Epsilon: Driving Commercial Change Through Gamification (#783)

Speaker A: Foreign

Speaker B: hello and uh, welcome to let's Talk Loyalty and Loyalty tv a show for loyalty marketing professionals. I'm Paula Thomas, the founder and CEO of Let's Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV where we feature insightful conversations with loyalty professionals from the world's leading brands. Today's episode is hosted by Amanda Kromhout, the founder of Truth Loyalty, an international loyalty consultancy. She's also the author of the book Blind 101 Loyalty concepts radically Simplified and um, the founder of the Blind Loyalty Trust. Enjoy.

Speaker A: Hi, I'm Amanda Cromhope, the founder of Truth Loyalty and The author of Blind 101 Loyalty Concepts radically Simplified. Today's Let's Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV show is brought to you from London with Re Nali Chowdhury. She is the director of Strategy and insights at uh, EMEA Epsilon. Epsilon needs no introduction to the loyalty world. It's been helping clients deliver loyalty objectives globally for over 50 years. It combines deep loyalty expertise with their technology to get growth based programs, changing habits and measuring long term value for its clients. But today's podcast is not about technology. It is not about loyalty rules engine. It is about gamification. And Marie Narly leaves us with an absolute masterclass in gamification and consumer psychology. Today's let's Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV discussion is with a very interesting individual who's going to share incredible insights into the hot topic of gamification. I'm speaking today with Marie Nalini from Epsilon. She is the director of Strategy and Insights at EMEA Epsilon. So Marie Nalini, welcome to Loyalty tv. It's such a pleasure to have you today.

Speaker C: I am so excited. I have been waiting for this conversation for a while. It's almost like I have been collecting all the let's Talk Loyalty coins, listening to all your episodes and now I'm getting to redeem all of it. You see, this is my reward. Yes.

Speaker A: I uh, love it. I love that. How cute. Collecting the let's Talk Loyalty coins. And now we're redeeming. So let's redeem away and get that dopamine hit. Yes. And I think it's really, it's really fabulous to chat to you because Epsilon was actually the first ever sponsor, however many episodes ago, like hundreds of episodes ago over five years ago of the original let's Talk Loyalty show. So we've done full circle and it's just fabulous to have you here today. So I'm looking forward to our discussion and I think you know that one of the first questions we like to ask just to get to know you a little bit better is what is your favorite business book or non fictional read?

Speaker C: Absolutely. Um, you know, I, I thought about this, uh, and you know, my favorite one and I have to admit was, um, Atomic Habits by James Clear. It was something that completely changed the way I looked at things. Um, when I picked it up, and I have to be honest about this, when I picked it up, um, the reason why I did it was because I wanted to get up in the morning and not make a million excuses, um, press the snooze button and go back to sleep. No, I wanted to go for that run, I wanted to go for that walk. But oh my God, it was so difficult. So I thought, what could actually help me? Oh, you know, everyone's talking about this book. Okay, I must pick it up. Picked it up. And then as I was reading it, um, you know, the central theme of it, um, it's that transformational change. It's not something that's so grand, you know, it's, it's the 1% daily improvement. And I took a lot from that. I took a lot from that. And there were four, um, four different sorts of laws that he speaks about, you know, making it obvious, making it attractive, making it easy and making it satisfying. And what hit me, what hit me at that point, because I was playing this video game, it was called, um, uh, the Legend of Zelda. And it hit me that gaming uses all of this. That's how it creates the habit. It's those micro changes, micro engagement, micro rewarding. And that kind of stacks up. You create rituals and you have habits.

