Business Insider Japan: Eat, Review, and Earn Cryptocurrency! Will This New Marketing Scheme Being Tested in Ginza Help Restaurants?
As you may have already heard, SynchroLife is running a special proof-of-concept campaign with 21 restaurants in Tokyu Plaza Ginza shopping center in Tokyo for the next month! During this campaign anyone who registers for a free account with the SynchroLife mobile app can earn 3% of their total bill cashback in SynchroCoin (cryptocurrency) by scanning a QR code when paying for their meal.
If you plan on being in Japan before October 20th check out the official campaign site here to learn more: https://campaign.synchrolife.io/ 🎉
Business Insider Japan recently wrote a detailed original piece covering the campaign news, and today we translated it into English to share with our global community! 🌎
Thank you Business Insider Japan team for this great article! You can read the original news in Japanese here: https://www.businessinsider.jp/post-175569
Business Insider Japan — September 19, 2018
Business Insider Japan: Eat, Review, and Earn Cryptocurrency! Will This New Marketing Scheme Being Tested in Ginza Help Restaurants?
The Japanese television news show “Prime News α” recently ran a story about GUBIT, a Japanese restaurant drink subscription service that allows users to get their first drink of the night free at any participating restaurant. This service allows restaurants to attract new customers just by offering one free drink.
But that’s not the only new marketing method for restaurants in Japan. SynchroLife, the world’s first social restaurant review app to offer token (cryptocurrency) rewards for high quality restaurant reviews, is also starting a new proof-of-concept campaign with Tokyu Land Corporation in Tokyo to test some new restaurant marketing technics.
Earn 3% of your total bill back in cryptocurrency
SynchroLife is a social restaurant review app that allows users to post and share their experiences dining out. The service uses an artificial intelligence boosted restaurant recommendation system that analyzes user actions and behavior to give each user personalized recommendations and search results.
In order to grow their userbase and provide even more accurate restaurant recommendations, SynchroLife implemented a token reward system in August 2018 to incentivize users to post quality reviews and content.
Now SynchroLife is teaming up with the Tokyu Land Corporation owned shopping center “Tokyu Plaza Ginza” in Tokyo to take this even further, by offering diners token rewards just for dining at participating restaurants. This is a proof-of-concept test to help diners learn about the fun of earning tokens through SynchroLife as well as to help restaurants use SynchroLife to market and attract more customers.
Any user that signs up for a free SynchroLife account in the mobile app can earn 3% of their total bill “cashback” in SynchroCoin (SYC) tokens by showing their in-app wallet QR code at check out at participating restaurants. The campaign is running at 21 restaurants in Tokyu Plaza Ginza. The amount of SynchroCoin distributed to each diner will be calculated based on the value of SynchroCoin on the cryptocurrency exchange LATOKEN (which SynchroCoin started listing on this September).
In addition to the 3% “cashback” in SynchroCoin, users can also participate in a special photo contest by reviewing any of the 21 participating restaurants in SynchroLife. Users who post photo reviews in SynchroLife are automatically entered, and can win several prizes including 50,000 yen dining gift cards or 50,000 yen in SynchroCoin!
The more users who dine out, the greater the value of the cryptocurrency
Having worked with restaurants to help them attract new customers for years, SynchroLife CEO Tomochika Kamiya comments the following about this new approach SynchroLife is taking:
“Almost all restaurants are looking to attract new customers, but it is a constant struggle of trying to list ads online or in local magazines and not getting clear results. SynchroLife allows restaurants to pay only when they get customers through our results-based compensation model and they can also look forward to viral social marketing effects as a result of users posting reviews in our social restaurant review platform.”
Many services up until now have required restaurants to pay advertisement fees or significant commission fees upfront and the cost to attract new customers has been nontransparent and significantly costly. But with SynchroLife restaurants only have to pay a set percentage of the total customers actually spend at the restaurants. By only taking payment when results have been delivered, SynchroLife is resolving the issues of upfront fees and surprise charges.
But although SynchroLife takes a small percentage from results, they also give cashback rewards to users. So how does this business model work? Tomochika Kamiya, founder and CEO of SynchroLife explains:
“During our one month campaign with Tokyu Plaza Gizna we are giving diners 3% of their total bill cashback in SynchroCoin but normally in the service this cashback reward may be lower, as low as 1% depending on what the restaurant sets their payment at. We give part of the percentage back to users but also take a percentage of the payment as profit for our company,”
“But the most important thing here to think about is the cryptocurrency. After SynchroLife receives results-based compensation from a restaurant, SynchroLife will use this money to go to a cryptocurrency exchange and purchase SynchroCoin at the current rate in order to reward it back to users as a cashback reward. The more users visit participating restaurants, the more demand there will be for SynchroCoin, and the value to SynchroCoin holding users will increase.”
