[Dive #177] Starbucks Odyssey Beta Program
☕️ Sip Sip Hooray!
Yesterday I received this e-mail
Though I wasn’t part of the initial wave of invites that came out several months ago, it’s still exciting to be an early participant in what may be the next generation of loyalty programs.
Before we dive in, I want to refresh everyone (including myself) what this is all about. I shared my thoughts in more detail last September when this program was first announced. You can find more details here and here.
Starbucks has partnered with
Forum3 as its web3 loyalty platform partner. One of the co-founders was formerly a Starbucks exec.
Loyalty is evolving
Traditionally, the foundation of loyalty programs have been based on transactions ($ value, volume of transactions, frequency).
As products and brands continue to evolve what loyalty looks like, there has been an increasing shift towards experience oriented efforts to drive engagement and retention (and in some cases acquisition).
For some, it looks like this:
For others with more advanced marketing and retention efforts, it looks like this:
Why write about Starbucks Odyssey?
I’m not the biggest fan of writing about mainstream topics, so what made me write about this?
I got a beta invite
I’ve been looking at the Starbucks NFT collection on Nifty Gateway
Even though I didn’t get access to the Odyssey program until yesterday, I’ve been checking in on the NFT collection and volumes every now and then.
Though the total $ volume is small, there is interest in buying and selling these Starbucks Odyssey Stamps. A secondary market exists for this, even in its early stages.
I’m sure this is a metric and user behavior that Starbucks is looking at closely. More on this later.
You asked for it
When I tweeted that I got the invite, I received several replies that assumed I would share my experience and thoughts.
“We’ll see if they make the cut” = TPan’s nice way of saying no.
By the time I got to the 5th reply assuming I would write about this…
So…here we are! You can’t claim that I don’t listen to my readers 😉
Starbucks Odyssey Beta Program
The invitation e-mail
The first thing I noticed was that there was an expiration date for the invitation e-mail:
IMO the reason for this is because the primary marketing channel for this program will be through e-mail. If you don’t check your e-mail often, back of the line you go.
If successful, I imagine there will be focused efforts to integrate Odyssey into the existing Loyalty app for a richer lifecycle experience.
As I pointed out in the past, Odyssey is working with Merkle for this as evidenced by the ‘Join Starbucks Odyssey’ URL. Here’s mine:
No need to build the thing from the ground up if you’re still understanding if it’s worth investing in.
Integration with Starbucks Rewards
One of the first steps of onboarding is to connect your Odyssey account to access your Starbucks account. As the authorization disclaimer states, this allows the app to understand your existing Starbucks profile, as well as track your Starbucks activity since some of the activities require purchases to complete.
Journeys, Activities, and Stamps
There are currently 3 active Journeys, each with a specific theme that educates and informs the user.
Each Journey has several activities, and you earn points every time an activity is completed. If you complete all the activities in a journey, you get a Stamp (the NFT).
In each of the Journeys there is at least one purchase-related activity:
Coffee Heritage: Purchase a signature beverage 5 weeks in a row
From Bean to Cup: Purchase a bag of whole bean coffee
Doing Good: Make 3 purchases using a clean reusable cup and Purchase 2 drinks with a nondairy alternative
That sad (hilarious?) thing about these purchase-related activities is that I immediately had questions about the requirements.
FWIW, Odyssey defines a week as Monday to Sunday, not Sunday to Saturday 😂. Trivial detail, but this matters internally.
To illustrate the program hierarchy more clearly:
Points, Levels, and Benefits
Great, I’ve bought a year’s worth of coffee. What do I get?
The last piece of the Odyssey program is their benefits system. When users earn enough points they level up. The points and levels unlock benefits that can be redeemed.
Stamps also have point values. If you sell your stamps, your point total is reduced. On the other hand, having multiple editions of the same stamp do not increase your total.
Benefit selections won’t be available until April 2023, so we’ll have to wait and see what the Odyssey team unveils.
Themes and Takeaways
Whew, there’s a lot here.
Starbucks Odyssey is leveraging activities in different ways
The current set of activities are primarily focused on educating users on Starbucks and coffee, which makes sense. However, there was one activity that caught my eye.
When I answered ‘Dark & bold’ (the last option), this screen popped up next
This is interesting for 2 reasons:
Starbucks is already gathering qualitative data and will likely continue to do so through interactive and subtle ways like this.
