Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals.
Paula: I’m your host, Paula Thomas, and if you work in loyalty marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from loyalty specialists around the world.
Paula: This episode is brought to you by Epsilon and their award-winning People Cloud Loyalty Solution.
Paula: Epsilon has actually just released a guide on the topic of contactless loyalty, which explores how marketeers can create human-like connections with their customers in an increasingly contactless world.
Paula: I would highly recommend you have a look.
Paula: So to download the guide, visit emia.epsilon.com forward slash letstalkloyalty and you’ll find the guide in the resources section.
Paula: So welcome to episode 84 of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: And today I am chatting to Kelly Best, Chief Marketing Officer at Virgin Red.
Paula: Now many of you may be familiar with Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club, which has been in operation in many countries around the world for many years.
Paula: However, we’ve also been hearing rumors of a fantastic new group-wide loyalty program, which has in fact just launched under the brand name Virgin Red.
Paula: It’s predominantly a UK-based program at the moment.
Paula: And today we’re chatting on their global ambition and their focus on engagement and delighting customers.
Paula: Thank you.
Paula: So, Kelly, welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Kelly: Hi Paula, thanks for having me.
Paula: Great, great.
Paula: And I have to say, first of all, for listeners, I’m very impressed to see, in fact, that you’re wearing red.
Paula: By coincidence, so am I.
SPEAKER_3: Are you sure it’s a coincidence you’re wearing red?
Paula: Wonderful, we’re totally on brand, Kelly.
Paula: Time to talk all about the Virgin Red program today.
Paula: So, one of the newest programs, I’m sure it is the newest program in the UK, so a really, really big news story.
Paula: So, delighted to go through all of the detail.
Paula: Before we get into the program itself, Kelly, as you know, we always start Let’s Talk Loyalty talking about our favorite statistics.
Paula: So, first of all, tell me, what is your favorite loyalty statistic?
Kelly: Okay, so I think when we were building the program, we really went across a large amount of consumers to find out what were their pain points from previous loyalty programs.
Kelly: And one of the killer stats for us was 83% of our customers that we researched actually didn’t want their points to ever expire.
Kelly: Obviously, people work really hard to accumulate them.
Kelly: And then after three years for them to disappear is pretty heart-wrenching.
Kelly: And what we did is make sure that we, just that, points never expire with Virgin Red.
Kelly: So, you can save your hearts’ content without fear of them ever disappearing.
Kelly: And we actually implemented that back in September time for Flying Club members and anybody that has what was previously known as Flying Club Miles, but now we brand it to Virgin Points.
Kelly: And that went down really well.
Kelly: But of course, you have a bit of an internal debate going on there with the finance, making sure that the economy will full stack up.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: Well, that’s the obvious question, Kelly.
Paula: So, as you know, so many of our listeners are very senior loyalty directors.
Paula: And again, like you, really trying to put the customer first and center.
Paula: And just to have a statistic like that of 83%, I mean, that really is a killer statistic in terms of people just getting upset about points expiring.
Paula: I really didn’t realize it was quite as powerful as that.
Kelly: Yeah, definitely.
Kelly: And it makes sense, right?
Kelly: Because, you know, if you’re an infrequent collector, then it does take a while to get to your dream destination at the end of the day.
Kelly: And so it is pretty soul destroying when you put all that hard work in for it to be taken away.
Kelly: And it isn’t fair at the end of the day.
Kelly: It isn’t fair.
Kelly: So, you know, one of the things that we’re trying to do is be fair and transparent with our members.
Kelly: And the upside that we’re going to be getting from an engagement perspective, we really do believe will offset the downside from a financial perspective.
Kelly: You know, we all know behind closed doors, a lot of loyalty programs are built on breakage.
Kelly: And actually one of the things that we want to do is disrupt the model and make sure that we’re going with the right principles and policies in place for loyalty for the 2021.
Paula: And I’m glad you used the word disrupt actually, Kelly, because as I was thinking about the Virgin Group and obviously Virgin Atlantic is probably the first brand most of us know, I think it really has a disruption at its core.
Paula: And I think that’s probably why it’s such a well-loved brand.
Paula: And I think the UK just loves, you know, that kind of a sense of being slightly cheeky, but always doing something that really is very customer focused.
Paula: And that internal debate, I can imagine it went on quite a long time.
Paula: Were you involved, I think you’re about a year and a half yourself with Virgin Red, Kelly, am I right?
Kelly: Yeah, that’s right.
Kelly: Yeah, about a year and a half.
Kelly: It did, but when you put the fairness angle and the stat, you know, the stat is so powerful in its own right.
Kelly: It’s hard to walk away from, you know, 83% of consumers wanting this to be, you know, a truth.
Kelly: So, you know, when you’ve got that data point on your side, it’s quite hard to not win the argument.
Kelly: So, you know, we do need to put members first, because if you don’t, it does bite you somewhere along the line.
Kelly: As I say, you know, we’re really focused on making sure that we’re driving engagement.