Speaker A: Look at that. You just want to get up for a run quite innocently. And that 1% change per day brings you full circle to the loyalty world. Oh, yeah, that's what it's about is human psychology. So, yeah. So I think what's so special about today's conversation is you are a very established writer already. You've got a wonderful blog, All Things Loyalty, and you write for other publications as well. And your focus is so interesting around consumer psychology. And obviously gamification as a story that we want to unpick today plays directly into that. So tell us a little bit more before we get into Epsilon and why gamification. Tell us a little bit more about you. How have you come to the position you're in now and your passion behind all things loyalty.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Um, so, um, you know, I came into Epsilon about nine years ago. Um, but before that, um, I was, you know, I was part of the startup world. Um, I played, um, I wore multiple hats. Um, I was in consulting, I got into marketing, I got into product management. But in that nine year, first nine year period, you know, I worked towards building with one of my companies, work towards building a cricket, ah, gaming app. That's probably when my obsession with gamification really um, began. Um, and I started looking at game mechanics, why people engaged, why, why they came back, uh, what made them kind of stick. Um, and shortly after that I joined Epsilon and then my world became all about loyalty and CR and cx and I fell in love with loyalty at that point because then I realized, oh my God, it's such a good fit. Gamification and loyalty became a good fit.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker C: That's where everything really started. And my objective here, uh, you know, because of my background in psychology and um, business, I started looking at everything from the perspective of behavioral design. That's what, what happened. But when I left Epsilon for a little, little, just short stint, um, which, which actually Turbo, uh, a desire to learn about gamification because I was working in a company called Z Entertainment. It's, it's a, it's a, um, it's India's largest, uh, one of India's largest entertainment, um, and media companies where, where we looked at gamification and here we looked at it live events, live, um, you know, shows and, and we looked at it from a different direction and I had a different lens when I looked at it and that kind of made it even stronger for me, this entire understanding of gamification. When I came back to Epsilon, I came back with all of that, uh, that's how it just took off.

Speaker A: I always say if I'm opening on a keynote, I'll always say loyalty can't be serious. We have to make it a bit of fun. Like and listening to you talking about a uh, cricket gaming app. I mean we all know how passionate the nation of India is about cricket as a sport and just a sport in general. So I think it's incredible that you've done that full circle without intention necessarily, but, and now you're back at Epsilon. So you know, we all know Epsilon, there's no question that um, such an established, seriously respected player in the loyalty industry. So my question is, and I've already mentioned our conversation today isn't about the traditional Epsilon points and tiers and business rules engine and so forth. It's about gamification. And that might take a few folks to by surprise. So let's start off the conversation. Why now? Like why are we talking to you at Epsilon about gamification.

Speaker C: It's true. You're absolutely right. Um, you know, Epsilon doesn't need any introduction to loyalty. Uh, 50 years in loyalty. Right. But the reason for gamification now, um, is because of the outside forces that are playing. Um, there are, you know, if you look at the market, um, it's saturated with loyalty programs. It's got so many different sorts of loyalty programs and it's got gamification as well. Right. But when we look at this, and I like to say that a lot of the gamification that I have seen is passive in nature. That's one point. The other is, I'm seeing obviously that there are so many different sorts of, um, consumer groups that are coming in the younger generation. They are so much more into digital activities. Activities. That's another reason.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And when I look at what is happening with technology, um, with you know, like, um, agent ecommerce coming in and when I look at all these different posts, I mean very soon, um, they're going to decide what we buy. Right. It's, it's going to be logic driven. So where does emotion come in?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Right. So we need to kind of capitalize on that part of it. We, we need to get people hooked onto things.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Emotionally. Right. So we moving from a very passive environment of gamification to a more adaptive environment where um, it's, it's done obviously digital, digitally and it's all about building that emotion. It's all about creating stickiness and it's that 1% change that was talked about.

Speaker A: Love it. Love it. I do think, um, listening to you and just thinking about the, you know, the last. In the loyalty industry, gamification is finally being taken seriously. I think initially it was that sort of word you mentioned in a boardroom and everyone roll their eyes and go, what are you on about now? But I do feel now it has been taken seriously because of the results we're starting to see because of the nudges, because of the behavior change. But actually the question I want to start off with actually to get our discussion going is to grab everyone's attention around. How do we measure the commercial return? Is there a commercial return on gamification?

Speaker C: Very good question. Everybody wants to know this. Let's just take a moment and break this down a little bit. Um, I like to break it down in this way because, um, it gives you layers to think about. Um, my topmost layer is always looking at what the company's goal is. Um, this would be the golden metrics at the end of it it's about am I increasing revenue? Am I increasing uh, transact my customer lifetime value? Is that increasing? Everyone knows all of this, right? But there's something that changes all of this. Let's look at the next layer, right? The next area becomes the levers. So um, and this is just exactly the same as you know, what we talk about in loyalty. Um, is my average order value going up? Is my average order frequency going up? Am I acquiring people, um, and those people are purchasing? Am I retaining or reactivating people? And are those people, ah, are the frequency going up there? These are my success metrics. But what changes the success metrics? It's the engagement stuff. So this can be transactional, this can be non transactional. But it's about, it's about always checking that. And I like to do this with a funnel approach because we, you know, you might run a um, a uh, seven day streak. Now I need to see how many people have taken this up. That's the number one. Are people coming onto the website, are people going to that particular page? Are people um, taking up this particular streak? And then is it leading to ah, um, a ah, conversion? So it's a process but the engagement metrics must be checked very often. Then comes the success, then comes the golden metrics. But the objective here is to really check if the micro moments are creating the engagement. Because it's not about bringing the success metric up, um, by just giving um, a discount because that will immediately affect the success metric. But it's about the engagement metric going up, leading to the um, success metric. And the way I do it is just look at the customer journey, figure out those moments, tap into those moments, break down those moments to make it micro. I can give you an example. Um, if you're thinking about um, let's say the uh, the enrollment process. You know, everyone has an enrollment uh, page where you put your name, put your birthday, put your email. What if you broke that down rather than having it just in uh, one shot? What if for every single item that you put in, you get, you got five points? Oh, you got five points again. Um, so you're breaking it down and then you are seeing engagement. That leads to the next level. The next level.

