Crackle Rewards
The Task
At Crackle, watching ads is unavoidable on a free streaming platform, so the real question became how to make that unavoidable time feel genuinely worth it. I set out to build a loyalty program that actually rewarded people for watching, turning ad breaks into real points redeemable for ad-free passes, free pizza, coffee, and even food delivery, small wins that kept people signing up and coming back.
We made ads worth watching
My role was designing the full user journey: the gamification elements that made ad-watching feel like real progress, the rewards system itself, a clear and inviting sign-up CTA, and a simple three-step flow, activate, earn, redeem, that folded seamlessly into the existing Crackle platform, welcome bonus points included and all.
The hope was simple: sign-ups would climb because the reward was immediate, engagement would stretch because watching ads finally felt like real progress, and loyal retention would hold firm because nothing keeps people coming back like remembering they're still owed something good.