Like that Dave Dobbin song

[threemonkeys]

When I was working for the BNZ I spent a lot of time working with the marketing people on campaigns. One of the things which really stood out was how many people are really driven by rewards programmes. It is astonishing how many people can be persuaded to get a credit card in exchange for a few Fly Buys or airpoints. Loyalty schemes seem to be proliferating as marketers catch on to how well they work. I note that buyers of Sanitarium's more popular kid-oriented cereal products can now accumulate bonus points to exchange for rewards.

I wonder how far this can go. It occurs to me that there is a solution to the problem of unpaid traffic fines here. Just offer Fly Buys points or the like to people when they pay the fine. You could have a sliding scale so that fast payers get more points. The main drawback I can see is that a certain portion of the population would deliberately get parking tickets to earn the points. I'm not exaggerating this - some people are really that obsessed.

Comments

[darthsappho.livejournal.com]

Which is why rewards programmes should be banned. They're an effective means of manipulating people in to acting against their own best interests.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

From that perspective, rewards can be viewed like any other advertising. But they add more expense to goods than most advertising and therefore are more reprehensible. I would love to see them banned now that they don't make up half my work.

[russellk.livejournal.com]

What about reward points for blog reading?

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, lets see how we can make this work. Rewards systems work as a proportion of the amount paid - that proportion is returned as points. So all you need to do is start paying me to read my blog...

Well that seemed funny in my brain.