Speaker A: And I think for as loyalty practitioners, uh, everyone obviously at a certain level will be measuring KPIs and I think exactly what you've said, measuring that next layer down the almost um, sub level of measuring every separate engagement and every separate behavioral nudge and uh, layer by layer is something that we need to make sure we have a technology solution that A can do that and B can provide the data for us to do that. Otherwise it may feel utterly impossible. Some organizations already very stretched, very scared of the level of data, the granularity of data that loyalty can produce and can't get their head around existing data. And then to go to another layer as well, in order is exactly as you said. So to understand that then ultimately changes basket size, frequency, customer lifetime value. So that's the. They're the conversations that I know you'll be having with clients, and we look forward to unpacking those now. So. Okay. Okay. So apart from the commercial return, you've mentioned your background and you've talked about business and psychology, which just like the perfect, perfect collision of two disciplines. But let's talk about the psychology behind gamification.

Speaker C: Sure. Uh, you know, the first thing that people think about when they think gamification, um, they'll think of games. They might just think of a scratch card, um, or they'll think of a spin to win. Yeah, I kind of think about it a bit differently. Um, my first angle here is to think about what am I trying to get somebody to do and what would make them do that? What is the psychological driver that will make somebody do something? Um, for me, gamification is not just about the mechanic. It is about the visuals, it's about the effect, it's about the sound that's used, it's about the content. Uh, just think of a game, you know, I'm currently playing, um, uh, um, Harry Potter. And as I go through the game, um, I'll see a little wand going from one place to the other. And I know I'm supposed to look there. That's the visual effect of gamification.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and you bring that into the gaming, into the business world. Now, if we think about it, what is it that we are trying to do, um, make people do one is to be emotionally attached with the company. So think about it as a higher purpose. That's one purpose. Um, I think Nike does this really, really well because, um, it's not what you get from Nike always, it's who you become. That's, in a way, an identity that they are trying to bring in. I'm thinking about the shoes that we need to buy, but actually I'm trying to be an athlete. That's the purpose. Um, and then you think about achievement. Achievement is all about keeping that momentum going, keeping that progress going. Right. The more closer you get to what you want the more you wanted the goal gradient effect. Um, but in gamification what I do like to do is break that. So for example, if you have tears, um, and they're too far apart, why not have a milestone? Because that brings you closer always. The feeling of going forward is very important. Empowerment. How can we empower people to feel that they are part of this program? Um, you have to give them choice. I think a very long time ago I saw choice, um, being offered by uh, Sephora where you could choose your reward out of three rewards. Um, then when I look at currently when I look at B2B programs, the choice here is around can I upskill myself?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So I'm actually helping the brand itself. Right. Then delight. Everyone knows delight because you know, we always get happy with, with a, with a surprise of sorts. Um, and what I do like about the next one is about being social. Now when we think about gamification and we think social, we or even loyalty, we think oh, let's, let's pull them onto a social platform. But that's not always it. Right. Gamification bring social to a different level. Like for example, if you have badges, badges are something that you want to share and show off a little bit. Um, that becomes the social aspect. You will have scarcity and you'll have loss aversion which are uh, things that work excellently and you can use that even when you gamify your program.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean these are all terms that many of us know or use or may have heard of if listeners to the podcast that aren't as use, uh, is not as entrenched in psychology. But it is, it is great to hear you just break them down and attach them to the different experiences exactly as you've just described. Whether it's, you know, as you're getting close to a goal and gradient effect and so forth. But let's have a deeper look at just gamification because the different layers of engagement obviously, ah, we're all different consumers. So I may react very differently to you, you may react very differently to everyone else. You might be such a deep gamer that you, you, they need a brand needs to tap into a different level. How does your background and the input into the epsilon gamification approach look if you look at those different levels and layers that are required?

