American Express Co. has a plan to win new customers from the digital generation by partnering with Zynga Inc. to offer rewards to FarmVille game players. By connecting its digital wallet, called Serve, and its prepaid cards to FarmVille rewards, American Express hopes to find and retain new customers. According to an article from Inside Social Games:
Zynga Serve Rewards is tied to American Express’s Serve digital wallet. FarmVille players will be prompted to apply for the rewards program when they choose to play a “Serve Money Tree. Users who successfully apply for Zynga Serve Rewards will receive a prepaid card in the mail, to which they can add money via their bank account, credit card, debit card or cash (provided they use a GreenDot MoneyPak).
With this partnership American Express appears to be continuing its strategy of recognizing markets for prepaid that go beyond the traditional low and moderate-income people and those with bad credit. They seem to be chasing an opportunity to capture customers when they are young to build long-term loyalty. From TechCrunch:
“Zynga has a very large customer base,” said David Messenger, American Express’ executive vice president of enterprise growth. “This partnership isn’t for existing credit and charge card customers. It’s about trying to appeal to a new segment. These customers may be Millennials. They may be somewhat underserved in terms of banking. They may only use debit, cash and check.”
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