After almost two years of preparation, Le Club merges loyalty programmes
Hotel trend to combine schemes set to continue
Le Club, the loyalty program from AccorHotels is the latest hotel group to feel the need to merge its hotel loyalty programme. The family includes Fairmont, Raffles, and Swissôtel and the merger has taken nearly two years. Read more ...

Sky uses loyalty for tenure to cut churn to lowest level ever
Sky VIP wins Best New Loyalty Launch of the Year
Sky says its loyalty programme, which rewards length of tenure, now accounts for 33% of the weekly traffic to its app, while churn is at its lowest ever. Read more ...

Hilton uses twitter for some great engagement
Hilton Hotels are doing some great loyalty marketing on Twitter at the moment. Read more ...

SPECIAL REPORT
Big regulatory changes affecting prepaid and gift products
How is ASC606 affecting gift card breakage in the US? Chinese ruling on pre-paid removes US$74.4bn from mobile coffers Big changes are underway that have the potential to significantly alter the business case for prepaid products, and including gift cards. The interesting point is that some of these changes are positive, and some negative. Read more ...

Credit Search Barometer provides some millennial understanding
Poor credit history and low credit scores impact customer behaviour

Understanding your customers is a pre-requisite for any type of relationship, and new research about credit scores provides an important window into the lives of millennials. Read more ...

India payments company expands into loyalty
Hospitality sector also targeted

Indian film production house Dharma Productions has signed a deal with India digital payments company Paytm to introduce a loyalty program. Read more ...

Reputational survey shows banks could do better

But other sectors doing even worse

Banks can hardly be said to do well in the reputation and customer good-will stakes, but even though their scores in a US study show the end of a five year streak of improvement, they still do better than many other industries such as airlines and telecommunications. Read more ...

Shoppers buying gift cards for themselves
Millennials lead trend Read more ...

Morrisons utilises green concerns as a loyalty tool
Retailer introduces bag and container initiatives
Read more ...

Blockchain rewards scheme rolls out in Australia
80 merchants already using programme
Read more ...

Open access: democratising travel loyalty
A three-step plan to creating a broader and more profitable customers base for your travel rewards programme.

Travel schemes must democratise loyalty by considering new and 'low value' members as well as high worth ones, argues Peter Gerstle, head of travel products at global loyalty and benefits company Collinson. Read more ...

Winners announced from a truly global Loyalty Magazine Awards 2018
People travelled from all over the world to attend the special Gala Awards Evening for The Loyalty Magazine Awards, making it a truly global event.

Attendees arrived from South Africa, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, the US, India, The United Emirates, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Russia, The Netherlands, South Africa, Australia, China and many other countries to learn which companies achieved the accolade of being a Loyalty Magazine Awards winner. Read more ...

Loyalty at the crossroads
We know all the buzz phrases: ”The emergence of the digitally native competitor (i.e. Amazon)”, "There are more data than bricks & mortar”, "Omnichannel is being overshadowed by omnipresent”....

What does it all mean?  Discuss these issues with expert speakers at the Loyalty Surgery – www.theLoyaltySurgery.com – in London on June 20.
Read more ...

Will CSR re-invigorate the loyalty industry?
Aware of the trend toward corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Loyalty, a group of industry veterans have established For Good Causes.

The social enterprise aims to provide a service cross the industry for programmes to leverage to improve social impact and tap into the goodwill between charities and their supporters. For Good Causes founder Crispin Rogers describes how. Read more ...

Securing customer loyalty by inviting them into the ‘Membership Economy’
High street retailers face a battle to secure the loyalty of shoppers who are now naturally drawn online. Tailored, digitally-led retention schemes can provide an answer argues Rob Meakin, MD at Loyalty Pro.Ever since the inception of online shopping customers have become accustomed to purchasing what they want, when they want and from whichever retailer. Read more ...

GDPR – Burden or Benefit?
Are companies putting GDPR in place so they can avoid huge potential fines, or will the new regulation help them to do more with personal data by building a personal sense of trust with their customers? 

Mandeep Sandhu, head of compliance at Carbon Black, outlines the GDPR challenges, why we need it, the transition journey, and when organisations will move from meeting its requirements to embracing the potential of GDPR. Read more ...

