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The aim of this paper is to gain insights from a case study into how gamified loyalty programs enable and facilitate value co-creation and what underlying purpose organizations pursue when engaging with members in such a program.

A multimethod approach is deployed consisting of an observational and an explorative study. The authors collaborate with adidas, one of the leading (sports) retailers in the world. A five-month netnographic study is conducted on the adiClub, the online loyalty program of adidas. Based on the findings of this first study, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in a second study with adidas managers from diverse backgrounds currently involved in projects and day-to-day work related to the adiClub. The exclusive interview data provide further insights and help interpret and validate the netnographic observations.

Most value co-creation studies on engagement platforms in marketing relate to social media, physical events or online forums. Based on the multimethod approach of this study, existing research is extended on how online loyalty programs enable and facilitate value co-creation. Furthermore, the authors identify the organizational purpose behind engaging in value co-creation practices along the social, economic and ecological dimensions.

This case study offers implications for organizations on how online loyalty programs enable and facilitate value co-creation through gamification. In addition, it connects the value co-creation practices with the respective purpose that organizations pursue with related activities. Hence, it further enhances the knowledge and repertoire of managers for setting up and running gamified online loyalty programs.

Increased gamification driven by the advances of digital transformation enables and facilitates value co-creation, which initiates unprecedented digital sales potential for service organizations. Research about the digital transformation of value co-creation remains scarce. The authors seek to address this research gap by focusing on value co-creating activities within online loyalty programs.

This paper aims to examine the differential effects of gamified loyalty programmes and conventional loyalty programmes on customer engagement behaviours.

A 2 × 2 × 2 experiment was conducted that manipulated gamification (gamified vs non-gamified), reward levels (high vs low) and reward type (economic vs social). Data collected from a sample of 315 individuals were analysed through partial least squares and tests of means.

Gamification can improve the attractiveness of loyalty programmes by influencing perceptions of playfulness and reward satisfaction. In fact, gamification lowers the importance that customers attach to reward levels. As a result, customers perceive higher hedonic and utilitarian value, which positively influences their engagement behaviours.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first studies to attempt to empirically analyse whether incorporating gamification into loyalty programmes influences customer engagement behaviours in the hospitality context.

本文研究了游戏化忠诚计划和传统忠诚计划对顾客参与行为的不同影响。

本文进行了2 x 2 x 2实验, 操纵了游戏化（游戏化 vs 非游戏化）、奖励水平（高 vs 低）和奖励类型（经济 vs 社交）。通过对315名个体样本收集的数据进行PLS（偏最小二乘）和均值测试进行分析。

游戏化可以通过影响玩味感和奖励满足感来提高忠诚计划的吸引力。实际上, 游戏化降低了顾客对奖励水平的重视程度。因此, 顾客感知到更高的享乐和功利价值, 从而积极地影响了他们的参与行为。

本研究首次尝试在酒店业背景下经验性地分析将游戏化纳入忠诚计划是否影响顾客参与行为。

This study aims to examine consumers’ responses to two types of loyalty programs: coalition and single-firm programs. This study explains the mechanism underlying the link between this program structure and consumers’ program evaluation by incorporating the type of firm offering the program (i.e. a more hedonic or a more utilitarian disposition), the type of rewards (i.e. presence/absence of experiential rewards) and consumers’ reactance.

Two online experiments were employed to test the proposed framework.

Consumers commonly preferred a coalition program to a single-firm program. This preference for the coalition program was strengthened when a utilitarian-dominant firm offered the program. Additionally, consumers evaluated the program lower when a utilitarian-dominant firm provided experiential rewards. Furthermore, situational reactance toward the program mediated the effect of the program structure on the program evaluation.

This study’s findings suggest that firms should consider whether the value consumers predominantly perceive from the firms is utilitarian or hedonic when launching coalition programs. Consumers may not be pleased by the coalition programs offered by hedonic-dominant firms as much as those provided by utilitarian-dominant firms. Moreover, this study’s results help design reward options. Consumers may not well evaluate the inclusion of experiential rewards when offered by utilitarian-dominant firms. For utilitarian-dominant firms, rewards requiring less time and effort may be more suitable.

