Nectar Italia ‘beating expectations’
The recently launched Nectar Italia coalition loyalty scheme is outperforming expectations, according to owner Groupe Aeroplan. Read more ...

Social media challenges search engines for consumer influence
Use of social media has increased fourfold in the last two years, finds survey Read more ...

Employers struggle to manage employee rewards, says report
The proportion of HR professionals who believe that their organisation, or their client, is poorly prepared to manage the risks around how they reward their staff has grown in the past 12 months, according to a survey of Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) members. Read more ...

Capital One Canada and Delta Air Lines partner
Capital One Canada and Delta Air Lines have partnered to offer Delta SkyMiles on Capital One credit cards. Read more ...

India’s Kingfisher Airlines partners with HSBC Sri Lanka
King Club, the frequent flyer program of India’s Kingfisher Airlines, has entered into an alliance with HSBC, Sri Lanka, to allow King Club members, who are also the bank’s credit cardholders, to easily convert their HSBC reward points into King Miles.
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AmEx launches the Pass
American Express Co. has launched a reloadable prepaid card designed for parents to give to their teenage children to manage help their allowances. Read more ...

Gulf airline launches Indian rewards scheme
New loyalty programme for 'guest' members travelling to and from India.
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Barclays busker only accepts contactless
Contactless-enabled guitarist plays in London Read more ...

Home furnishings partner extends Payback deal
Further three years added to partnership Read more ...

Bank offers “loyalty mortgages”
Discounts on mortgage products for current accountholders Read more ...

Getting real with your customers
In troubled economic times, the need for management to receive accurate customer information more rapidly is increasingly critical to the success of companies' marketing campaigns. Marketers have a multitude of media options available for switching on consumer emotions and engaging with their audience and selecting the correct channel to execute this is crucial, says Alan Walker, MD of Teletrack Read more ...

Receiving credit for being green
Using Airmiles experience to mitigate global warming
It was only a matter of time before the first national “green” loyalty scheme launched in the UK.
What Loyalty Magazine expected was that this would come from a small environmental organization. In fact it has been created by some of the most experienced customer retention brains in the business – most of them ex-Air Miles.
The Ice loyalty scheme promises to “support British sustainable retail, with one of the country’s most generous and flexible loyalty schemes.” Read more ...

Red Cross Social Media case study
Using blogs and tweets as a call to action Read more ...

New research shows the most buoyant markets for retailer cards
Brazil tops the charts for the highest number of retailers with their own payments card. The most significant potential exists to develop retailer payment cards in India, Russia and Vietnam.
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Shell – Playing it’s cards right
Shell is the largest branded retailer in the world with over 45,000 sites. It operates loyalty schemes in 20 countries and has 20 million registered loyalty customers.

Crispin Rogers, global loyalty and B2C payments manager for Shell explained to Loyalty why the concept of loyalty is so important for his company. Read more ...

Driving customer loyalty with the right IT
How to ensure loyalty schemes continue to deliver the rewards. It is the insight that is gained from understanding a customer's behaviour that is the real pearl, says Simon Helliwell, Retail Consultant at Clarity Commerce Read more ...

Customers want dialogue with brands and businesses
Research has found that most consumers want a dialogue with the brands and businesses they encounter, but only 10% of European marketers are actually joining in the conversation as equals. Read more ...

The centrality of customer retention to hotel’s operating model
Customer retention remains one of the single most important operational goals for hotels. The effectiveness of hotel loyalty programmes depends entirely on the nature of the programme itself, and on how innovative the hotel is willing to be with regards to its implementation, says Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of TravelInk’d Read more ...

Keeping the customer online
Brand loyalty in the online world is far more fragile than the real world. Graham Moore, e-retail specialist, Zeus Technology looks at the importance of maintaining a consistent online brand presence to avoid customer churn and says it's vital that web traffic is prioritised and managed effectively. Read more ...

Low cost airlines embracing loyalty – report
An average of one in five seats flown globally today is on a Low Cost Carrier (LCC). Loyalty programs have become the norm, with 8 out of the 10 largest LCCs offering at least some form of loyalty program. Now, says Carlson Marketing’s Evert de Boer, senior director of the global airline practice, it is time for LCCs to differentiate themselves and become more customer value oriented if they are to continue to be competitive. Read more ...

Collecting that right kind of data is vital for true customer insight
When it comes to customer insight, it’s not just how many customers you have on your database, but the depth of the data and what you do with it. Article by Richard Higginbotham, head of marketing for Transactis. Read more ...

Turning browsers into buyers: Making online shopping more personal
FAQs just don’t hack it!: UK retailers are increasing both their investment and focus in e-commerce services to attract the growing amount of customers who shop online.  A recent study by eBay predicts that 85% of consumers intend to maintain or increase their online shopping.  Article by Ravi Shankar Pandey, senior VP and UK head of NIIT Technologies. Read more ...

Asda & loyalty: balancing expectations and cost
The current financial strain on businesses may lead some to overlook the importance of staff and customer loyalty. And while tightening the purse strings may be a priority, company loyalty doesn’t need to nose-dive as a result, says Tracy Aslam, Director of Asda Business Rewards. Read more ...

Will Barclaycard’s Freedom proposition drive increased business?
The Barclaycard Freedom loyalty scheme has called for a significant IT investment, commitment to a major advertising and marketing budget – and the appointment of a number of heavyweights to run it, including Sarah Newman former general manager for strategic delivery at British Airways and several others from the airline. But not everyone in the industry is convinced that the Freedom loyalty proposition will lead to increased business. Read more ...

Sainsbury’s chooses coupons  to boost Nectar loyalty - Andrew Mann interview
Last month Nectar overtook Tesco Clubcard in cardholder numbers. This was used by Sainsbury’s to claim that it now had access to the largest loyal customer base.

The news prompted Loyalty Magazine to call Andrew Mann, director of insight and loyalty at Sainsbury’s, to ask him for his views on loyalty, Nectar, data and a few other things too. Read more ...

Freedom goes live with 30,000 merchants plus Shell
Exclusive interviews with Barclaycard and Shell on how Freedom feels so far

Barclaycard went live with its new Freedom loyalty scheme today, with the pressing of a big orange button at 7.30 this morning as the www.barclaycard.co.uk/freedom website updated with full details of the scheme and its partners.

Supermarkets losing out to value retailers
Over a third of shoppers have switched from their usual grocery supermarkets to ‘value’ retailers, as once-loyal customers look to trim their household expenses by turning to cheaper alternatives. Article by Andy Wood, MD of GI Insight. Read more ...

Recession-weary businesses look to customer service for help
With the global recession still continuing to threaten the viability of many companies, customer service has come to the fore as a strategic business tool that can be used to help retain, win and win back customers, says Guy Tweedale, Senior VP of European Operations at Jacada.  But how can we help our Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) to achieve these goals? Read more ...

Pepsi drops out of Superbowl but wins marketing game?
The decision by Pepsi to stop its 23-year advertising sponsorship of the US Superbowl this year and divert more of its marketing efforts to social media and web-based initiatives could herald a new marketing template.

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Happy birthday Clubcard, happy birthday Loyalty
Tesco is using Clubcard’s 15th birthday as the excuse for extending its double points offer at least into the summer.
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