Jetblue- Trueblue badges

JetBlue has launched TrueBlue Badges . They are ostensibly the first airline to merge two important ideas by adding, to their existing TrueBlue loyalty program, a social element that allows users to earn points for social actions. The point of difference in this case is that the airline does not run two seperate programs (a social and a “traditional” one) but has simply updated its existing one to reward users for their social advocacy.

The program allows users to earn social rewards such as virtual badges, and compete with each other in a mechanism very similar to that seen on FourSquare , or recently launched new smartphone app ‘Flying’ — in which users compete with each other to earn badges by checkingin more and more. In this case, and in a more appealing aspect, many of the social rewards will carry a real world (miles) component.

The program also has some travel-specific badges that are earned when a user travels to a JetBlue destination on the airline. Achievements are then displayed in a personalised map and transformed into rankings to allow users to compete against their friends and the wider True Blue community.

What’s more interesting is seeing how the airline has attached real world value (in miles) to many social actions: like connecting to Facebook (500 points) or sharing 5 times updates on Twitter (50 points). Often, these actions hold considerable value, as social interactions are seen as a more trusted advocate of a brand.