Let's Talk Loyalty

The 2023 South African Loyalty Awards, designed specifically to celebrate loyalty brilliance and innovation, announced the winning loyalty brands on Thursday 14 September at the Truth Leaders in Loyalty Summit, in Cape Town.

This was the fifth year of operation of the South African Loyalty Awards. The Let’s Talk Loyalty Show interviews two of the judges who had the challenging job of judging the high calibre entries across 18 different competitive categories.

There are 12 judges in total and Amanda spoke with Nic Bednall, one of the founding judges of the awards and Kaveer Maharaj who is an experienced South African loyalty professional, now based in Dubai.

Nic and Kaveer share their insights into which brands won and why and in particular share critical KPI performance which showcases why this market is leading the way in global loyalty benchmarks.

Show Notes:

1) ⁠Nic Bednall

2) ⁠⁠Kaveer Maharaj

3) ⁠MoyaApp

4) ⁠South African Loyalty Awards

In this weeks episode of Let’s talk “a little” loyalty Tom reviews the original podcast where Paula was joined by Fiona McFaul, the Vice President of Marketing and Loyalty for the Sandman Group

RSVP Rewards is one of Canada’s best kept secrets! Listen in to hear how Sandman Hotels completed a dramatic digital transformation of their loyalty program

Sandman Hotels is part of the Northland Properties group, a family business that operates an impressive portfolio of businesses including restaurants, resorts, sports teams and hotels!

Show Notes:

1) Fiona McFaul

2) ⁠Sandman Group⁠

3) RSVP Rewards

4) #251: Digital Transformation with RSVP Rewards from the Sandman Hotel Group

Welcome to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty where we are announcing and officially launching “Loyalty TV”.

Loyalty TV is a completely new format and our first major change since we launched this podcast dedicated to loyalty marketing professionals in 2019.

We are bringing a selection of our best interviews to a professional TV studio here in Dubai, so you can watch them on this incredible new channel.

Please do enjoy our new shows on our website which is very simply available on www.Loyalty.tv.

Show Notes:

1) Loyalty TV

2) #411: McDonald's Rewards - Global Loyalty Insights - Audio

3) Watch the full video interview on ⁠Loyalty TV⁠

Today’s episode features one of the most exciting new uses of loyalty marketing that I’ve come across.

Mistplay is a leading loyalty app for mobile gamers, where users can discover new games and earn as they play. As their platform has grown, they’ve integrated many of the learnings from top loyalty programs in other industries, and then experimented with them to find ways to serve the needs of their community of gamers worldwide.

With over 2 million people already active and playing games through the platform each month, Mistplay is focused on leveraging the best loyalty insights and levers from around the world in order to build both trust and engagement in a way that very few platforms can offer.

My guest is Nicholas Kerr, VP of Loyalty and Lifecycle at Mistplay who shares some of the early successes they’ve achieved by optimizing their onboarding and lifecycle processes, using a gamified system that gamers know and love.

Listen to learn all about Mistplay and please do enjoy our conversation.

Show Notes:

1) Nicholas Kerr

2) Mistplay

3) Mistplay blogs

4) LTL Podcast: #187: Microsoft Rewards - Insights and Ideas

In this weeks episode of Let’s talk “a little” loyalty Tom reviews the original podcast where Paula was joined by Antonio Ricciardi, SVP Consumer Intelligence & Engagement at Etisalat by e&, who’s responsible for leading their Smiles Program.

Tom highlights Antonio’s key learnings from his journey to evolve from simple loyalty concepts to become a compelling consumer marketplace achieving even greater customer engagement and loyalty.

e& have a long history of constant evolution and innovation, which includes developing propositions focused on driving customer loyalty.

Show Notes:

1) Antonio Ricciardi

2) e&⁠

3) Smiles Program⁠

4) #249: UAE Telecoms Giant "Etisalat" Leverages Customer Loyalty for Growth

Today's episode of Let's Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV features one of our favorite and most frequent guests on the show, Amanda Cromhout.

Amanda is the Founder and CEO of Truth, a loyalty consultancy firm based in South Africa, and she is also well-known to you all, as a host of an episode every month of Let's Talk Loyalty. Most importantly this year, in 2023, Amanda was recognized globally and voted the International Loyalty Personality of the Year.

Today, Amanda joins us on the show to share the launch of her book called "Blind Loyalty – 101 Loyalty Concepts SIMPLIFIED", a book which has profound personal meaning for Amanda as she will explain.

