Free app proving to be popular exercise carrot

Rewards tied to loyalty programs

Health apps and New Year’s resolutions have something in common: there is a steep drop-off in engagement after a few weeks. According to app-developer resource Flurry Analytics, the number of weekly health app users drops to 50 per cent after three weeks on Android and to 35 per cent on iOS. And the numbers continue to drop thereafter. But one Canadian app seems to have cracked the code.

Carrot Rewards is a free Canadian health and wellness app that rewards loyalty points to users when they meet their daily step goals or take short quizzes on health and nutrition. The app’s carrot-instead-of-thestick method seems to resonate with its users.

“The average health app within three months only has three per cent of people continuing to use it,” said chief marketing officer Sarah Richard. “(Carrot Rewards) has over 300,000 registered users and, after a year, 80 per cent are using it monthly and 50 per cent of those using it monthly are using it daily.”

Carrot Rewards leverages a smartphone’s step counter, which passively calculates the user’s steps automatically, using the accelerometer and gyroscope built into the device. When users initially log on to Carrot Rewards, they can select which loyalty program, including Aeroplan, Petro Canada or Scene, that they want rewards from. Users can also add more than one kind of loyalty card and toggle between which they want to collect from. For the initial two weeks after download, the app monitors the users’ daily steps and then sets daily step goals. Users will then be rewarded if they meet their given step goal. The app will also challenge users to meet their goal 10 out of every 14 days and award additional points. To receive even more, there are also quizzes on health, nutrition, the environment and financial literacy.

Rewarding users with free loyalty points for healthy behaviour comes from the app’s ecosystem of partners and clients. For example, Public Health Agency of Canada and provincial governments are clients; they purchase loyalty points as a way to educate users or promote lifestyle changes.

“We have tons of public health initiatives, wellness initiatives, social responsibility initiatives that the government supports,” Richard said. “They want their citizens to be healthy … care about the environment, and be more financially literate because financial literacy is one of the most important predeterminants of health.”

“It is a virtual circle where it works for everybody. People are given something for doing something good. The government that is spending that money is getting a little bit more information back on how that money is working,” said chief partnerships officer Matt O’Leary.

At every step, the app asks for consent from users. Even though clients get a better understanding of how many people are engaged and what their responses to quizzes are, it’s at an aggregated level; clients do not receive any personal information.

In future, Carrot Rewards wants to do more with tracking health indicators in a passive way.

“To be able to reward someone for a good night’s sleep” excites Richard. The team wants to add more features, such as “the ability to create communities, so populations can have their own communities on the platform and challenge each other,” as social interactions boost usage and commitment.

Partnerships promoting financial literacy include Sun Life Financial and Wealthsimple. Carrot is also eyeing expansion into other countries with similar markets, such as the U.K., Singapore or Germany.

“If you look at our partnership model, it works really well where there is a single-payer health care system (and) where there are popular loyalty points cards used.” O’Leary said.

The Carrot team wants to make every day into a victory. “We are here to encourage you, making every small win feel like a big win. It’s not about running a marathon. It’s about meeting your step goal every day.”

CARROT REWARDS