Rogers Beyond The Seat

Exclusive access to unique experiences across Canada.

Rogers uXperience Design Jam

Overview

“Did you know that all Rogers customers can win tickets to the hottest concerts and events, unlock exclusive experiences, and even meet world-class artists and athletes?”

I didn’t—until I participated in the full-day Winter 2025 uXperience Design Jam, presented by Rogers Communications and the University of Waterloo Stratford School, where my team earned first place. This challenge reinforced a key lesson: strong design outcomes are rooted in strategy, not just flashy features.

Problem

Beyond the Seat is Rogers’ rewards program that offers customers exclusive access to premium sports and entertainment experiences. Despite the value of these offerings, program awareness sits at just 2%.

We were tasked with the following design challenge and 9 hours to come up with a brilliant brand strategy:

How might we leverage Rogers’ extensive sports and entertainment partnerships to create a digital perks ecosystem that…

Significantly increases brand and program awareness
Delivers exclusive and scalable rewards
Strengthens customer engagement and long-term loyalty

Process

We began with desk research and stakeholder interviews with Rogers mentors. Insights revealed that Rogers customers skew toward middle- to high-income demographics, reflecting Rogers’ positioning as a premium telecommunications provider. This distinction wasn’t something we previously considered, yet it was crucial in enabling us to ideate a strategy targeting Rogers’ most core users.

Based on these findings, our team narrowed the target audience to customers on premium Rogers plans, allowing us to design a more focused, value-driven experience aligned with their expectations and lifestyle.

Additional insights were gathered through workshops hosted during the design jam, with a focus on loyalty program best practices and shortcomings.

Key loyalty program pain points:

Users are enrolled in multiple loyalty programs
Most programs lack meaningful differentiation or personalization
Rewards are primarily transactional (points, discounts), offering little emotional value

So, how might we differentiate Rogers Beyond the Seat from forgettable, points-based loyalty programs?

💡 By designing for emotional connection and experiential value.

Solution

Rather than removing existing rewards, we enhanced the ecosystem by introducing a VIP tier for customers on premium plans. This tier is automatically unlocked and includes:

Family-first experiential rewards—think discounts on experiences everyone actually wants to do
Gamified, sports-driven “challenges” (we weren’t allowed to talk directly about betting) that bring fans closer to the action
Exclusive digital and IRL touchpoints, from fine-dining perks to other premium experiences

To further elevate engagement, we proposed interactive AR-powered booths in high-traffic environments such as malls and event venues. Leveraging Rogers’ position as Canada’s largest and most reliable 5G network, these installations bring the Beyond the Seat experience into the real world, reinforcing brand innovation and creating memorable, shareable moments.

Retrospective

This challenge seamlessly blended UX design, interaction design, and brand strategy, reinforcing the importance of deeply understanding users before jumping into high-fidelity design. By aligning product decisions with business goals and technological capabilities, we were able to meaningfully optimize an existing platform rather than creating a new product from scratch.

The result was a more tangible, scalable, and strategically grounded solution—demonstrating how thoughtful UX can amplify both user value and brand impact.

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