The Last Word: Video Game Veteran Steve Bocska on Why ‘Real Engagement’ is the Key to Loyalty Programs

“As people engage, they spend more. Full stop. Period, end of story.”

Steve Bocska
Founder and CEO
PUG Interactive
.…on why “real engagement” is the key to customer loyalty programs.

PUG Interactive quietly expanded to Texas about a year ago, bringing its video game-inspired engagement tools to the “birthplace of loyalty” in Dallas-Fort Worth.

After operating in stealth mode following a decade of R&D, the Vancouver, Canada-based company is ready to make some noise with its pioneering engagement and loyalty platform called Picnic.

Bocska uses the same techniques that power addictive video games. The PUG founder worked on big-budget blockbuster games generating over $650 million in sales for industry giants like Disney, EA, Sega, and Fox Interactive.

Bocska said that Fort Worth-based American Airlines spawned the entire loyalty industry in 1981 by launching the first successful airline loyalty program. “We’re disrupting loyalty,” he said. “So what better place to do it than where loyalty was created?” 

Dallas-Fort Worth’s talent density also appealed to PUG. “There’s still a concentration of loyalty expertise in Dallas from executives at places like American Airlines to companies like Epsilon and Brierley+Partners,” he says.

“All of the smartest people must still be here,” Bocska said. “That’s a large part of why we came.”

Read more in our story here.

For more of who said what about all things North Texas, check out Every Last Word.

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