The Attention Equilibrium: Brands must team up to survive in a world of infinite supply
Blog by Charles (Chuck) Ehredt, CEO and co-founder of Currency Alliance
A deluge of attention, everyone asking you to dance. Read more ...

What’s on your fans’ sporting bucket list?
How experiences are the ultimate reward for sports fans

Blog by sports rewards company Rewards4 Read more ...

What are we going to do about Amazon?
Amazon has created an amazing business model – and made it even better.

It set up an online shopping portal (that incidentally, no-one really expected to work – remember when it was just about books?), made it really simple to buy online, with few questions asked about returns; made sure the delivery is swift, and within the time promised.
Read more ...

AI top of the tech spending list
There is no doubt that retailers are accelerating spending on next-gen tech and artificial intelligence (AI) comes top of the list.
Forrester predicts that this year alone there will be a 300% increase in investment in artificial intelligence and much of this will be targeted at delivering improved experiences to customers.

JWT Intelligence research shows that 62% of millennials in the UK say they would appreciate a brand or retailer using AI technology to show more interesting products. Read more ...

Coming to terms with Canada’s loyalty Tsunami
Aimia and LoyaltyOne battle with changing landscape This is the most profitable period ever for airlines, but it is still true that few airlines make money out of seats. For most, the loyalty programme is the most lucrative division of the business. Which in part explains the tsunami that has hit the Canadian loyalty world in the past year. Read more ...

GDPR is coming: Are you ready?
The European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force in less than a year (May 2018).

If you are among the 96% of companies that according to research still do not understand GDPR, here is what you need to know. Read more ...

Joining up the dots: Exclusive interview with Colin Evans
Colin Evans, chairman of the Collinson Group, is one of the founding fathers of loyalty and a worthy recipient of The Loyalty Magazine Awards 2017 Personality of the Year Award. He rarely consents to interviews, so don’t miss this exclusive and fascinating Q&A as he looks back on his career and discusses where the industry is headed.
Read more ...

Groundbreaking initiatives at The Loyalty Magazine Awards 2017
- Winners display a thoughtful mix of technology with a personal touch
- Strong CSR theme through the evening
- Read details on all the winners
Read more ...

Meet the Sponsor: Tranxactor
Bringing a proven loyalty and gift solution to European retailers. In conversation with John Norrie, founder and CEO of Tranxactor Read more ...

Meet the Sponsor: Bink
What is the Future of the Loyalty Industry? In a phrase, “Payment Linked Loyalty”
Article by Lee Clarke, CEO and co-founder, Bink

Today’s consumer is fast, efficient and digitally savvy. They expect seamless, personalised, end to end solutions that save them time and harness the power of the technology they’re already using. Yet traditional loyalty schemes have evolved very little since their inception in the 1990s, continuing to operate on a plastic card or paper voucher basis. Read more ...

Meet the sponsor Q&A: Comarch
What makes us stay loyal to a brand? Julian Bonnett, business development manager at Comarch, explains the company's approach

Is a customer who buys from you every day loyal, or are they buying from habit or convenience? What would make a customer go out of their way to buy from you, rather than from a competitor?

Loyalty combines functional and emotional connections with the brand. It comes from a lasting relationship based on trust, value, convenience and satisfaction. Read more ...

Meet the Sponsor Q&A: Qivos
Forget B2B and B2C. This is about H2H
In conversation with Chris Papandropoulos, chief marketing officer of QivosWe were expanding into new markets and we wanted something unique. Since other companies also exist with the name CLOUDBIZ in US and Asia, we decided to rebrand. Read more ...

Meet the Sponsors
Interview with Alain Falys, co-founder and CEO of Loyalty Magazine Awards 2017 sponsor Yoyo
Yoyo Wallet has been in existence since 2013 and is one of the most popular digital applications in the UK, offering mobile payment, digital loyalty, pre-ordering and personalised customer interactions. As the UK’s fastest growing mobile wallet, it is currently used at more than 200 corporate head offices and over 50 universities all over the country. Read more ...

How to be location based, targeted and relevant
Accompanying the customer on her journey

Location-based marketing received a negative reputation very early. Too many suggestions about selling specific sweaters and trousers as a person entered a store caused major concerns that customers would simply switch off their phones to avoid the sales hassles. Location based information, if used as part of a loyalty proposition and kept in context to the customer’s requirements and circumstances, is a different proposition. Read more ...