Loyalty is not a new term to marketers, however, it is quickly becoming a winning proposition for brands all across the world. Since the emergence of digitisation through e-commerce and digital payment infrastructure a new chapter of loyalty programs has arrived. 
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Marketers need to shift their focus from creating absent cookie cutter one-size-fits-all loyalty programs to immersive personalised and unique loyalty experiences. We need to start being responsive to customers across the channels of their preference, relevant to customers based on their changing needs and enable them to choose how they would like to be rewarded.
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Let’s start with a brief lesson on how customer loyalty programs first kicked-off. Loyalty programs have stories dating back to the 18th century where retailers apparently used redeemable copper coins for future product purchases.
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The late 1900s saw the birth of one of the most well-known loyalty programs ever created: Frequent Fliers. Often regarded as the first full-scale card-based loyalty program of the modern era, American Airlines' launched their Frequent Flier program in 1981. The program revolutionised customer loyalty and now boasts over 50 million members in their revamped AAdvantage program.

In 1995 Tesco launched the revolutionary loyalty club card. The science and messaging behind the program itself became quite sophisticated and changed the game for Tesco. Edwina Dunn (co-founder of dunnhumby) explains, "First and foremost it was a thank you and that thank you was money off, so people visited the store one more time, which led to millions and millions of pounds’ increase [in revenue]. They would occasionally put another item in their basket which translated to a huge sales uplift."
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Today, programs such as Starbucks Rewards is optimised for mobile and the app acts as a rewards program and a mobile payment method. Members will soon be able to choose how they would like to redeem their "stars" for a wider range of rewards. The app is a utility to drive customers in-store and bridge the loyalty gap across the digital and physical environments. Other loyalty programs also reward points on social media shares and referrals as it helps drive new customers and grow revenue - rewards are now almost endless. With the rise of digitisation consumers now expect more for their loyalty - the big question they are asking is how is the brand being loyal to me? Customer loyalty is about the company acting loyal to its customers, not just the vice versa.
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The true source of modern loyalty is to create lasting customer relationships and to recognise and reward them as individuals; not as nameless, faceless point collectors. To demonstrate your commitment to the customer beyond just purchases it’s time you start delivering on these three key tenets:

1. Be Responsive
Relationships are built on two-communication. Today’s consumer wants to be part of a loyalty program that cares about what they have to say and responds to them on their preferred channel. With so many digital experiences available at their fingertips, customers have grown accustomed to good design and responsive interfaces. Providing access to your program via both website and mobile app has a significantly positive effect on customer satisfaction. More than 60% of consumers in Asia Pacific are now able to interact with their loyalty programs online. This implies that 40% of consumers can’t interact with their loyalty programs on their channels of choice^.

Loyalty programs should offer members a succession of experiences from the moment they join to the time they first earn points, first receive a points statement, and redeem and beyond. Each of these experiences presents as a moment of inspiration and can have a very meaningful impact on how a member perceives and engages with a program. 

In order for brands to provide these experiences, they need to be able to respond instantly to any customer data signal, such as demographic, preference, behavioural or location. Businesses need access to this data in real-time so they can activate this data and communicate at the moment.

2. Be Relevant
In a recent whitepaper created by MasterCard, when consumers were asked whether they will be willing to share personal information with their loyalty programs in order to receive a more relevant experience or benefits, 71% reported being willing to do so. Positive personalised experiences for a member is what it is all about, however, only 36% of consumers are highly satisfied with the level of personalisation in their current loyalty programs^.
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Companies need to start treating data like it’s a precious gift; customers need to be aware of what data you have about them and how you are using it. You will be surprised at how much information a customer is willing to share if you just ask them the question and share the benefit. It’s time to step away from the basic first name, last name, gender personalisation and start looking at the things that really matter.

Use data to provide useful content, personalised offers and lucrative rewards based on the customer's data signals. Present opportunities for customers to respond to a wide range of challenges from photo, video and social challenges to polls and surveys, contests, games and sweepstakes. All these engaging brand experiences can be activated by leveraging your data and communicating through the customer's channel of preference, whether it be through email, mobile push, mobile wallet, SMS, social, website or in-store via point of sale.

3. Be Rewarded
​While your customers might be interested in the same types of products, they’re not all interested in the same kinds of rewards. Loyalty programs which offer only one type of reward can box itself into a corner by lowering its perceived value for prospects, especially in highly competitive discount-driven markets such as retail or cosmetics.

This might be showing my age, but I remember the excitement of being able to choose my toy when purchasing a Happy Meal at McDonald's. I get the same enjoyment today when looking at the Virgin store and deciding what to spend my points on. The opportunity here is how can all businesses apply that capability to their existing loyalty programs. Smile.io’s Kristen Burkard says that "Combining transactional rewards with experiential ones will help your program stand out."