Speaker C: Well I, I like to look at it as, let's keep it at three. Um, if I look at it as, let's say um, the mic, the momentary engagement. Now this is when you have your spin to wins. You have Your scratch cards and you have the quick sort of um, um, interactive games. Um, now this works well. It works well in some cases like with publishers, um, with social platforms, publishers like New, uh, York Times. It works great. It pulls you in, it gets you through the door and then you get hooked on. Because now you're stuck in the loop of um, the content circulation. And you read. Yeah, exactly. And then you have LinkedIn with the games on the side. Keeps you on. Uh, if you start getting a little bored, you might just go and uh, play a game or two. But the objective here is time spent. You want them to stay. That's time spent. Um, and now what we do is take this one step further. And when we take it a step further, we think of periodic engagement. Now this is applied when we want uh, time invested because we want people to keep coming back, but with an uh, investment for something at the end, like an end goal. Um, why I say periodic and why I keep this at the middle is because um, you can think about it as let's say an advent calendar that's, that's maybe a monthly thing or a um, streak that lasts for seven days or um, something that's monthly. Now it's not 100% connected to your loyalty program per se. It's something that's bolted on to your loyalty program. If we go one step further, that's where we integrate gamification within the loyalty program itself. It's intertwined into it. Because yes, we have in, in loyalty have, you know, the hard benefits and the soft benefits. The soft benefits are all about intrinsic motivation, right? In this, it adds another layer to the intrinsic motivation. Now it's not enough to only put uh, a mechanic forward. It's all about um, testing whether that's doing well and pushing what does better. It's constantly adapting to the behavior of the um, the member at the end of it. Right? And that's when, because it's so integrated into the loyalty program itself, it is a time invested into it. And then if you add community on top of it, that takes it one step further. Um, so basically it's rooted in the concept of um, LiveOps, which is taken from the gaming world. It is um, it's about ongoing management optimization of what you put forward next and the next. So everyone has um, let's say a sequential journey that is uh, tailored for you. You and I might go on a totally two different journeys.

Speaker A: I was just about to ask you if the gaming world is personalized per user, right? So they're going deeper and deeper and deeper per user.

Speaker C: That's right. That's what it is.

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I always laugh when I have conversations around personalization and it's the most overused word in our, uh, industry and how many brands are actually really getting it right. And this solution would be to get this engagement, personalization to that level. So you started off, uh, I mean, it's probably on reflection, no surprise that you reflected on Atomic Habits being your favorite book, because as you said, that 1% nudge, that habitual change, it's not about just encouraging someone to be motivated to go for a run. It's about the 1% and getting you up and then trying to do a 1k or 2k or 5k or whatever the journey is. So how, I mean, gamification obviously drives habitual change. It drives that need to change, but by nudging habits. So talk us through that element because you've, you've mentioned the different layers, but like, I just want to go a little bit deeper on the habitual change.

Speaker C: So how do we actually create that habitual change? I think it, it's, it. You have to go back to the drawing board and you have to get, um, into the nitty gritties of what exactly is a customer doing with your platform or your website or your app? I always like to go right to the customer journey, the ideal one first, and then look at the others. When I look at it, I look at every single moment, every single moment that the customer has with, um, the brand. And I think about what is that behavior that I want to drive, what is the ideal behavior that I want to drive? And then I think about it, uh, versus, um, what effort does a person have to do to what outcome do I want to get and how much am I willing to put in for this? The cost. So that decides the incentive or the virtual currency or the currency that I'm going to put after that. I'm going to break down this task because I want it to be micro tasks. I don't want to just say, I'm giving you 100 points because you've signed up. I'm giving you five points because you give me my name. Yeah, stuff like that. Um, I also think about what is the exact, um, driver that is going to make somebody do this. Does it make more sense to have a progress bar or does it make more sense to just at the end of it have like, confetti coming up and saying, oh, you've done this. So I think through all of that and then we put it all together to kind of put a gamification tactic as a rapper around a bonus event. That's how I kind of choose what sort of, um, you know, gaming mechanic, uh, would work in a particular scenario.