This research significantly contributes to the literature on loyalty programs. This study showed that consumers viewed single-firm and coalition programs differently and elucidated the mechanism behind the response.

The present study seeks to examine how perceived uncertainty of reward schedule and reward frame (i.e. segregated vs aggregated) affect consumers ' evaluation of loyalty programs.

The authors conducted three experiments to test the hypotheses.

Ambiguity aversion was salient when the subjects perceived low uncertainty in the schedule of a loyalty program, which led to customers ' choice of a loyalty program with an aggregated frame. In contrast, the subjects displayed ambiguity proneness when they detected a high level of uncertainty in the reward schedule; as a result, the subjects preferred a loyalty program that employed a segregated frame.

The findings show that individuals adopt different types of attitudinal pattern and show dissimilar choice behaviors depending on reward schemes. The findings also provide insights to enhance the understanding concerning how consumers perceive the value of loyalty programs.

Previous research suggests the importance of random elements in relationship marketing. The present study supports this assertion by demonstrating that reward programs providing unexpected benefits can enhance the effectiveness of a loyalty program.

The results provide a more refined understanding about the relationship between perceived uncertainty and reward frame and the psychological mechanism underlying this relationship.

This study aims to present a taxonomic framework that categorizes hotel loyalty program members on the basis of involvement and a mix of behavioral outcome variables.

The taxonomy is derived through mixture modeling from a sample of 1,395 loyalty program members of two global hotel chains.

Study results suggest the presence of four classes of program members across both hotels. Class members differ with respect to the attitudes they hold, the behaviors they exhibit, and the motivations they have for maintaining membership in the program.

First, the study enhances understanding of member differences that exist within loyalty programs. Second, the study advances understanding of the ways through which loyalty programs can best be managed. Third, the study illustrates the usefulness of mixture modeling as a classificatory tool.

Study results are not generalizable beyond the sample used in deriving them. Further, decisions pertaining to what variables to include in developing a taxonomic framework are critical to its usefulness. The choice to include certain variables as well as their related measures, to the exclusion of others, represents a second limitation.

The study is but the second to empirically categorize loyalty program members, and the first to do so in a services context. Two classes of high‐involvement customers emerge, each with contrasting attitudes and behaviors. Thus, our findings suggest that high levels of involvement invoke the most extreme of customer attitudes and behaviors.

This paper aims to demonstrate both the positive and negative effects of loyalty programs. The study proposes a model to demonstrate why and how loyalty program strategies can result in good customer relationships and customer entitlement behaviors. Various configurations of three different loyalty program strategies are analyzed – tangible rewards, preferential treatment and perceived status.

The authors’ hypotheses were tested by analyzing the survey data of 152 frequent flyer program members in China through partial least squares-structural equation modeling. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used to test different configurations of the three loyalty program strategies.

A net effects analysis demonstrates that loyalty programs are a double-edged sword. While loyalty programs can improve customer relationships, strategies based on perceived status have a positive relationship to customer entitlement, which may lead customers to expect extraordinary efforts from companies, such as greater discounts and extra privileges. Using fsQCA, the authors determined four sufficient configurations of high level of relationship quality and high level of customer entitlement, which also support their findings.

First, this study expands the research on loyalty programs by providing an examination of their positive and negative consequences. Second, by proposing the configuration paths that lead to high level of relationship quality and high level of customer entitlement using fsQCA, this research enriches research on the net effects of loyalty programs, providing researchers and practitioners with a more comprehensive understanding of loyalty programs. Third, this research extends the concept of customer entitlement to the context of buyer–seller relationships by introducing perceived status as an important antecedent of customer entitlement and by identifying four sufficient configurations.

This study aims to investigate how the influences of store loyalty programs on store loyalty and store relations can be mediated by the store satisfaction-love framework.

