Mistplay is using mobile gaming as a loyalty mechanic for Sinclair Oil, connecting game play inside a rewards program with incentives that bring customers back to the pump.
The campaign is a useful test of a broader loyalty question for marketers: whether brands can create reasons to engage between transactions, instead of relying mainly on discounts at the moment of purchase. Mistplay’s answer is to turn mobile games into an earn mechanism inside an existing loyalty ecosystem.
Key Takeaways
- Sinclair Oil added game-linked rewards to its DINOPAY loyalty program through Mistplay’s LoyaltyPlay.
- The model gives customers a reason to interact with the loyalty program between fuel purchases.
- The campaign suggests gaming can function as a retention mechanic, not just an advertising channel.
Table of contents
Jump to each section:
- How Sinclair used gaming inside its loyalty program
- Why the engagement gap matters for loyalty teams
- What makes LoyaltyPlay different from a standard points program
- What marketers should take from the Sinclair test
How Sinclair used gaming inside its loyalty program
Sinclair added Mistplay’s LoyaltyPlay to its DINOPAY loyalty experience so members could earn fuel-related rewards through mobile gaming. Rather than asking customers to make an additional purchase to earn something, the campaign created a separate behavior loop: play a game, earn a reward, then return to Sinclair to redeem it.
The campaign ran from November 2025 through June 2026. Mistplay said the program generated measurable movement in both engagement and purchasing behavior.
42% more site visits and a 9.7% increase in fuel purchases were attributed to the LoyaltyPlay campaign, according to Mistplay’s campaign announcement.
Those figures are company-reported, so marketers should treat them as case-study evidence rather than a universal benchmark. Still, the mechanics are notable because fuel is an infrequent-purchase category where brands naturally have long gaps between transactions.
Why the engagement gap matters for loyalty teams
Many loyalty programs are strongest at checkout. Customers buy something, earn points, receive a discount, and then disappear until the next purchase occasion. That structure works when purchase frequency is already high, but it gives marketers fewer options when natural buying cycles are longer.
Mistplay is effectively trying to fill that dead space with an activity customers may already do in their downtime. For Sinclair, that means the loyalty program does not have to wait for the next fuel stop to create engagement.
This does not make gaming automatically relevant to every brand. The value depends on whether the reward loop feels additive rather than distracting, and whether customers who engage with the games actually return to the core business. The Sinclair results are useful because they connect the mechanic to an offline purchase outcome rather than only app opens or time spent.
What makes LoyaltyPlay different from a standard points program
LoyaltyPlay sits between loyalty technology, rewarded advertising, and app monetization. Users play curated mobile games and earn a brand’s own rewards, while the app or brand can earn revenue from game installs. In practical terms, it turns gaming into both an engagement layer and a way to help fund the rewards being distributed.
That makes the model different from a conventional loyalty engine built mostly around transactions, tiers, and redemptions. It also overlaps with rewarded advertising networks such as Unity Ads, Digital Turbine, AdAction, and Chartboost, which use incentives to drive user actions around mobile apps and games.
Mistplay’s differentiation is that LoyaltyPlay is designed to live inside an existing brand or publisher ecosystem rather than function only as an external ad placement. The company says the product can be embedded into apps and loyalty programs, with users earning the host brand’s currency or benefits for playing games.
Up to 2x app revenue growth and up to 2.5x more frequent visits after first offer redemption are cited across Mistplay’s 2025-2026 LoyaltyPlay case studies, according to Mistplay’s product materials.
Those broader product claims are also vendor-reported. They are better read as indicators of the use cases Mistplay is targeting than as independent proof of typical performance.
What marketers should take from the Sinclair test
The clearest takeaway is not that every loyalty program should add games. It is that loyalty teams can look beyond purchase-triggered incentives when they need more frequent customer touchpoints.
For brands with long gaps between transactions, the more interesting question is whether an adjacent habit can become part of the loyalty journey. Gaming is one option because it is frequent, digital, and easy to connect with rewards. Other categories may find different behaviors that better match their audience.
The Sinclair campaign gives Mistplay a concrete case outside its traditional mobile gaming base and gives loyalty marketers a more practical benchmark for evaluating rewarded engagement. The next test is whether similar programs can sustain repeat behavior after novelty fades and whether the economics remain attractive once rewards, media value, and operational costs are considered together.