Speaker A: 100%. What I wanted to ask you there, you mentioned, for example, some consumer, you know, maybe it's a progress bar that shows that I've started here and maybe it's to get to a tier change or to a points bonus or confetti or whatever on screen. The visual nudge. Yeah. Are you able to, I mean different customers would respond to different things. Right. So I might be totally motivated by the progress bar and find the visual effects a little bit superfluous or vice versa.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: So how do you determine that?

Speaker C: That's through the liveops part of things. Right. So, um, it's all about testing. I can use the word testing to make this much easier to understand. It's about having a sort of multivariate testing going on. Um, so is this action, is action B doing better or action A doing better? Um, then we pick and choose which one and it keeps, um, refining it. And the one that does better is selected. That's how it keeps getting more and more attuned to who you are. And for example, um, let me actually give you an example. For example, if you go onto a website, right, and you've answered a question, once you've signed up, um, you've done a poll, um, where it's asked you do you think you're an eco friendly person or do you think you like, um, deals? Uh, and let's say you answered something else and I answered something else. But the next challenge that is put forward is different for you and different for me.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Because it's dependent on my past action. And then the, the following action might be because let's say I added something to my wish, uh, list but you added something to your cart. So the amount that I'm going to probably give in because my intent because it's in a wish list is lower than your intent because it's in the cart.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So intent also plays a role in, you know, the, the amount of uh, let's say currency that you give.

Speaker A: I was in a meeting yesterday actually with a client who was testing a, uh, competitor's program. And the conversation, without mentioning names went something like this. Like I signed up, I wanted to sign up for their program, but they needed so much information. Then they asked me within the signup process. I still hadn't signed up all of the hobbies and do I have pets and do I have this and do I have the other? And then they wanted my ID number and then they wanted my salary because they have a financial services division and we just laughed about. And then completely different industry. A client has launched in, in the marketplace and they literally asked for name, surname, cell phone number. Now they've got the customer in, they are rewarding for acquiring this additional data. How successful they are could be more successful if they listen to this podcast. But um, at least they've got to that understanding of the signup process being as simple as possible and then acquiring data, whether it's first or zero party data at a different stage.

Speaker C: Oh yes, it's uh, you know, I had a conversation actually about this very thing, uh, some time ago when um, we were looking at what, what is ROI at the end of it, you know, is so different based on um, a brand's maturity within loyalty. Right. If, if you're just starting off, you're thinking, oh my God, um, my roi, I need to think about it because, you know, how much budget am I going to put in? That's the first stuff that they think about. Middle level roi, it needs to be something else. It's about um, incremental change. Right. The next level is the data. It becomes so important because that's the hidden one, that's the hidden roi. Now that data that you collect in micro moments progressively and not just 10 questions at one shot, it's just breaking it down, um, into different phases. And when you think of the highest level, you're thinking of all the data that's collected, the identity that you're creating around that person and then finally fueling other business divisions, retail media for, for one, um, through this data. So your ROI conversation also changes as, as ah, as how mature you get.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So you're, you've got so many examples obviously probably swimming around your brain around what looks good in gamification. But can you share with us real examples of actual actions you've seen and brands you're prepared to share with us around good execution or your fate? Or let me rephrase the question. Where have you seen gamification really have impacts on potentially traditional loyalty measures?