After answering the question, a suggestion appears. This isn’t an outright call-to-action, but if done enough it leaves a lasting impression. “Maybe I DO like dark roast…”
Multiple layers of time
Typical for any achievement-based program, there are time limits. With Odyssey, we see this appear in multiple ways:
Journeys have completion dates
Most activities take a few minutes or less to complete (eg: the ‘What Coffee Suits You’ question I mentioned above)
Some activities require repeat actions over time
Why does it have to be in a row? Why 5 times?
Starbucks is trying to create a habit of repeat purchases. Incentivized by points and stamps at first, continued by habit afterwards.
By building a program that has different variations of time-based deadlines with a diverse set of activities, Odyssey becomes interactive and evergreen in an experiential way.
Data + Insights
Always one of my favorite themes. If I were on the Odyssey team, what would I want to understand?
What do conversion rates look like for the Odyssey program signup?
Where are the dropoff points for the journeys and activities? How much friction is there for the purchase activities?
Does Odyssey bring in net new users to the larger Starbucks rewards program?
Do purchase oriented activities drive purchase behavior? Eg: If there is an Odyssey activity to try a new drink, does it drive these users to a) try the new drink and b) continue purchasing the new drink?
Most importantly, does Odyssey drive incremental purchase behavior and loyalty to Starbucks? Can Odyssey do this at scale?
This is web2.5
Starbucks Odyssey is a great example of the what some folks call ‘web2.5’. Honestly, it’s more 2.1 if anything. There are elements of blockchain technology, specifically the Stamps/NFTs, but that’s about it. There is basically no mention of blockchain or NFTs outside of the FAQs.
This isn’t good or bad, but a reality when the industry is thinking about onboarding the next billion users to web3.
The web3 touchpoints start when users complete journeys and earn stamps. Even at that point, many may prefer to focus on the journeys instead of buying and selling stamps.
Don’t judge a loyalty program by its cover
Odyssey looks pretty basic today, but has built a foundation that could be quite complex over time.
The team has already created the foundation of the program with:
Journeys, Activities, and Stamps
Points, Levels, and benefits
Each of the items above is a lever that can be adjusted to create the optimal loyalty program. Some examples:
Different stamps could have different point values
What happens if benefits can be redeemed multiple times, but each redemption increases the point cost?
Dynamic point values with journeys. The faster you complete a journey, the more points you get.
Add on personalization and this gets even more interesting.
Multiplayer mode
Loyalty programs are traditionally a single player activity.
A peaceful life indeed. What happens if you turn on multiplayer mode? 🤪
Team Journeys: Journeys that require more than one user to complete and provide more points.
eg: Buy 3 different drinks with 1 other Odyssey user. If completed, both of you get a complimentary drink at your local Starbucks Reserve
Better understand user associations
Emphasize the idea that coffee and coffee shops bring people together
Insights from Nifty Gateway
So about that web3 part…what’s going on?
There are currently 4 Stamps.
The Holiday Cheer Edition 1 is rarest as indicated by the $1,600 floor price. Why is that, considering there were 5000 editions minted and the other stamps have a significantly lower floor price?
The 5000 editions were pre-minted in the Nifty Gateway custodial wallet, but there are only 537 unique owners of this stamp.
Additionally, the Holiday Cheer Journey concluded in the New Year, suggesting that there won’t be any more handed out. This Edition 1 stamp may become the most notable Starbucks NFT in the future.
The other insight as evidenced by the recent wave of Odyssey invitations is that the beta program is expanding. The newest Stamp is the Doing Good Journey, which was created on 1/31 and has a supply of 30k vs. the 5k from previous Stamps.
This provides a directional idea of how large the waves of invitations and cohorts are, from thousands to tens to thousands.
The issue with deep engagement
I called this out a couple weeks ago and I’ll call it out again. And this applies to all brands, not just web3.
Starbucks will likely be fine considering their world-class loyalty program and first-mover advantage, but it’s important to realize that just because it works for someone doesn’t mean it works for everyone. We’re still early, saturation will come.
Enough talk about Starbucks Odyssey. I need to GO to Starbucks to buy some coffee and complete those journeys 🫡
See you next week!
Helpful tip - remember to bring your reusable cup and order an oat milk latte each time for the next 5 weeks to get your points faster!