Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Loyalty360 is the association for customer loyalty. We bring together the best loyalty-focused professionals from technology and service suppliers and brands under one roof. Through Loyalty360, these professionals find invaluable resources, networking opportunities and guidance provided by internal thought leaders and brands/suppliers on the cutting edge of customer loyalty.
Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Leaders in Customer Loyalty: Industry Voices Personalization at Scale: How Blings Is Transforming Customer Loyalty with Real-Time Video
In an era of short attention spans and digital overload, traditional loyalty communications are increasingly falling flat. For Yosef Peterseil, COO and Co-Founder of Blings, the solution lies not just in better content, but in a more engaging medium altogether. "We're all in a video world. We're all on TikTok and YouTube and Netflix, and that's what we're used to consuming."
Founded in 2019, Blings is a technology company helping brands deliver personalized customer communications replacing static emails and generic SMS with real-time, dynamic video. At the core of this transformation is the company’s patented MP5 video format, which allows personalized videos to be rendered directly on the end user's device.
Good afternoon and good morning. This is Ethan Perry from Loyalty360, welcoming you to another episode of Leaders in Customer Loyalty Industry Voices. In this series, we talk to the leading agencies, technology partners and consultants across the loyalty world about the technology trends and best practices impacting brands. Today, our guests bring you the latest strategies to drive unique experiences, enhance engagement and, most importantly, cultivate customer loyalty. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Yosef Petersil, coo at Blingz. Welcome, yosef, I'm so glad you could join us today.
Speaker 2:Great to be here and good to see you again, Ethan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice to talk to you too. Well, for those who might not be familiar, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your role with Blingz and your background, how you came to be in the loyalty world?
Speaker 2:Sure, well, we'll start at the end. I mean, I think we're all loyalty consumers in one way or another and either you like it or you don't, but, um, um, so, so I mean, the experience starts at a young age when you start interacting with anything loyalty and soon I'll talk about how I got to the other side of that. But, uh, I was born and raised in jerusalem. Um, I'm one of nine children, so big family, uh, orthodox, from jerusalem. I learned what it's like at a very young age to play within a team. I would say meaning it's like at a very young age to play within a team. I would say meaning it's something you always have to understand how you can interact and what you got to do to make sure that you get what you want and what you need in the different capacities.
Speaker 2:I've been in sales since I was probably about 14. My father is in the publishing business, so I would go to different book fairs, sell books, always loved sales, traveled for about a year in South America, then decided to study psychology. So I did my undergrad in psychology, always wanted to learn a lot of the psychology behind sales as well. After that I did my MBA in IDC in Wharton. I had a few. I'm an entrepreneur at heart, so I've been. I had a lot of small businesses that I've done. Some of them I sold. Some of them did not succeed. Um, but I guess something worth not worth mentioning is I actually opened an offline uh place like a restaurant in tel aviv I don't know if you've ever been to Tel Aviv very hot space, and I figured out a business model that would cater the local palette, which is get very high quality goods at a food cost, and understanding that the main margins are actually in alcohol, not in food, and that took off really well. We actually sold that after two years.
Speaker 2:Then I worked at a VC for a while, understanding kind of the other side, knowing that I wanted to open up a startup. So I did a lot of very cool investments in OurCrowd and then I worked at consulting for a while at AlmaLynx and I guess what I skipped over is I've been in high tech since 2010, mainly in ad tech, so I saw the entire transition from desktop to mobile to video. Video has always been a big passion of mine. Now, once I finished with the VC, me and a childhood friend decided to open up something together and after trying a lot of different things, we understood that we need to leverage his ability in front-end video rendering and my ability in go-to-market strategies, and that's kind of how we founded Blings at the beginning. We know each other forever and that was kind of when we established Blings in 2019.
Speaker 1:Awesome, that's such a cool story. So, speaking of blingz, can you talk about how blingz supports brands, customer loyalty efforts and give us an overview of you know what you guys do?
