Guest Author: Joe Rominecki, Associations Now
A new membership program from comic-book giant Marvel shows earning loyalty may be as simple as rewarding existing behavior.
If you’ve paid even the tiniest amount of attention to popular culture in the past decade, you’ve surely noticed that a lot of people really, really love comic books and superheroes. What was once perhaps looked upon as nerdery is now embraced as mainstream.
And so it stands to reason that comic behemoth Marvel will likely enrich its empire with its new Marvel Insider loyalty rewards program, introduced last month at San Diego Comic-Con. As reported by Fast Company‘s Co.Create, “Points are earned through a variety of engagements with Marvel—from listening to podcasts to checking in at your local comic book shop—and the rewards range from free digital comics to posters and t-shirts to a year’s subscription to the Netflix-style Marvel Unlimited app.”
The only superhero entertainment I’ve ever made time for was Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, and I credit my affinity in that case more to Nolan’s interpretation of the franchise than to Batman in particular, so that’s a long way of saying that I’m not at all a target consumer for the Marvel Insider program. But, nonetheless, I’m always intrigued by the mechanics of loyalty programs, especially ones that use the words “join” and “membership.”
