What Happened
Londoners will be able to ride the Tube for free with Apple Pay over the next three Mondays, thanks to a “Fare Free Mondays” promotion that MasterCard is running to incentivize its users to ditch their credit cards for mobile payment. On February 29th, March 8th, and March 15th, London Tube riders just need to add their MasterCard cards to Apple Pay, and tap their iPhones at the turnstile to take free rides, thanks to the London Underground’s contactless ticketing system installed in 2003.
What Brands Need To Do
This MasterCard promotion provides a good example for the kind of cool sponsorships that brands can leverage to incentivize the use of a product or service while aligning the brand with great experiences and providing customers with value. Furthermore, encouraging users to use mobile payments can help brands remove some friction in online purchases, while also allowing brands to take advantage of reward programs linked to mobile payment solutions. Therefore brands that wish to stay ahead of the digital curve should consider forging partnerships and running similar promotions to onboard more customers to mobile payments.
For more information on how brands can modernize their user experiences to better engage with shoppers, check out the Boundless Retail section in our Outlook 2016.
Source: The Verge