Speaker 2:and some of the industries you work within, sure. So when we first started the company, we noticed the gap, right? We keep on getting these email. Everything is textual based. We're getting emails, we're getting emails, we're getting SMS, we're getting push notifications and, let's be honest, nobody's reading them. Right? No one's going into an email and saying, oh, this is great content, I can't wait for the next newsletter, right? And the reason being is we're all in a video world. We're all on TikTok and YouTube and Netflix, and that's what we're used to consuming.
Speaker 2:So the idea behind bling was saying how can we get people to get, every single day in their inbox, personalized videos instead of personalized emails? Right, and saying personalization shouldn't only be about the tokens, but it should also be the medium itself. And that's kind of where we went off with bling. And what we did is we patented a video format called the MP5, which really means that what we can do is create a video in real time on the end user's device while they're watching that. What differentiates us? I don't know if you've heard that there are different personalized video technologies in the world. All of them, 100% of them, them create MP4s, meaning, if you want a million videos, you need to create and render each one of these individual videos, which is costly, data leaks and it's not in real time. So we managed a way to break through all those barriers by rendering the video on the end user's device, and so today we cater to some of the biggest brands in the world, including McDonald's, which also invested in us about a year ago. Mercedes, live Nation and Cleveland Cavaliers will also be attending the Loyalty 360.
Speaker 2:Very excited about that, kirkland's and many, many others, and what we do is all across the customer journey. When you're thinking about loyalty, you want someone to be loyal from the very beginning, from the welcome email, right? So from that point is where we help them convert these emails into engaging and interactive video experiences. And it can be anywhere from there, right, if you want it to be a point redemption, right. Or if you want to notify about a new tier.
Speaker 2:So each one of these is done through an interactive video where the call to action would be anything you want them to do If it's to redeem anything, if the expiration of any sort, and it can be all the way down to someone that stopped using your product for any reason. So we would be able to send what we call a dormant user right, how do you get someone to reactivate? So any one of these use cases cross segments. So we're working with, like I said, with QSRs, we're working with banks, financial institutions, and we're working with basketball teams and we're working with ticketing, so we can help anyone that has a loyalty program that wants to increase engagement and make more of the actual content. That's where we come in and help them and that's where we come in and help them.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's amazing. I know we continue to see so many people on both brand side, as well as our vendors and consultants, talking about short form video content and the power of it and how we're using it. You touched on your proprietary MP5 technology. Can you tell us a little more about how brands utilize that technology to create the personalized experiences for their customers?
Speaker 2:Sure. So today, anyone using a professional video editing tool, which, let's say, adobe After Effects, can create an MP5 very easily. So if they're using a studio, if they're using an in-house team, they can easily create an MP5. You don't need any additional skills to create an MP5, which is what we were going for. What we're building right now is a drag and drop platform. You don't need to know how to create a video. All you need to do is go into the platform and generate it yourself.
Speaker 2:Kind of think about it as if Adobe After Effects and Canva had a baby. It would be called blings, right? Because we serve enterprises. So what we ask the enterprises to do is create all the actual assets in advance, right? So if your brand has a specific animation, if you have a certain button, the way it should look is it pointy or round? Right? These are all things that big brands all care about, obviously more than just the brand colors. So they would pre-create that once, and then me as a marketing manager, right? Or the CR manager, as an email marketing manager, I would be able to go in, use these assets to generate my own template. So this is something that didn't exist in the market until now, and this is something that we're actually coming out with next week.
Speaker 1:So it's very exciting.
Speaker 2:That's amazing I mean I kind of want to use that tool. Hey, I'll get you early access if you want tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I'd love to try it. So we we, you know we heard in our last state of customer loyalty report 72% of the brands we surveyed felt like there was a sea of sameness in customer loyalty programs. I feel like custom video would be a great way to break through that noise and really differentiate yourself. Do you have any examples of some brands who've used your technology to do something that really helped them stand out or create a unique reward offering through it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think again, the first one that comes to mind is McDonald's, because they generated over 35 different videos over the last couple of years. I think one that stands out there is we really managed to help them increase sales by 4.2x, so that was really astounding. Very simple campaign where hi first name, here are the previous products that you purchased, here are the amount of loyalty points that you have and how much you need to redeem each one of these products, and you click on one and you can actually finish the process and the purchase within the actual video. So that was kind of a great foundation used afterwards by Burger King, by the way, as well in Italy.