The survey data were collected from selected retail stores using stratified random sampling. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that the impacts of store loyalty programs on store loyalty and store relations are mediated both by store love and store satisfaction.

This study’s findings help practitioners by empirically demonstrating that the combined cognitive satisfaction of consumers with store loyalty programs and affective store love mediate the influences of loyalty programs on consumer loyalty toward the store and on the consumer–store relation. Therefore, cognitive satisfaction with loyalty programs alone cannot create strong loyalty and a customer relationship. Cognitive satisfaction with various loyalty programs must be converted into affective store love for the mediation to be significant and effective.

This research adds value to the domain of store loyalty research by empirically establishing the mediating role played by the cognitive satisfaction-affective love framework in shaping the influences of loyalty programs designed by store management on the final store loyalty and customer–store relationship.

This study aims to investigate ways in which hotel loyalty programs can be designed to enhance customer’s identification with a hotel brand and develop a sustainable customer-brand relationship.

The study adopted a cross-sectional design survey questionnaire for data collection and used structural equation modeling data analysis to test the conceptual model.

The three loyalty program experiences proposed (member-to-member similarity, memorable loyalty program experience and loyalty program social benefits) exerted significant positive effects on customer-brand identification (CBI), which, in turn, influences customer-brand relationship elements, including trust, commitment and switching resistance.

This study expands the scope of CBI literature, which previously focused substantially on brand level experiences, by being the first to explore a new set of CBI antecedents with a focus on loyalty program experiences. Furthermore, the current study’s findings delineate specific strategies to uphold the social and experiential aspects of loyalty programs that can develop sustainable customer-brand relationships.

This paper aims to offer empirical insights on how investing in e-commerce capabilities affects the relationship between loyalty programs and hotel operating performance so as to aid in identifying proper resource allocation strategies.

This study extended the model in Hua et al. (2015) by testing the interaction of e-commerce and loyalty programs.

The findings illustrate that proper allocation of company financial resources to e-commerce initiatives can help improve the impact of loyalty programs on hotel operating performance.

The results of this study illustrate that hotel performance can be improved by the synergy between loyalty program and e-commerce initiatives. Thus, hotel managers and owners can use results from this study to improve the efficiency of their asset allocation strategies, with five practical implications offered.

Theoretically, this study adapted and extended an integrative model of hotel operating performance (Hua et al., 2015) by identifying critical factors that elucidate the variance in firm performance. In addition, the moderating role of e-commerce provides a new conceptualization of information technology. Practically, this study makes several important contributions as well.

This study aims to investigate the impact of the loyalty program members’ satisfaction toward the hotel loyalty program benefits and the customer management relationship initiatives of individual hotels on the brand relationship quality (BRQ), i.e. their relationship quality with the hotel brand, and its outcomes. The moderating impact of membership level on the hypothesized relationships was also investigated.

A usable sample of 920 active members of a hotel loyalty program was obtained. Structural equation modeling with partial least squares method was used to estimate the structural relationships and to investigate the moderating effect of membership level.

Employee’s customer orientation, membership communication and hotel stay-related benefits are determinants of the loyalty program members’ BRQ. BRQ is also confirmed as a higher-order construct of three latent variables which include trust, satisfaction and commitment. Moderating effects of the membership were partially supported in this study. The strongest effect of BRQ is on members’ word of mouth followed by shares of purchase. BRQ is found to have negative relationship with members’ willingness to serve as marketing resource, but the impact was small.

This is a cross-sectional study with a population of active loyalty program members of only one luxury hotel group. The sample size of the top-tier members is also smaller in comparison to the other two groups.

This study contributes to the understanding of the antecedents and consequences of BRQ and the body of knowledge about loyalty program for hotel industry.

This is one of the few studies investigating the effectiveness of hotel loyalty programs from the active members’ perspective and the moderating effect of membership level on the relationships among BRQ, its antecedents and its outcomes.