The types of rewards can differ based on the customer like discounts, free swag and less tangible but equally valuable rewards like VIP access to sales. Sephora does this well with their ‘Beauty Insider’ program by allowing members to redeem their points in rewards.

​Find a unique way to add this to your loyalty proposition and give customers a choice on how they want to redeem their points. This gamification element will automatically increase the appeal of joining your program and add a level of personalisation that customers crave.

References
^ Achieving Advocacy and Influence in a Changing Loyalty Landscape - A MasterCard Asia Pacific Study
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We live in a world today where data is king. Every business decision we make, marketing strategy we create, customer touchpoint we design is informed by or built to capture data.
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Since working in marketing for over 10 years the holy grail for every organisation is to have a single customer view; a platform where they can store millions of different data points about their customers that can be viewed in one place. Marketers and I.T departments globally have invested billions of dollars in data lakes, data warehouses, DMPs, CDPs and the list goes on and on.

What if as an industry we got it all wrong?

I am loyal to around 4 brands; Apple, Nike, Brixton & Woolworths. I buy all my technology at Apple, shoes at Nike, hats at Brixton and groceries at Woolworths. Every single one of these businesses have a different perspective on Billy Loizou. Im sure all my demographic information is the same but there would be differences in almost every other data set. I don't mind receiving marketing material from these brands through email or social, BUT all of a sudden every Tom, Dick & Harry brand wants to use any of my 'so called' publicly available data through social platforms or via media agencies to target me. I get it, sometimes it's effective but I have never given you permission to message me, so now it has just become extremely annoying.

With GDPR soon to be mandated globally, Facebook getting dragged over the coals for their most recent behaviour with Cambridge Analytica and allowing anyone to be searchable with their security mobile number - TRUST is at an all time low with consumers and data SECURITY is at all time high with businesses.

What if we flipped the data value exchange model upside down?
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Imagine a world where YOU the customer owned your data and had a single brand view; a platform where you can store all the different data points brands have about you in one place. You control and manage a simple profile of all your information and decide what data can be used for marketing and targeting purposes. Any change you make to your address, preferences, interests, subscription, updates every database you are apart of - or the brands that want to target you have to access this secure database which you control.

All of a sudden this model changes how business start paying for advertising, instead of paying media agencies and social giants to target "customers who may be interested in blah blah blah" - they pay you the REAL customer. Not only do you have complete control of your data but you also can get paid to be advertised to. I personally think a world like this is achievable.

Im a dreamer, if you are too I would love to connect over a coffee and chat anything to do with marketing.

It’s now been over 130 years since retail magnate John Wanamaker said “It’s the most famous problem in marketing. I know only half of my advertising works. The problem is, I don’t know which half.”

The ingredient list for today's marketing mix just keeps getting longer. The question every marketer asks themselves is how do I balance and prioritize my efforts between short-term sales activity and long-term brand building?

The Triple Threat Model
​In basketball, the most effective player on the court is the one who can impact the game in multiple ways and not just by scoring. The player is coined a “Triple Threat,” as they excel in all three key skills — passing, rebounding, and scoring.
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How does this relate to marketing, you might ask? Well, based on my experience in marketing within agencies, technology vendors, and brands — plus supported by research performed by the “Godfathers of Advertising,” Les Binet and Peter Field — I’ve identified three key moments that marketers should master. I crafted a model which aligns the mega, macro, and micro of marketing campaigns to enable short-term results and long-term brand building.

Mega Marketing — Creating Brand Cut-Through
Audience: Mass Market
Medium: Broadcast, Print Media, and Out-Of-Home
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A successful mega-marketing campaign drives brand awareness, sparks conversation, and ultimately, fosters loyalty. Most big brands launch a campaign like this yearly and, based on the research from Binet and Field, emotional brand building is the key to long-term profits.

Macro Marketing — Driving Sales Activation
Audience: Targeted Segments
Medium: Website, Display, Search, Social, Email & SMS
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Effective macro-marketing campaigns target specific audiences, demand engagement, promote value and ultimately, drive sales. Most of these campaigns are tied to a commercial or seasonal calendar such as Christmas, tax time or holiday periods and excel with the use of rational-based messaging.
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Nike is one of the few brands that doesn’t need to rely on discounts to drive sales. They provide their customers value by encouraging them to sign up to exclusive content, products, and offers via email. Throughout the different seasons, they introduce new looks and trends straight to the inbox and their customers anticipate each new release.

Micro Marketing — Earning Customer Loyalty
Audience: 1:1 Messaging
Medium: Email, SMS, Push, Direct Mail
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Data-driven, micro-marketing campaigns typically are hyper-personalized and loyalty-focused, and ultimately, enable memorable experiences. Most of these campaigns are predictable in nature and are triggered based on a customer’s interaction with a brand.