Speaker C: It's a very good question because, you know, sometimes people ask me, you know, this question and I'm like, oh God, I like that element, I like this element. And it all started with, uh, when I first started, you know, um, my, my journey with gamification almost like, I don't know, nine years ago, um, I remember seeing Starbucks. That was my first one. You know, I saw Starbucks and I saw that, you know, they had the challenges, they had the um, double points, the star days and stuff like that. That was my first um, hit into what gamification is without having a game per se. Right. I then started exploring and then I started seeing Sephora with their challenges and what I liked about them was the um, you know, was their community and the way that they use the badges in the community and things like that. They also had challenges around product uh, exploration. So that means they're trying to increase their um, order values and stuff like that. Yeah, um, Nike, what I spoke about earlier, I love it, I love it. I love the fact that they are trying to build that identity by identity m of being an athlete with all these badges and you know they have challenges and stuff like that. It makes sense. I started looking at QSR and I started looking at games integrated into the loyalty program, not just bolted on. So then when I saw that, and I saw that in KFC and I saw that with uh, um, KFC Arcade, um, and I saw that with McDonald's, um, the Monopoly, um, it was all positioned on um, the purchase occasion part of things. But when I really think about gamification I always go back to um, an education platform and I'm sure everyone knows it. Duolingo. The reason why I speak about it is because I tried to learn French and um, I started breaking those streaks and I was guilty, I felt actual guilt. And that's when I realized, okay, they are really forming a habit. Um, but you know, when we, when we think of another industry, let's say um, uh, the sporting industry, okay, um, we, there's one, there's one example, um, done by Playfab and Microsoft, uh, that's part of Microsoft, uh, Playfab. Microsoft has basically partnered with Epsilon exclusively. Um, and what they do is they actually take a page out of the gaming world. Do you remember when I spoke about LiveOps, the whole ongoing and optimization. Um, they have those capabilities and for context. Let me just give you a context. On Playfab, um, they power games like Minecraft and uh, Roadblockers and things like that. Um, but what they've done is they, they use Live Ops to power that gamification and they bring it to the business world. And one of the, one of the, one of the, um, actually it's a team, it's called LA Clippers Basketball um, team. Um, the objective that they had, right, they just wanted to win. They wanted to win, they wanted support, they Wanted to nudge behavior. They wanted to bring people into the stadium. Um, they wanted a fan base, uh, that had a differentiated experience. So they have a stadium, you know, where it's fascinating, where they, um, capture facial recognition. They know what you're wearing, are you wearing the jersey? Um, you know, are you sitting on your seat? M. How loudly are you cheering? So when all of that comes in, the gamified experiences that can be, um, integrated into this entire sporting experience within that, uh, stadium. That's incredible. That created, um, competitive advantage for them.

Speaker A: Um, I think I said to you at the start of our interview, like five years ago, like now, I really do believe gamification is well established in our, in our world of loyalty and say five years ago, board members would roll their eyes if you use the word. So is it gamification or gamification, like, is it seen as gimmicky gamification?

Speaker C: It can be, it can be. Because sometimes when I do have discussions, ah, like I said, the first thought is, um, oh, do you have a spin the wind wheel or do you have a scratch card or is it some other sort of game that is, that is actually time spent. That is, that is a game. Gamification is taking game like mechanics and applying it into the business world because they tap into the intrinsic motivation. That's what changes behavior. And if you integrate it within your loyalty program, that becomes a point where you actually spend time with it with, uh, with a goal at the end of it. And that's time invested. That's the key differentiation for me. Uh, when I think about it, I take my inspiration from, um, all the different games I've played. I'm sure a lot of people have played Mario Brothers when they were young. I don't know, maybe, I don't know. It's just this guy and this guy goes and he needs to save the princess. But there are so many levels. You have to collect these mushrooms. Now apply that into the business world. It changes a little bit. Things start, uh, flashing, you know, you have to go and collect that. Think about it. In the business world, what would you do? You would have a website and maybe, maybe, you know, you'll have the loyalty part of it a little in a different color. So you look, um, I've seen YouTube. Does it really well, because they want you to click the subscribe button. So that subscribe button has a little, uh, something shining around it. Um, it's just how you leverage all those different elements of gaming. But you put it into the business world. That's My, um, understanding of gamification and when you do use games, try and use it with, uh, something that, um, is linked to your loyalty program and it adds value over a period of time. So the objective is at the end of the day, value exchange.

Speaker A: Yeah. Stunning. What a lovely way of describing it. So. Oh, I could listen to you all day. This is so exciting. So interesting. Honestly, you've got me hooked entirely. I'm just hanging on every word. We unfortunately can't talk every day because the, uh, podcast will go on too long. So I think what we must do is generously share links to your, your own writing, ah, your own blog and any other articles you've contributed to. Um, are you okay that we pop those in the show notes?

Speaker C: Absolutely fine.

Speaker A: I certainly will be downloading every single one of them, which is just amazing. I wanted to just touch back to your reference of Duolingo. I don't know if you know that Paula has one of the longest streaks I've ever known of anyone for French and Duolingo. So shout out to you there, Paula.

Speaker C: Lucky her.

Speaker A: Okay, wonderful. So, uh, me, Nalini, thank you so much. There is so much depth in what you're talking about and I think it's not about gamification, it's about actually engaging our customers and ultimately making it more pleasurable for customers, of course, but getting that return on investment. And it's very exciting to hear that Epsilon is working with its clients to enable that. So thank you for sharing the insights. Today wasn't really about talking about Epsilon's platform at all. It's been a real masterclass in consumer psychology and in gamification, and that's real credit to you. So thank you so, so much.

Speaker C: Pleasure to be here.

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