Mass Appeal – Details, episodes & analysis

• Were you a gamer or what prompted you to take the huge leap from PR to mobile games?
• What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve faced since joining Muus Collective in your role as Head of Marketing?
• How are you leveraging partnerships with BELLEMINT? What do you think makes a good partnership with game studios?
• How are Bellemint users interacting with Revolve?
• What role do community and social experience play in BELLEMINT?
• What’s your strategy for UA?

• 5:00 Amanda’s background
• 11:06 Fundraising challenges in Silicon Valley
• 14:50 Approaches to partnerships
• 20:21 Bellemint and Revolve’s partnership
• 25:30 Who are the “gamers”?
• 28:19 UA for fashion gamers and lovers

• Amanda Lulewicz’s LinkedIn
• Muus Collective

It’s no secret: AI has been all the buzz lately. But, what is it, really? In this episode, Tommy talks to Bani Malhotra, the former Senior Director of Product Management for Site Experiences and Omnichannel Personalization at Walmart U.S. eCommerce, who demystifies the many terms we hear related to artificial intelligence, including machine learning, deep learning, LLMs, SLMs, and Generative AI. She covers its many use cases for marketers and product managers to advance efficiency, productivity, creativity, and even business development. She also touches on some of her concerns about the technology regarding its drawbacks. 

• What was your first foray into a product role from your finance and strategy background, and what was one of the biggest challenges in making that leap?
• Were you implementing AI to help tackle some of the challenges you faced in your role at Walmart?
• When does a decision go from a logic tree to AI?
• How do outlier consumer purchases affect AI predictions?
• Could you define SLMs and LLMs?
• Where do you see AI benefiting marketers the most?
• Do you have any fears of what AI may threaten?

• 2:38 Bani’s background
• 9:58 Bani’s role at Walmart
• 17:42 Use cases of AI for user experiences at Walmart
• 21:10 The difference between heuristics and AI
• 23:52 The spectrum of machine learning
• 28:20 AI model confidence scoring
• 31:10 What is AI? Defining AI-related terms
• 41:00 Benefits of AI for marketers
• 54:45 Concerns for AI

• Bani Malhotra’s LinkedIn

Learn the story of Akshay Krishnaiah, the founder and CEO of Beem, an app harnessing the power of AI to improve the financial wellbeing of the world’s working population. Unlike most fintech apps focused on markets that will produce a profit, Beem intentionally serves people regardless of income, immigration status, or credit score. Five million downloads later, find out how Beem has grown organically, thanks in part to their pressroom that cranks 400 to 500 pieces of content every week. 

Before founding Beem, Akshay was the Global Product Head of Research Labs at PayPal, where he led a team of innovators and filed 75 consumer fintech patent publications in areas such as digital wallets, identity platforms, and hybrid tokens. He is based in San Francisco. 

• What drives you to be an entrepreneur?
• What were some of the transformative experiences you had on your way to founding Beem?
• How do you go about educating people about your product?
• How is AI exemplified in your product?
• How did you get 5 million downloads organically?

• 2:50 Akshay’s background and first hustle
• 10:20 Akshay’s path to founding Beem
• 15:18 Beem’s origin story
• 22:18 Beem’s approach to financial empowerment
• 27:35 Finding Beem’s market
• 31:07 Bringing good intention to AI
• 36:10 Growing Beem’s millions organically

• Akshay Krishnaiah’s LinkedIn
• Beem

Do you understand your customer’s needs and how to satisfy them, at the right time? Alex Saul, an expert and consultant with 25 years of experience in customer loyalty, joins the podcast to talk about loyalty. He distills the essence of any effective loyalty program – hint: it centers around the customer – as well as ways that loyalty programs can help brands meet their strategic objectives, including monetization. You’ll learn how variable rewards can increase user engagement, how retail media can generate revenue, and how loyalty programs can help change user behavior, track omnichannel traffic, and bring valuable customer insights.

