Walking → clicking → buying: Reward apps are driving consumer behavior

[Financial News] Reward services that once awarded points based on the number of steps taken are expanding into real consumer behavior, including buying products, trying them out and writing reviews. Reward systems once used to help users build healthy habits are also being expanded into tools for companies’ advertising and marketing.
 According to industry sources on the 7th, the cumulative number of participants in Teamwork, a challenge platform for businesses and institutions operated by Nudge Healthcare’s health management app CashWalk, exceeded 86.5 million as of last September. The figure includes repeat participation and was up about 35% in one year, from 64 million in September last year.
 The platform had run a cumulative total of 1,056 challenges, and its repeat participation rate stood at 66%.
 Teamwork is a challenge service launched by Nudge Healthcare in 2022. CashWalk users receive rewards such as Cash when they meet step-count goals, upload verification photos or complete specific missions. Challenges are now divided into categories such as step counts, photo verification, stamps and cash-earning verification.
 Businesses and institutions can also set up challenges themselves and recruit participants. The business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) service is designed for uses ranging from promoting products or services and managing employee health to environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives and public-interest campaigns.
 The platform continues to be used for health management. Teamwork has offered challenges that reward users for verifying records such as blood glucose measurements, as well as challenges that involve meeting a step-count goal over a set period. The approach encourages participation by connecting everyday actions that need to be repeated with missions and rewards.
 More recently, rewards have expanded to cover real consumer behavior. CashWalk runs a “Cash-Earning Verification Challenge,” which rewards users for verifying that they have purchased or tried a specific product. In other words, challenges once centered on everyday activities such as walking and submitting verification have expanded to include product purchases and trials.
 Services that use rewards to encourage user behavior are also spreading across other platforms.
 Toss gives users lottery-style rewards when they reach their step-count goals in its pedometer. It also awards points for in-app activities such as checking out products and voting. Last July, it also launched the “Hana Pedometer Savings Plan,” linking step counts on Hana Bank’s and Toss’s pedometers to eligibility for preferential interest rates on an installment savings account.
 Yanadoo’s Yafit Move also offers a rewards service that converts walking and cycling into mileage points. Under the official service terms, users earn 1 mileage point for every 100 steps and 10 points for every kilometer cycled. Setting ad notifications and making a first purchase are also offered as separate missions. Yafit Move’s membership topped 3 million last August.
 Industry observers say reward services are evolving beyond “app tech”—simply rewarding users for the number of steps they take—to encourage a wider range of user behaviors. In particular, directly tying rewards to product purchases and trials allows companies to prompt actual consumer behavior, rather than just expose consumers to advertising.
 Nudge Healthcare CEO Park Jeong-shin said, “Teamwork has driven sustained participation by having users complete everyday missions and receive rewards,” adding, “We will continue to expand the ways the service can be used so that users and partner companies can connect naturally.”
[email protected] Kim Hyeon-cheol Reporter