What is it about?
Over the last few years, fitness trackers have become increasingly popular among consumers who measure their everyday physiological activities, nutrition, and other vital signs to improve their quality of life. Now the collection and analysis of personal biometric data is increasingly advocated and implemented in a commercial context. For example, fitness trackers are now part of firms' loyalty programs offering consumers the opportunity to earn points or rewards for sharing their biometric data. We conduct a study in Australia to understand how consumers perceive two different “Points for Fitness” programs.
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Why is it important?
Commercial institutions increasingly leverage wearable technology and fitness trackers in their business models and value chains encouraging customers to share their biometric data. So far, little research has focused on commercial settings in which consumers are “pushed” to adopt wearable devices. Our study shows two interesting results. First, public conversation briefly peaks through the launch of a well-planned marketing campaign, but it also drops very quickly. Second, consumers do not discuss the intrusion of privacy, but they question the perceived value and fairness of these programs. Our study provides insights to managers who plan to leverage fitness trackers in their loyalty programs.
Perspectives
While the market for wearable devices continues to grow, the implementation of fitness trackers in commercial settings such as loyalty programs is still relatively new. Our study provides some initial insight that the public conversation in Australia is surprisingly not concerned with privacy issues. At least consumers are not “talking” about this online. Instead, the discussion focuses on the execution of the marketing campaign as well as perceived benefits of the program. It seems that consumers are still skeptical when it comes to earning points for fitness. More research is needed to study how consumers perceive the value, fairness, trust, and intrusion of privacy.
Dr Sven Tuzovic
Queensland University of Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Points for Fitness – How Smart Wearable Technology Transforms Loyalty Programs, January 2017, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-17552-8_18.
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