Speaker 2:And I think two worth mentioning for sure are Live Nation, which we help them decrease the no-show rate right. So it's Live Nation VIP, so making sure that people actually come and making sure that they utilize everything that they have to offer in the package. So there was something we've never seen before. Actually, they have to offer in the package. So there was something we've never seen before. Actually, there were three times the amount of people that the video was actually sent to went into the video. Meaning, on average, people went into the video three times because it was so incredible, so that's very unique for them. We managed to decrease the no-show rate by 20% and video average watch time was, I think, about 90 seconds, which is also phenomenal just to get someone engaged for that amount of time.
Speaker 2:And the last one I think is worth mentioning is Cleveland Cavaliers. We've done multiple videos with them and they are super forward-thinking. It's really incredible to see an NBA team like that always thinking about the next thing, and I think one of the things we're going to be talking about. There is a video where you know the Spotify rap. Yes, you love the Spotify rap.
Speaker 1:I eagerly await it every December.
Speaker 2:So we did that for Cleveland Cavaliers fan, right? So what does that mean? You got a summary of hey Ethan, you were at this amount of games, you witnessed these amount of points, right, this amount of assists, this amount of three, three pointers, and when you're in the house, the win rate is 94 percent, right. And then you can share that like your actual banner of what you did for the Cavs and that was super, super viral. So that was really cool Because, again, what we do is create one video template and every single user gets their own data in real time. We don't pre create anything. So I think those are a few worth mentioning for sure.
Speaker 1:I mean that sounds incredible and what a personalized experience that is for each fan, and I'm sure that helps drive loyalty. You know, with those experiences being generated for the user in real time, it's pretty cool. So how do you see that continuing to improve the customer experience in the future through, like this, increased personalization?
Speaker 2:I mean, at the end of the day, people just want to feel heard and people want to feel seen, and I think that's what drives us. When we think about a use case, we're not thinking about our customer, right about Cleveland Cavaliers, we're thinking about their end users. So you use interactivity for engagement. I think the future is a lot about gamification. How do you get people to click on something? How do you get people to really engage with the brand? Because what that does to the lifetime value is incredible. You want people. I mean, we were talking about the Cavs. I've been a Knicks fan for 37 years and I just turned a Cleveland Cavaliers fan because of the videos. They were so engaging. No, because they're an awesome team, but yeah. So definitely a lot of gamification in the future.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, but you might be a little conflicted here in a couple of weeks if the Knicks run into the Cavs. It's going to be tough for you, the Cavs just lost.
Speaker 2:I cannot believe it. They were just. I mean, no more Cavs. I just can't believe it. Donovan Mitchell didn't pull through, but the Knicks, on the other hand. You know it's a good time to be a Knicks fan In the last 30 years.
Speaker 1:now's the time now's the time, definitely. So shifting gears a little bit when we're talking about these programs and how people are driving success within their loyalty programs. What are some critical metrics that you think brands should be tracking to make sure their programs are being truly successful in 2025?
Speaker 2:So I think, when you're thinking about the different metrics, it's definitely first engagement I don't think people are aware enough, but the activation piece of that, in terms of the metrics you work so hard on acquisition right, and then you have to get the activation. So this is something that brands need to have more emphasis on is the actual activation of the member. And the last thing is a lot, of, a lot of different reports show that if someone isn't engaged for for more than 90 days, for three months, you're bound to lose them Right. So I would say what you need to put an emphasis on is the beginning and the end. In the middle there are a lot of things that you could always optimize, but you need to get them to start and you need to make sure they don't churn. So these are the two main metrics that I would definitely put an emphasis on make sure that the funnel is built, basically.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So with any loyalty program comes the opportunity for data, and we've seen that customer loyalty programs are continuing to become more and more data driven. From your perspective, you know how do brands effectively analyze and integrate customer data from multiple sources to create something like, say, a personalized video that really resonates with an audience video that really resonates with an audience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in our case, it's actually very, very simple. All you need to do is create a landing page and to that landing page you can pull data from any different source, using API, using CRM tokens, it doesn't really matter, but it's really important that you have some kind of infrastructure. You'd be surprised how many companies you speak to and then they're oh, you know, we have a data migration, we have. We don't know anything of what's going on right now. It's really surprising very, very big brands, which I will not name, um, that really don't know what their data is doing, where it's going or how to actually measure it. So it's, I think, the first, and everybody knows it. But it's just something you need to do is make sure the infrastructure is as solid as you can get it, and from there, it is very easy to set up the analytical system. It's very easy to pull the data into anywhere you want, and that's our sweet spot when we're looking at companies is do you know your data? Great, let's help you make more money off of that.