• What experience was most important to your career?
• How do you go about understanding what a customer’s needs are?
• How have you seen the way loyalty brands view monetization change?
• What are variable rewards?
• What monetization strategies do you see work well in addition to variable rewards?

• 2:00 Alex’s background
• 5:43 Challenges in the loyalty industry
• 7:55 Learning the true meaning of loyalty
• 10:05 Understanding the customer
• 12:00 The science behind loyalty
• 14:30 How loyalty can support monetization
• 18:00 Variable rewards
• 23:35 What is retail media?
• 25:23 How loyalty can help brands track omnichannel traffic
• 28:37 Responsible retail media
• 31:45 Consumer insights help monetization

• Alejandro “Alex” Gonzalez Saul’s LinkedIn

In this episode Tommy chats with Bruno Rodrigues, the Regional Digital Marketing Lead at FREENOW, to learn about the European transportation super app’s approach to re-engaging users and measuring the incremental uplift of their campaigns in one of the mobile app industry’s most competitive verticals. 

• How do you approach engagement and what importance does your business put on engagement as a strategy?
• How do you develop your audience clusters?
• How do you communicate with customers to re-engage them with your app?
• How do you measure incremental uplift? 
• What challenges do you have working with different platforms that have different methodologies for measuring incrementality?

• 2:14 Bruno’s background
• 8:10 Bruno’s approach to engagement 
• 9:45 Developing audience clusters
• 11:38 Re-engagement communication tactics
• 13:30 How FREENOW approaches incrementality
• 19:07 Extensive creative testing is key

• Bruno Romão Rodrigues’s LinkedIn
• FREENOW

In this episode, Tommy interviews Kevin Nemeth, the Chief Digital Officer for Authentic Restaurant Brands, about the evolving landscape of digital loyalty programs for quick-service and casual dining restaurants. You'll learn how Kevin’s team differentiates their loyalty programs by offering value to their customers through special offers, ease of sign-up, and personalized experiences -- without disrupting the established brand's identity. Don’t miss this deep dive into leveraging first-party data to drive customer engagement and create compelling digital strategies for restaurant brands that keep customers coming back.

• What staying power did Covid’s effects on restaurants have?
• Is there a cost benefit to bringing customers to your website or app?
• How do you translate in-person restaurant experiences into a digital environment that’s useful for customers?
• How do you drive adoption to your loyalty program?

• 2:58 Covid’s lasting impact: ordering food through apps
• 6:00 Economics of driving customers to first-party platforms
• 10:10 Overview of Authentic Restaurant Brands
• 12:20 Regional Fortress Brands strategy
• 16:33 Translating in-restaurant experiences to digital
• 21:51 Importance of differentiation in loyalty programs
• 22:02 Overcoming barriers to loyalty program sign-ups
• 22:35 The success of PJ Whelihan's loyalty program
• 25:20 The value exchange in modern loyalty programs
• 27:27 Customer data is currency
• 30:59 Gamification and brand recall strategies
• 37:10 Building digital capabilities for restaurant brands
• 40:17 What's ahead

• Kevin Nemeth’s LinkedIn
• Authentic Restaurant Brands

Tobi Lüder is the Head of CRM at Delivery Hero, a food and grocery delivery app operating in over 70 countries. In this episode, Tommy and Tobi talk about how to keep customers engaged with your app and converted into subscribers. You’ll learn how to win the loyalty of your customers, the difference between heavy users and loyal users, how to measure the incremental lift of your marketing efforts, and more!

• Does CRM strategy change significantly from one country to another?
• How do you keep customers engaged with the Delivery Hero brand?
• What is the process for identifying your heavy users that require less incentives?
• How are you measuring the incremental lift of your marketing efforts?
• Are your customers actively engaged in your loyalty program? Is that an important tool for them?
• How do you determine who to heavily market your subscription to and articulate the value proposition?
• Is frequency the most important metric when segmenting your audiences?