100,000,000 SynchroCoin (SYC) were issued, and 20,000,000 of those SynchroCoin are reserved in a reward pool for reviewers. Of the remaining 80,000,000 SynchroCoin, 70,500,000 will be traded freely and the remainder are held by the SynchroLife company. The more users dine at participating restaurants and post reviews, the more SynchroLife can share the value of SynchroCoin with its users. The business model is made to benefit all players: diners, restaurants, and SynchroLife!
Can this help resolve the “distrust” consumers have towards cryptocurrency?
With the Coincheck incident still fresh in many people’s minds, the general public can be quite distrusting of cryptocurrency. We asked the founder and CEO of SynchroLife if it was difficult to make the decision to launch cryptocurrency token rewards in a service for restaurant reviews.
“No, actually in the final stage of our application with the startup accelerator Plug and Play Japan a representative of Tokyu Land Corporation already expressed interest in working with us even before our mobile app had been completed and launched. They agreed with our mission and really liked our ideas.”
It seems they never heard anything negative from the restaurants at Tokyu Plaza Ginza regarding the service or cryptocurrency either.
“When explaining the campaign to the head chefs and owners of the restaurants at Tokyu Plaza Ginza, they were all totally for it. They believe that Ginza is an area of Tokyo where many people are looking to try new things and were sure it’d be a success. We were able to launch this campaign in record time thanks to the passionate support of all the involved Tokyu Land Corporation and restaurant staff.”
The Japan Cryptocurrency Business Association has just released their new rules as of September 12th and Japan’s cryptocurrency market is finally starting to move again after over half a year of minimal activity. It will be interesting to see the social impact SynchroLife has and if it can help bring cryptocurrency not just to enthusiasts but to the average consumer as well.
SynchroLife’s campaign with Tokyu Plaza Ginza runs for one month from September 21st to October 20th. You can enter up to twice a day during the campaign period.
Thank you again Business Insider Japan for the wonderful article! For those interested the original Japanese article can be read here: https://www.businessinsider.jp/post-175569
You can also learn more about the Tokyu Plaza Ginza x SynchroLife campaign in our press release here:
You can also view the details of the campaign on the official campaign website here:
Please visit the following links to learn more about SynchroLife! 📲
Official Website: https://synchrolife.org
White paper: https://synchrolife.org/whitepaper.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/synchrocoin
Facebook: https://facebook.com/synchrocoin
Telegram: https://t.me/synchrocoin
SynchroLife Mobile App:
iOS App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id557532449
Android Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.synchrolife
Other Medium Articles by the SynchroLife Team:
・Social Restaurant Review Platform SynchroLife Launches Campaign at 21 Tokyu Plaza Ginza Restaurants: Earn 3% of Your Bill Cashback in Cryptocurrency! (Press Release)
・SynchroCoin (SYC) to List on LATOKEN, First Exchange for Restaurant Review Reward Token Used in SynchroLife Token Economy (Press Release)
・Token Economy Based Restaurant Review Service “SynchroLife” Announces First Restaurant Campaign with Tokyu Plaza Ginza (Press Release)
・Cointelegraph Japan: TEC — A New Way of Fundraising for Cryptocurrency Startups (Exclusive Chat with Ceres & SynchroLife)
・The Nikkei: GINKAN’s Restaurant Review App Forms Business Alliance with Ceres
・Tech Crunch Japan: Token Economy x Restaurant Review App “SynchroLife”, Announces Seed Round Including Token Equity Convertible
・Business Insider Japan: The World’s First Social Restaurant Review Service with Token Rewards “SynchroLife” Announces Seed Funding — Including Token Equity Convertible
・GINKAN Announces Business Alliance and Seed Round of 720,000 USD with Ceres Inc. to Further Grow Token Economy & AI Based Social Restaurant Review Service “SynchroLife” (Press Release)
・Tech Crunch Japan: Social Restaurant Discovery App SynchroLife Releases New Version with Token Rewards for Quality Reviews
・Cointelegraph Japan: Japanese Company Implements World’s First Token Reward System for Restaurant Reviews
・SynchroLife Releases World’s First Restaurant Review Service with Cryptocurrency Token Rewards for Users (Press Release)
・SynchroLife CEO Tomochika Kamiya Interviewed by Plug and Play Japan
・SynchroLife Major Launch Announcement — Becoming the World’s First Restaurant Review Platform with Token Rewards
・SynchroLife CEO Tomochika Kamiya Interviewed by Plug and Play Japan
・SynchroLife Nominated at “THE COIN” in Tokyo, CEO Tomochika Kamiya Presents
