Let's Talk Loyalty

Etihad Guest is a world-leader in airline loyalty, renowned for delivering innovative ideas that delight members in unexpected ways!

In today's episode, Let's Talk Loyalty is joined once again by Kim Hardaker, Managing Director of the Etihad Guest Programme, who shares the latest ideas and insights from one of the travel industry's leading reward programs.

Their recent campaigns include a proposition to support the airlines sustainability goals, and a "world-first" idea that celebrated the reopening of Australia's borders post-pandemic.

Listen to enjoy another episode jam-packed full of thoughtfulness and innovation.

Show Notes:

1. Etihad Guest
2. Kim Hardaker
3. Etihad Guest Miles
4. Miles On the Go
5. Conscious Choices

The global Covid crisis challenged many businesses to the brink of survival, especially in the travel industry.

Across airlines, hotels, hospitality and duty free, with global travel volumes almost non-existent, these travel companies were challenged to innovate in ways they may never have imagined before.

Lagardère Travel Retail saw the pandemic as an incredible opportunity to create compelling new channel with their customers, creating an entirely new sales and marketing approach that their customers loved!

In this short episode, we summarise what we learned from Chief Executive Officer Eudes Farbe, and Chief Information Officer, Adam McCarthy to understand their unique, world-class solution in the absence of duty free customers in their airports across China.

Listen to learn how Lagardère created such significant value using their loyalty program and leveraged China's unique digital eco-system to achieve a profitable new route to market that has proven to be pandemic-proof.

Show Notes:

1. Lagardère Travel Retail
2. Eudes Farbe
3. Adam McCarthy

Sonder Media is a consulting firm that specializes in identifying, valuing, and optimizing the media value of loyalty programs, and in today’s episode, Jonathan Hopkins and Angus Frazer, co-founders of Sonder Media, share their expertise and insights on this high margin opportunity.

We discussed the power and potential profitability of using the unique assets, permissions and insights from your loyalty program as a media business, an increasingly popular idea being considered by program owners in order to increase their returns on their loyalty program investment.

Join us for a discussion about both the challenges and the potential of this big idea, and how you can explore building a media business in a way that continues to meet the needs of your members and your brand and potentially also with advertising partners.

Show notes:

1. Sonder Media
2. Jonathan Hopkins
3. Angus Frazer

Time Stamps:

02:46 - Favorite Loyalty Program

05:12 - How does owned media can measure and obviously increase the return on investment of loyalty programs.

11:38 - How to Identify the best way to monetize owned media without compromising core business objectives

14:41 - What are the particular loyalty programs or sectors and categories that are working for this opportunity with owned media?

18:30 - Brands Sonder Media worked with

20:35 - Understanding the Value of Owned Media

25:12 - What other types of opportunities for value and attention should we consider?

27:20 - The Opportunity of Brands for Media

When it comes to loyalty programmes in the UK, the gold standard programme that consumers say they love the most is often the Boots Advantage Program.

2022 marks the 25th anniversary of this iconic programme, so "Let's Talk Loyalty" was delighted to be joined by Hollie McLellan, Head of Customer Marketing and Loyalty for Boots UK, to discuss the company's latest innovations and initiatives.

Join us to hear this masterclass in loyalty marketing, showcasing their new "Beauty Club" which features content marketing as a new loyalty driver, as well as their new "Price Advantage" proposition, and their exciting tests with gamification and subscription strategies.

Boots UK is truly an iconic retail brand so don't miss this exclusive opportunity to learn how their Advantage Program is changing and innovating for the future.

Show Notes:

1. Boots UK
2. Boots Advantage Program
3. My Beauty
4. Boots X
5. Hollie McLellan

Time Stamps:

03:26 - Hollie’s Favorite Loyalty Program

07:18 - History of the Advantage Program

10:07 - Approximate numbers of members of Boots Advantage Program in the UK

11:12 - Points reward elements

12:52 - How staff embrace and execute the program very well

14:39 - My Beauty

17:58 - Contents as a big part of the future

24:19 - Price Advantage Proposition

35:18 - What we can expect coming up next with Boots

“To make the customer fall in love with the brands.” This is how Alejandro Gonzalez Saul, CEO of Puntos Columbia described the purpose and goal of this market-leading loyalty program operating as a coalition in Colombia.

In this short summary show, "Let’s Talk Loyalty" looks back on a fascinating conversation with the true loyalty market leader in Colombia to understand its impressive proposition and performance.

Listen to learn some of the secrets that Alejandro shared that drive the incredible success of "Puntos Colombia" in the South American market.

