The Role of Gamification in Enhancing Intrinsic Motivation to Use a Loyalty Program

•Salient rewards can undermine intrinsic motivation to use loyalty programs.•Gamified feedback on user performance can enhance the weakened intrinsic motivation.•SDT is a useful framework to examine user motivation to engage in loyalty programs.

Based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this study examined how rewards could weaken intrinsic motivation to use a retail loyalty program. Two experiments were conducted. Study 1 revealed that individuals who received a salient reward (an explicit requirement and deadline for reward achievement and no reward options) presented lower intrinsic motivation to engage in the loyalty program than those who received its non-salient counterpart (a less explicit requirement, no deadline, and reward options). Study 2 found that the salient reward presented in the gamified form using graphical feedback enhanced the lowered intrinsic motivation. Implications for designing effective loyalty programs are discussed.