• 2:40 Tobi’s background
• 5:16 Changes to CRM strategies in different countries
• 6:40 About Delivery Hero
• 9:38 How to win the loyalty of your cusomters
• 14:40 Heavy users vs loyal users
• 18:12 Measuring results with control groups
• 20:48 Attracting customers to our loyalty program
• 15:25 Acquiring subscribers in the app
• 28:09 Importance of frequency as a metric

• Tobi Lüder’s LinkedIn
• Delivery Hero

Janos Perei is the Head of Growth at SYBO Games, the makers of Subway Surfers, one of the most downloaded mobile games in the world. Janos and his team have been working on migrating users across the various games in SYBO’s portfolio in a meaningful way, which he calls “cross-promotion.” He discusses the merits of this growth strategy, the experience of cross-promotion for the user, and the challenges. 

• Are you a gamer?
• Outside of Subway Surfers, are there any mobile games in the marketplace that impress you in terms of growth?
• Why has Subway Surfers been so successful?
• How do you define “cross-promotion”?
• How does the experience of cross-promotion manifest for your users?
• Do more active users get different in-app messaging?
• What stops game studios from trying to do this? What are the challenges of trying to build a cross-promotion mechanism?

• 1:25 Janos Perei’s background and role at SYBO
• 5:34 Mobile games moving the needle
• 7:24 The secret behind Subway Surfers success
• 10:00 What is cross-promotion?
• 12:32 SYBO’s pillars of privacy controls
• 15:38 The user experience of cross-promotion
• 17:45 Mitigating “cannibalization” within game portfolios
• 22:00 Segmenting cross-promotions
• 23:00 Can smaller game studios do cross-promotion?
• 25:50 The challenges of cross-promotion

• Janos Perei’s LinkedIn
• SYBO Games

Why do app users spend more time on Temu’s app than Walmart’s or Amazon’s? In short: gamification. In this episode, Tara Kirkpatrick, the Director of App Marketing at Apptopia, explains why apps using gamification are crushing their categories. 

Apptopia is a platform providing brands with mobile app performance data and mobile usage insights. Prior to Apptopia, Tara was the manager of product content and communications at Insight Timer.

• What attracted you to Apptopia when you joined?
• What is Apptopia’s core focus in the market?
• Why does Temu see higher engagement in the app than Amazon?
• Why is Duolingo a leader in its category?

• 5:19 Tara’s background
• 7:58 Measuring scalable impacts for B2C
• 10:45 What does Apptopia do?
• 14:00 Why does Temu see higher engagement than Amazon?
• 18:00 Why Duolingo kills the app monetization game
• 23:07 Gaming runs upstream of all consumer tech
• 25:41 Community as a driver for app engagement
• 31:14 Diverging app monetization strategies

• Tara Kirkpatrick’s LinkedIn
• Apptopia

Marc Bearman, the General Manager of Fetch Play, chats with Tommy about the potential of rewarded experiences in gaming, particularly at the intersection of reward platforms like Fetch and game studios, and how it can lead to innovations and new opportunities for engagement, loyalty, partnerships, and revenue streams. They cover the evolution of rewarded video as a monetization strategy, how gaming studios might benefit from designing games with rewarded experiences in mind, and what the future holds for this exciting new intersection. 

• Tell us about your background and what you're doing today at Fetch.
• What do you think makes Fetch special?
• Why do you think it makes sense for Fetch to integrate gaming into its rewards platform?
• What about the Fetch audience makes them attracted to games?
• What’s got you stoked about 2024?

• 1:27 Marc’s role at Fetch and background in ad tech
• 5:04 The evolution of rewarded video
• 7:51 Integrating gaming into a rewards program
• 12:31 Navigating user feedback and the importance of data-driven decisions
• 16:24 Fetch’s unique position as a rewards and loyalty app
• 22:23 Exploring user engagement and data accuracy
• 23:54 The Fetch Play Initiative
• 26:15 Win-win-win: Fetch-game studios-consumers
• 34:47 How fetch appeals to gamers and non-gamers
• 39:46 Looking ahead: the future of gaming and rewards with Fetch

• Marc Bearman’s LinkedIn
• Fetch