The discount gets the sign-up, but it may not earn the relationship
According to CX Dive, more than half of shoppers — 53% — say they are more likely to sign up for a loyalty program during economic uncertainty. The same report says 3 in 5 consumers are more likely to join a program than they were a year ago, against a backdrop of weaker consumer sentiment and recession worries.
That tracks with what many brand teams are probably seeing in dashboards: more people are willing to trade an email address, app download, or wallet connection if the immediate benefit is clear. In plain English, the customer is asking, “Will this help me save money, save time, or make my next decision easier?”
The caution is just as important. CX Dive quotes loyalty expert Emily Stern saying brands often fall short because they do not clearly communicate how a program helps customers save time, save money, or become more efficient. For our corner of loyalty — memberships, tokenized access, digital collectibles, gated experiences — this is where the friction usually creeps in. If a customer has to decode tiers, points, badges, wallets, or redemption rules, the program starts to feel like homework.
The practical move is simple: build the landing page, app screen, or membership hub around the customer journey, not the mechanics. What do members get today? How do they earn? How do they redeem? What changes after the first, third, or tenth visit? If that answer is not visible in a few seconds, the program is leaking value before it even begins.
McDonald’s Australia shows how “perks” can move beyond the menu
Mi-3 reports that McDonald’s Australia has partnered with streaming service BINGE, allowing MyMacca’s Rewards members to redeem a BINGE subscription using loyalty points. The offer described is a six-month BINGE Basic subscription for 10,000 MyMacca’s points, available to new and returning BINGE customers, with members able to claim it through the MyMacca’s app until January 15, 2027, and redeem by January 31, 2027.
The partnership also includes Kayo SPORTS and is described as McDonald’s Australia’s first long-term loyalty partnership. Mi-3 says the campaign targets more than five million MyMacca’s Rewards members and is designed to add value and deepen engagement through the app.
This is a useful case because it stretches the idea of loyalty beyond “buy more fries, get more points.” Dinner, delivery, and streaming sit inside the same evening ritual. That is community building in its most practical form: not a slogan, but a moment in someone’s day where two brands reduce friction together.
For NFT and membership teams, the parallel is clear. The strongest perks often do not need to be louder; they need to be more naturally placed. A token-gated reward, a member pass, or a digital collectible should not exist as a novelty item off to the side. It should make a real behavior easier, more enjoyable, or more rewarding — much like how game publishers are also looking at monetization partnerships that meet users inside existing digital habits, as seen in this piece on global web monetization for games.
What loyalty teams should pressure-test now
The CX Dive reporting includes a sharp warning from Stern: programs that operate only as discount engines can drive repeat purchases without creating true loyalty. Her example is a shopper who belongs to many coffee and fast-food programs, not because of deep brand affinity, but because he is chasing the cheapest price.
That distinction matters. Repeat visits are not automatically love. They may simply be price sensitivity wearing a branded badge.
So the next audit should be honest. If your program disappeared tomorrow, would customers miss the experience — or only the coupon? Are you refreshing benefits for the audience you actually want to retain? Are you giving members experiential reasons to stay, not just transactional reasons to come back once more?
For brand NFT programs, this is the moment to translate the Web3 promise into plain customer value. Access should feel like access. Membership should feel like belonging. Utility should remove friction, not add a new set of steps. Economic uncertainty may make shoppers more open to loyalty programs, but it also makes them less patient with vague rewards. The brands that win the next visit will be the ones that can answer, clearly and humanly: “Here is why being a member makes your life better.”