Show Notes:

1. Alejandro Gonzalez Saul
2. Puntos Columbia
3. #86: Coalition Loyalty In Columbia with Puntos Columbia

The International Airline Group is one of the world's largest airline groups, formed by the merger of British Airways and the Spanish Airline Iberia. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it flew to 279 destinations and carried approximately 118 million passengers per year.

IAG created a new unified loyalty currency called Avios, as well as a dedicated loyalty division that has been operating in various forms for over 30 years.

In this episode, we are joined by the Chief Product Officer of IAG Loyalty, Stephen Scott as we look at some of the big ideas that are engaging members right now, how they are evolving how they earn and spend their Avios, such as card linking and e-commerce, before moving on to emerging concepts that we're all starting to think about, such as NFTs.

Stephen explains how the pandemic impacted customers all over the world and changed their behaviour and use of technology and how IAG Loyalty has focused on achieving a complete digital transformation to support them.

There’s much more on the way as IAG Loyalty continues to expand.

Listen to this conversation and learn what the future holds for the loyalty division of the International Airlines Group.

This episode is sponsored by Collinson.

Show Notes:

1. The International Airlines Group (IAG)
2. Stephen Scott
3. Avios

Time Stamps:

02:42 - Stephen Scott’s Favorite Loyalty Program

06:43 - Consumer's Behavior of loyalty currency with e-stores

12:16 - Avios Card Linking Proposition

13: 57 - Brands with card linking

15:39 - Where is the IAG Loyalty at now?

22:41 - Scott’s Experience with Digital Transformation

25:31 - Avios Digital Transformation journey

28:42 - Cultural Challenge

31:30 - Does the pandemic accelerate the digital transformation?

33:08 - IAG: Hangar 51 insight

36:39 - NFTs in the world of Loyalty

How do you measure and prove the value of your investment in loyalty marketing?

In this episode, we are joined by Brad Macdonald, Vice President of Loyalty Strategy at Epsilon, who shares their approach to assessing the value of brands' investment in their loyalty marketing initiatives with an "a value led approach".

We also announce a partnership with Epsilon together with Let’s Talk Loyalty launching a unique, personalized, and private "Loyalty Lab" every month for one lucky listener to have a chance to have the opportunity to work with Epsilon's experts for an independent review of your loyalty program and come away with some concrete ideas to help it perform better.

Listen to this episode for more information on how to measure and multiply the value of your loyalty program.

Show Notes:

1. Brad Macdonald
2. Epsilon Loyalty Lab

Time Stamps:

03:12 - Brad’s Favorite Loyalty Program

07:35 - The current landscape for loyalty marketers

11:07 - How Epsilon measures the value of the loyalty program

26:49 - Epsilon Loyalty Lab

In today’s short summary episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty, Paula Thomas looked back on her conversation with Virgin Reds Chief Marketing Officer, Kelly Best who shared exactly how Virgin is prioritising its customers throughout their new Virgin Red Program.

Virgin realised that customers really dislike when their loyalty points expire, so they created a programme where that would never happen!

Another key principle is how Virgin Red ensured its program is accessible to all of its members, creating an affordable and appealing partnerships with dozens of small businesses, supporting them while ensuring rewards were easy to reach for its members.

Listen to this show to learn more about how iconic brand is truly prioritising its customers in its group-wide loyalty program.

Show Notes:

1. Virgin Red
2. Kelly Best
3. #84: Virgin Red Loyalty Programme Launches in the UK
4. #195: Virgin Red - The Red Thread Connecting the Virgin Brand Globally

In this episode, Łukasz Słoniewski of Comarch joins Let's Talk Loyalty to discuss the "2022 Global Report on Loyalty Marketing & Rewards Programs," a research report performed by Forrester Consulting in Q1 2022 with 549 loyalty marketing leaders from around the world.

Łukasz shared some of his key learnings from the report, such as understanding the significant difficulties we as loyalty marketers face, the most popular loyalty program benefits being offered in 2022, and their ambitions for the next five years.

Listen to learn from this interesting research on the loyalty marketing business, and how these global experts expect our programs to change in the coming months and years.

This episode is sponsored by Comarch.

Show Notes:

1. "2022 Global Report on Loyalty Marketing & Rewards Programs.”
2. Łukasz Słoniewski
3. Comarch

The winners of the 2022 "Freddie Awards" have just been announced, the awards created to recognise the gold standard in travel loyalty programs worldwide.

The winners of the Freddie Awards are chosen by their members, with millions of customers voting for their favourite programs.

In today's episode of "Let's Talk Loyalty", we are joined today by the founder of the Freddie Awards, Randy Petersen, to learn all about the origins of these awards, who was "Freddie" and of course which airlines, hotels and credit cards were honored with the top awards in 2022.

Show Notes:

1. 2022 Freddie Awards Winner
2. Randy Petersen
3. Freddie Awards