After spending the last 10 years of my career working with marketers and leading customer experience with some of the world’s most trusted brands, I thought it was about time I grounded myself in my own research project – to speak with and learn from 50 marketers in just 50 days.

To be honest it seemed like an achievable challenge – didn’t anticipate that organising 50 different marketers diaries was near impossible. I was successful however and the conversations were invaluable. I was lucky enough to meet with CMOs from all over Asia Pacific across retail and banking to not-for-profit.

Importance of customer experience
​One thing that we all agreed on during the 50 days was how customer experience continues to become more important and is quickly becoming the new competitive battleground for brands. The investment today in global customer engagement is north of $3.6 billion dollars according to multiple marketing reports. Marketers understand the importance of technology and data to deliver great customers experiences, however most aren’t achieving the results they were promised or thought were possible.

Decreasing budgets
The fact that many marketers aren’t getting the return on their technology investment may have something to do with the fact that marketing budgets have decreased for the first time in four years according to Gartner’s latest Spend Survey. Marketing leaders must now justify their past spend and show the returns they deliver. It is clear that expectations in the boardroom are not being met and it’s time to show results that are actually delivering real business outcomes.

The biggest hit has been the investment in martech as it has fallen by 15%. CMOs are pulling back on last year’s high spending commitment amid concerns over marketing’s capability to acquire and manage technology effectively. The need today is far greater than it has ever been in re-evaluating your technology investment, reviewing the capabilities of your resources internally, and creating alignment across the whole business.

Setting Priorities
So what becomes extremely important as marketing budgets are shrinking? Combining the right marketing platform with the right people to execute your strategy successfully.

Over time the obsession for marketers investing in shiny objects has led them to some cold hard truths. In the Mad Men era marketers invested heavily in agencies to think creatively about how they could advertise and communicate their brand to the masses. Many strategically sound concepts were presented. Fast-forward to today and marketers are investing heavily into marketing clouds and futuristic-sounding technology to advertise and communicate their brand at a 1-to-1 level. Technology is not a strategy. It is an enabler to help you implement and achieve your strategic vision.

Mark Ritson, award winning columnist and marketing professor, said shiny objects such as virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence etc. are distracting us from our real jobs and the big challenges that we are all facing. He said, “The history of marketing is not filled with death. It is filled with evolution and change. Disruption use to look like a VHS recorder. When it was launched in Australia we all assumed that cinemas would die. Except they didn’t. They thrived and they had their best decade.” History tells us we learn to live together and blend together. Things slow down. This same theory goes for marketing. The tactics may be changing but the fundamentals stay the same.

Use design thinking
Elon Musk has pioneered and transformed industries with the launch of Tesla and SpaceX. Musk is the type of businessman who learns by doing. His businesses thrive using the principles of design thinking, in which they are constantly prototyping and failing quickly in order to progress. Tesla however has faced mounting public pressure amid a production slowdown for its Model 3, its lower-priced car. The company recently revealed that it missed its target to produce 2,500 cars a week, disappointing investors.

Musk made a bold statement following the news. “Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated.” In this one statement he summarises the issue most marketers are facing: the relationship between people and technology. Many of us have shifted to relying more on technology than human beings.

Rely on people
​In today’s marketing landscape, you should be increasing your reliance on people and partnerships that align with your desired business outcomes. Businesses need to create internal alignment across five key organisational pillars: Brand, Strategy, Technology, Performance, and Experience.

There isn’t a magic marketing machine that will do all of this for you. You need great colleagues. You need excellent marketing partners. And in many cases, you’ll want a level of service with your marketing technology. Software has led many companies to create self-service portals and automated support, and marketers are starting to feel this backlash. Despite technological advancements, sometimes you need a pat on the back and to hear someone say, “we’ve got that covered for you.”
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People aren’t talked about as much these days. We’re intrigued by AI, machine learning, VR, AR, and other newer technologies. After many years of marketing to marketers and cramming in 50 meetings with marketing leaders into 50 days, it is clear to me that we can start to solve the marketing performance problem with people, strategic alignment, and plain-old execution.

I was on the phone to a friend of mine the other day, and I was talking about how much I was craving Vegemite. A few hours later, when I opened up Facebook, the first thing I saw was an ad for Vegemite!! How weird!! Has Facebook been listening to my phone calls? Does this sound familiar?...Well it could actually be true!