I believe it's a book that will become a bible for loyalty marketing professionals around the world as we increasingly strive for knowledge and global excellence, and we are thrilled that so many insights from "Let's Talk Loyalty" are mentioned throughout the book.

Amanda’s team in Truth has painstakingly listened to every guest’s answer to our opening question about what is their favourite loyalty program, and her book holds the definite list of answers from our guests over the last 18 months and which programs were answered most often! So, whether you want to simply learn about loyalty in a way that’s truly simplified, or you want to support the Blind Loyalty Trust, or if you’re just curious about whether your program made the list of the industry’s favorites, you are sure to love this show!

Listen to enjoy our conversation with Amanda Cromhout from Truth!

Show Notes:

1) Amanda Cromhout

2) Truth

3) Blind Loyalty Trust

4) Blind Loyalty – 101 Loyalty Concepts SIMPLIFIED

5) Amanda Recognised as the International Loyalty Personality of the Year⁠

6) Watch the full video interview on Loyalty TV

Today’s episode features insights from our friends in Valuedynamx as they celebrate their latest partnership with Expedia as part of their ongoing product development.

Valuedynamx is a fairly new brand in the loyalty travel industry, but it is part of the well-known Collinson Group.

Today’s conversation centers on how the Expedia Group has become an exciting addition to the Value Dynamx product, as loyalty programs around the world looks for new ways to differentiate their brands from their competitors using their loyalty program propositions.

Joining me to share some exciting travel trends and insights as well as the early results of their partnership in Alice Wynne, Commercial Product Manager at ValueDynamx as well as Carolina Cabero, VP of Commercial Partnerships for the Expedia Group based in Spain.

This episode is sponsored by Valuedynamx.

Show notes:

1) Alice Wynne

2) Carolina Cabero

3) Valuedynamx

4) Collinson Group

5) Expedia Group

6) EMEA Trends: The Power of Strategic Partnerships: Enhancing Loyalty Programs in 2023

In this weeks episode of Let’s talk “a little” loyalty Tom reviews the original podcast where Paula talks to Lisa Routel, Verizon’s Marketing Strategy Lead to learn all about their loyalty program “Verizon Up” has won multiple loyalty awards

Verizon is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States and is of course a huge company with a huge customer base to retain in an extremely competitive industry.

Lisa shares the latest propositions she’s building to keep Verizon customers engaged as well as some insights from her earlier career in loyalty with leading brands like Jaguar.

Show Notes:

1) Lisa Routel⁠

2) Verizon

3) Verizon Up

4) #248: Leading Loyalty for Telecoms Giant Verizon

Today’s guest is well known to everyone working in the travel loyalty industry globally.

Danielle Brown is the Chief Marketing Officer of Plusgrade - the global ancillary revenue leader in travel, as well as Points, a platform that specialises in loyalty currency retailing.

This conversation tells the extra-ordinary story that while global economic events over the years have had devastating effects on the travel industry, each of these crises somehow also created unique opportunities for innovation and evolution in travel loyalty programs, with the result that Plusgrade now delivers over a billion dollars in ancillary revenue for its partners every year.

Danielle shares some of their success stories and explains why currency retailing has become such a powerful driver of both short-term revenues, as well as measurable increases in longer-term loyalty from premium members of travel loyalty programs.

Listen to enjoy my conversation with Danielle Brown, from Points and Plusgrade.

This episode is sponsored by Plusgrade.

Show Notes:

1) Danielle Brown

2) Plusgrade

3) Points

4) Watch the full interview video at Loyalty TV

Today’s episode features two powerhouses of the travel loyalty sector who have joined forces in recent years.

Stephen Gilbert is the VP of Salesforce Loyalty working within the Collinson Group, with responsibility for creating the next generation of Loyalty Programs on the Salesforce Loyalty Ecosystem, and he joins us today along with Ram Machiraju, Vice President of Product Management at Salesforce, focused on loyalty

and referral marketing.

Stephen and Ram share insights from airline, hotel and rail clients in the context of growth in the travel eco-system and explain why Collinson and Salesforce have joined forces.

They also share and what they each believe are the key success factors for clients, with more and more consumers committed to spending their disposable income on travel and experiences.

Listen to hear their insights on extending the value of your loyalty program beyond the basic transactions, through smart partnerships and everyday earn and burn solutions, so you can engage with your members even when their purchases are infrequent.

This episode is sponsored by the Collinson Group.

Show Notes:

1) Stephen Gilbert⁠

2) Collinson Group

3) Ram Machiraju

4) Salesforce

5) #362: Discovery Vitality: Behavioural Change Programme is resulting in Healthier Lifestyle through Generous Rewards