Tango Card, a Seattle based prepaid card company, recently launched a loyalty and incentive program with FedEx. The program allows FedEx customers to earn rewards for use of FedEx services and products. Once a FedEx customer has earned enough points to redeem for a reward, they can choose to redeem them for an “all-in-one Tango Card”. The Tango Card can be delivered to the FedEx customer via email or through a mobile device, and gives the customer the flexibility to use the reward to select a gift card from a number of premier retailers, donate any portion of the value to a non-profit (such as Habitat For Humanity), or redeem any unused value for cash. It’s simple, fast, and convenient.

Loyalty and incentive programs are not new; the corporate loyalty and incentives industry is a $48 Billion annual industry. Unfortunately, there has been little innovation in the loyalty space, particularly in delivering benefits to consumers via mobile devices. Most loyalty programs look the same. They have the same products, and they follow the same earning and redemption process in which consumers browse through an assortment of products having different redemption thresholds. Take a peek at your American Express Membership Rewards account, or your Bank of America rewards account – for the most part, you’ll see the same approach to reward redemption.

Most companies that offer loyalty and reward points to their consumers or employees contract with third party program managers to manage and administer their loyalty and reward program. Companies pay a high cost to such program managers. For example, many loyalty program managers charge a fee that adds 10 to 30% of the cost of the products in the loyalty program (for example, if a company wants to offer their loyal and repeat customers a $50 Home Depot gift card after a certain number of purchases, a loyalty program manager that manages the redemption process may charge the company $55 to $65 for the Home Depot gift card).

Further, many existing loyalty programs make it difficult for consumers to actually redeem rewards that they have earned.

TangoCard aims to change this.

Their concept is simple: Offer a loyalty program in a card. By delivering loyalty program benefits to consumers via the TangoCard platform, companies can offer Tango Card benefits as their primary (or only) redemption option. Companies that wish to reward loyal consumers can reduce the complexity of the loyalty program, while making it simple for consumers to receive their rewards digitally (via email) or via their mobile device.

The ease of use is clearly on display in the program Tango Card put together for FedEx. When a FedEx customer has earned enough points to redeem for a Tango Card, the consumer simply selects Tango Card as the reward option. The Tango Card can be delivered electronically or by mail. Once the consumer has their Tango Card information, they simply visit www.tangocard.com to view their many options of how to access the reward (including as a retail gift card, a donation to a charity, or as cash). The terms and conditions of the Tango Card are extremely consumer-friendly (see Tangocard.com/fedex/). There are no fees to the consumer, and their reward benefits never expire.

Merchants that partner with Tango Card enjoy another benefit – Tango Card charges no fees for managing the redemption process.  Instead, Tango Card earns its revenue through relationships with retail merchants who provide gift cards that can be selected by consumers when they redeem their reward.  Further, Tango Card makes it simple for merchants to launch a reward program, with a straight forward API.

In addition to the FedEx program, Tango Card has partnered with a number of other companies to provide loyalty benefits, including Toluna (www.toluna.com), MediaInsiders (http://www.mediainsiderspanel.com/rewards), and Earndit (www.earndit.com).