​Earlier today I came across a tweet from Dylan McKay claiming that he'd downloaded his Facebook data as a zip file and it bizarrely included his entire call and sms history. See for yourself.​

So I decided to do some digging into my own Facebook data. After downloading my personal data directly from Facebook I realised the immense amount of data they have available on me i.e. my posts, messenger activity, timeline, friends, places I have been, ads I have interacted with, instagram specific interactions and strangely my entire phone contact list. I admit, I was aware of most of this data being available however not my phone contact list.
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​Access your own Facebook data by going to settings and clicking on the "Download a copy" link. Example below.

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Companies regardless of them being a fashion retailer or technology giant need to give control back to their customers. Allow your customers access to control the information you have, the information you collect and more importantly the information you use. This should also be designed in a way that is clear and simple to understand - not designed in a way that is strategically complicated so users abandon the process.

It seems Facebook has worked tirelessly over the years to gather as much data on users as it can – and to profit from it. As of the fourth quarter of 2017, Facebook had 2.2 billion monthly active users. Facebook's revenue grew from 7.87 billion in 2013 to 40.7 billion US dollars in 2017, it accumulated a net income of 15.9 billion US dollars and majority of that revenue was generated via advertising.
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In 2004 Zuckerburg used the term “Dumb fucks” when he described the users of Facebook for trusting him with their personal data.  Zuckerberg also talked about what Facebook insiders called radical transparency, an idea that partly amounted to an insistence that old ideas about privacy were becoming outdated. “To get people to the point where there’s more openness – that’s a big challenge,” Zuckerberg said. “But I think we’ll do it. I just think it will take time. The concept that the world will be better if you share more is something that’s pretty foreign to a lot of people, and it runs into all these privacy concerns.” 

Facebook has gone to great lengths to convince members of the public that it’s all about “connecting people” and “building a global community”. In 2016 this became the tale of Facebook & Cambridge Analytica, a saga that highlights the awful mess that the biggest player in billions of online lives has enabled. If you aren’t familiar with the story Cambridge Analytica spent more than $1 million dollars harvesting personal data through Facebook so they could micro-target you with advertising. Advertising which Christopher Wylie (ex Director of Research at Cambridge Analytica) claims is grossly unethical and uses new constructs of psychology to target you based on personality. He say’s they used apps such as games that have special behaviours that harvest your data and pull all your friends data while they are at it. Once they have this data they know how to talk to you, via what medium and how often they have to show you a message in order to change your behaviour. This strategy is what most claim was used in the 2016 US presidential election which led to Donald Trumps success and in the same year Brexit. Chris says they are responsible for creating the worlds largest psychological warfare tool and full service propaganda machine who can influence how people behave and react. They did this by whispering in the ear of each and every voter using Facebook. In my opinion this is one of the worlds biggest data breaches.

To dig more into the revelations surrounding the Cambridge Analytica scandal click here.

​Well I’m not Elon Musk and won’t make headlines about joining the #DeleteFacebook movement, but I plan on taking a stance. Data should be treated like a precious gift and until Facebook start to take peoples data more seriously I will be deleting my personal account.

Actions speak louder then words Mark. Make it happen!

2015 was the year of the Customer Journey, 2016 was the year of Design Thinking....so what's does 2017 have in store for businesses and marketers across the globe?

To find an answer I decided to do some research on how the economy has changed over the last 50 years. It was evident that consumers are willing to pay a premium for a product or service based on it's perceived value; such as does it save me time? does it create a memorable experience? does it have long lasting qualities?

Thanks to Joseph Pine II and James H Gilmore they made it quite simple to understand with an article on HBR called 'Welcome To The Experience Economy.' They simplify the entire history of economic progress across the four stages of evolution using a birthday cake as the example:

1. The Commodities Economy: As the agrarian economy advanced, mothers made birthday cakes from scratch, mixing farm commodities such as flour, sugar, butter and eggs. That together it would cost a dollar - however it took time to buy the ingredients and make the cake.
   
   
2. The Goods Economy: As the goods-based industrial economy boomed, mothers paid a few dollars to Betty Crocker for premixed ingredients, where all you had to do was follow the recipe and bake the cake - you saved time and ingredients by buying it all in one box.
   
   
3. The Services Economy: When the service economy took hold, busy parents ordered quality made cakes from the bakery or grocery store. It would cost $10-$15, far more then packaged ingredients however it was convenient, desirable and saved you time in the kitchen.
   
   
4. The Experiences Economy: In the time starved late 90's, parents neither make the birthday cake nor even throw the party. Instead, they spend $100 or more to outsource the entire birthday event to Mc'Donald's so they can stage a memorable event for the kids - and the cake is thrown in for free.
   
   

An experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates memorable events. Experiences have always been at the heart of the entertainment business - think Walt Disney. However if you could charge admission for consumers to interact and engage with your brand, what would you do differently? - thats a good place to start brainstorming.