#LEAwards spills: How EZ-Link tapped into the digital world

One brand that is almost synonymous with Singapore's transport system is EZ-Link, the contactless transit payment company. Being a 18-year strong brand, EZ-Link recently won the hearts of our judges at the Loyalty & Engagement Awards 2020, hosted by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, and came in as finalists for the categories "Best card-based loyalty" and "Best engagement strategy - specific audience". 

Not spared by the pandemic last year, EZ-Link had to adapt its marketing plans accordingly to an ever-changing situation, especially since there was a stark reduction of footfall at train stations during the circuit breaker period last year. One of its major focus of the year 2020 was to encourage consumers to adopt contactless payments through the use of its mobile EZ-Link Wallet. To do so, we tightened the integration between its rewards platform and the EZ-Link Wallet, so that consumers can receive direct cashback and rewards credits when they spend with the mobile wallet.

Read on to find out what EZ-Link's journey has been for the past year, and what they have planned for the future. 

What are some of the expectations your consumers now have for your brand?

EZ-Link started out as the pioneer of contactless transit payments some 18 years ago - after all this time, we have evolved our business substantially beyond just public transport, while still remaining a strong anchor in our consumers’ transportation journey. We are able to leverage the strong, daily affinity we have cultivated with our consumers, and develop new digital offerings to meet their overall lifestyle needs.

In this competitive digital payments landscape, it has been crucial for us to continuously innovate and enhance our offerings for consumers. With that, we introduced our EZ-Link Rewards platform via our EZ-Link app to bring them added value and convenience - consumers are able to access a wide variety of merchants and enjoy benefits like cashback, rebates, discounts and more. To date, more than one million rewards have been redeemed on the EZ-Link Rewards platform.

The EZ-Link Rewards platform has also served as an avenue for us to keep a pulse on our consumers’ ever-changing needs. By monitoring their response to new initiatives, campaigns or merchants, we can better understand what resonates with our consumers and tweak our offerings accordingly. For instance, we have received great feedback on initiatives that empower them to do good; including converting their points to support local businesses, donate to charity and even plant trees!

We are committed to growing and innovating alongside our consumers’ needs and wants, and are constantly on the lookout to bring more merchants on board and expand our variety of offerings.

How has your marketing/your clients marketing plans shifted this year?

It’s been important for us to remain agile and adapt our marketing plans accordingly in response to an ever-changing situation. The reduction of footfall at train stations was most stark during the circuit breaker period last year. Coupled with an increasingly digitally-savvy population, this meant that we had to pivot to focus on digital channels. For instance, we doubled down on social media channels like Facebook and Instagram, in-app push notifications on the EZ-Link app and monthly EDMs to reach our consumers. We also partnered with popular e-commerce platforms like Shopee and Lazada to cross-promote exclusive campaigns and offer curated deals for EZ-Link app users.

As we gradually recovered from the pandemic and businesses reopened, more people started to resume their commutes and transport ridership picked up. As such, we restarted offline activations to cater to our target audience, including installing wall-wraps at TransitLink Offices to raise awareness for ongoing campaigns.

One major focus for us in 2020 was to encourage consumers to adopt contactless payments through the use of our mobile EZ-Link Wallet. To do so, we tightened the integration between our Rewards platform and the EZ-Link Wallet so that consumers can receive direct cashback and rewards credits when they spend with the mobile wallet. Additionally, we ran short campaigns to encourage more users to go digital in their spending, including providing cashback for Express Top-Ups and allowing consumers to convert their Rewards points to EZ-Link Wallet credits.

What are some of the trends you see carrying on post-pandemic, and how are you readying your workforce to be ready with these trends?

The push for cashless payments is here to stay, and it is our responsibility to help empower the community so that no one is left behind. For instance, we are working closely with authorities like the SG Digital Office to boost digital literacy among less tech-savvy groups and equip them with requisite digital skills. They can learn how to perform contactless top-ups for their EZ-Link card, as well as how to leverage the EZ-Link Wallet to make payments via SGQR.

In rolling out new innovations and initiatives, we always make a point to consider the perspectives and insights from different demographics. We have established different work groups to engage and support our customers - such as onboarding new customers to our EZ-Link app - and simultaneously leverage their valuable feedback to shape and improve our product along the way.

What do you think makes for great marketing these days?

Brands today face an uphill battle contending for consumers’ mindshare in a saturated media landscape. To cut through the noise and capture consumers’ attention, it is crucial that brands go back to the fundamentals and prioritise delivering real value. They must first understand - what is it that their consumers really want?

At EZ-Link, we understand that our consumers value ease of access and convenience. They have a preference for campaigns that are simple, deliver quick wins, and can add value to their everyday lives. This in part, motivated and gave purpose to our new brand direction of empowering life’s little wins, where we want to eliminate hassle and enable possibilities that tie in seamlessly with our consumers’ daily lives.

Over the recent holiday season, we introduced a “Santa Haul-iday Auction” campaign to spread some festive cheer to our consumers. With an easy tap of a button, they were able to easily redeem their EZ-Link Rewards points to bid in an auction, and win attractive prizes like speakers, a FitBit and even a staycation! We received great feedback and response to this campaign, and look forward to introducing even more activities to engage our consumers in the coming year.

How are you planning for 2021?

As we kick off the new year, we are excited to build off the success of our previous campaigns and continue to find new ways of engaging our customers. We are constantly engaging with new partners and on the lookout for suitable merchants to bring onboard - in particular, we are keen to work with more local SMEs and support them during these challenging times. After all, this is a win-win partnership for all, where we can offer new kinds of rewards and bring greater value to our customers while SMEs are able to tap on our large user base and drive more traffic to their business.

We continue to explore new ways we can drive purposeful innovation, engage our consumers in exciting and meaningful initiatives over our EZ-Link Rewards platform, and help them celebrate life’s little wins.