as how many properties they younger members, who have a great affinity for online gaming in general. At the same time, the game also appeals to our bread-and-butter members’ love of travel.”
The questions all center on travel and geographical knowledge, rather than asking IHG-specific queries such as how many properties the parent company owns or operates. (Answer; 4,500 in 100 countries.)
“We wanted to provide real questions and real prizes,” Berg said. “We think that builds a higher level of engagement.” Response speed was included as a factor so that players answering questions over a dial-up link could compete fairly with those with access to a high-speed T1 line.
Berg said that in the first two weeks of the “Win It in a Minute” promotion IHG has seen 100,000 game plays and has handed out more than 100 million Priority club points.
So far, the game has been promoted in a Facebook application, via online communication with members and through outreach to travel blog sites such as FlyerTalk.com.
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