Speaker 1:Awesome, let's help you make more money off of that Awesome. Well, on a personal level, are there any customer loyalty programs that you admire or that you're loyal to as a customer, and what do you like about them?
Speaker 2:I actually love Wyndham. Wyndham are awesome for a lot of different reasons, but I think first of all, it's simple, Right, how many loyalty programs you're like, oh you know, if you get 20 more points and you might get something here, only if you do something else. It's very straightforward. That would be the first one. The second one is there's so many different hotels that you can use Like it's. It's so vast, so many different places you can actually redeem the points. I think those two, those two points, are what makes it probably my favorite loyalty program Awesome.
Speaker 1:So what do you see as the next big thing coming in customer loyalty.
Speaker 2:The next big thing in customer loyalty would probably be what I think also is a little bit of the future is how do you get people points for engagement? That's what it's all about. You want people engaged with your brand. How can I earn points? By just being engaged and not actually making a purchase and not actually making a purchase. So the next big thing that I see is our companies understanding that and getting people to just engage in different ways and earning points just for doing that.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So, to wrap it up, do you have any closing advice or thoughts? And what's next for Blings as we move forward this year?
Speaker 2:So for Blings, like I said, we have the platform, which is going to be incredible, going to be really groundbreaking and lots of AI, of course.
Speaker 2:So we utilize AI in a lot of different capacities, but we have a very smart algorithm that can generate multiple different variations of a video and then optimize based on the performance. So you know, you see, it could be a difference in colors or different in text, right, different variations and saying, hey, in this segment, this color is converting better and now that will automatically be sent out to the rest of the people. So it's again about utilizing the data in real time is something that that's definitely what we're doing in 2025, as well as the editing platform and closing advice and thoughts. I really just think that people need to understand what their data is doing in general. Right, it's just a shame that there's so much data that isn't being utilized correctly. So it's making sure you a shame that there's so much data that isn't being utilized correctly. So it's making sure you have the data, making sure you're utilizing it correctly, and then you can actually monetize on whatever that is.
Speaker 1:Awesome Thanks. Well, that brings us to everyone's favorite part of the podcast, the quickfire questions. We like to keep these answers to one word or short phrase, and so I'm just going to jump right into it. How would you describe your work life? Fun If you have a day or a week off from work? What are you doing? Family, if you could live in any city or country? Where would you live Budapest If you could go back to school? Where would you live, budapest If you could go back to school? What would you study? Art? What facet of your job would you like to know more about?
Speaker 2:Pass.
Speaker 1:What facet of your job would you like to know less about? I'll pass on that too. Okay. What motivates you when tackling challenges at Blings?
Speaker 2:Solving problems.
Speaker 1:And what do you draw inspiration from? What lights your fire?
Speaker 2:Family.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite sport or hobby Basketball and what do you typically think about at the end of the day, the next day Awesome. Well, yosef, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today on leaders and customer loyalty. We loved having you be a part of our industry voices series. It was great getting your perspective on customer loyalty and hearing all about bling's and mp5 technology and what's next for the future of customized video thanks, ethan, great being here.
Speaker 2:And make sure my wife hears that I said family twice.
Speaker 1:Okay, please send this copy over to her we'll make sure to send her a direct email twice. Okay, please send a copy over to her. We'll make sure to send her a direct email, a video email. You got it. We'll do a custom video. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in to leaders in customer loyalty. If you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and follow loyalty 360 on YouTube and LinkedIn. And don't forget to join us every Tuesday for another edition of industry voices. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out.