Kelly: And so encouraging people to spend their points is really where we want to be, because that means that they’re engaged in the program and they’re loving it and they’re getting value.
Kelly: And the more value, the more that they’re going to want to, you know, know, even the more they’re going to want to get themselves involved with the Virgin brand as a whole.
Kelly: So it can only be a good thing in the long run.
Paula: For sure.
Paula: And we have a lot of listeners Kelly, around the world, in places like the US and Australia.
Paula: So obviously we’re truly global, as I know the Virgin group is as well.
Paula: But give us a sense, I know Virgin Red is really UK focused at the moment, but there is quite a lot of different brands involved.
Paula: So give us a sense of the various different places now that you can earn Virgin points with the new program.
Kelly: So we are very UK centric at this very moment in time, but absolutely that’s not where we want to end.
Kelly: Just to give a bit of context before I get into that, you know, the Virgin group is very diverse, as we all know, and it’s very, very global.
Kelly: There’s 45 different types of company that are holding the Virgin brand today across the globe, and 35 million global consumers that are participating with a Virgin company.
Kelly: Big hotspots for us are obviously the UK, but the US, the brand is very well loved out in the US and Australia.
Kelly: So we are going to be rolling out, you know, inevitably in Australia, but actually very soon in the US, you know, within the next year or two, we will be in the States.
Kelly: And that is really, really exciting.
Kelly: But for now, yeah, our focus is very much on the UK and enabling members to earn and spend with more Virgin companies, but also selected third parties as well.
Kelly: And just to give you a bit of context, you know, we’ve got rewards in the programme that start from as little as 200 points.
Kelly: So all we’re gonna do is break down that, that sometimes that big barrier is there that’s there for engagement.
Kelly: You know, you have to collect, you know, thousands and thousands of points before you can redeem on a flight, for instance.
Kelly: And that doesn’t float everybody’s boat.
Kelly: So creating a programme with a lot of breadth is really important to us because we have lots of needs, wants and loves across the Virgin Group.
Kelly: You know, we’re talking about banking, you’re talking about spaceships, you’re talking about media and wine.
Kelly: You know, it’s so varied.
Kelly: And we need to make sure that as a programme, we’re catering for all of those different types of customers that exist across the brand.
Kelly: So that’s really exciting and means that we get to have a lot of fun with the types of rewards that we get to play with.
Kelly: So really now, as of today, we just focus on the Virgin Atlantic customers who we’ve just launched with as of last week.
Kelly: They’ve got 21 new ways to earn and spend the currency.
Kelly: So making the proposition more relevant for today.
Kelly: So as we all know, we cannot enjoy the skies as we did once before.
Kelly: Making sure that we’ve got a lot of relevant rewards in there that are COVID friendly.
Kelly: In-home experiences, lots of wine, and lots of, we’ve got a great partnership with Oxpress Energy around switching, they’re the greenest energy provider out there.
Kelly: And just giving lots of practical ways to get value out of your points.
Kelly: But taking away those look forward to moments as well, because people want to plan for better times.
Kelly: I’m sure, like yourself, we’re all looking at the next holiday we can book.
Kelly: So it’s about having a mix in the proposition as it stands today to cater for now, but to cater for the future as well.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: And I think the Flying Club has been around for or had been around for quite a long time.
Paula: So I’m sure transitioning that over to the Virgin Red brand brings a certain amount of complexity.
Paula: But I can hear obviously that you’re just adding things in rather than taking things away, which obviously is always a good thing.
Paula: And my favorite one is what you alluded to there, Kelly, which is making the rewards so much more accessible.
Paula: And I have certainly learned this in my career in loyalty.
Paula: I’ve seen it with other big global brands like Starbucks, for example, where you don’t have to keep saving and saving and you don’t need 20 visits or whatever to kind of get something.
Paula: And my favorite one is not a brand I was familiar with, but certainly a product I love, a food product.
Paula: We all love our sausage rolls.
Paula: So I think that’s your entry level reward at 200 Virgin points, am I right?
Kelly: Yeah, you’re absolutely right.
Kelly: So we’ve got a partnership with Greggs.
Kelly: And it’s, yeah, you can get a sausage roll or a vegan sausage roll if you so wish from 200 points.
Kelly: Gregg is actually a national treasure.
Kelly: People often think Virgin and Gregg’s partnering together, but actually when we research people’s customers across all of the Virgin Group, Gregg stands out as a standout reward for them.
Kelly: So yeah, thinking people get value from the currency in whatever way suits them best.
Kelly: Now that is very much in the eye of the beholder as far as I’m concerned, because we all know that flights are going to be the best value.
Kelly: And sausage roll if you would just work out the price per point and all of that stuff wouldn’t represent from a monetary value the best, but actually for a bunch of consumers who don’t have large amount of points and they want to get instant gratification, it’s a great reward.
Kelly: So it’s about having the breadth of value that appeals to different types of people.
Kelly: And just on the Flying Club point, I think it’s really important to note that, the way that I think about it is that there’s one currency and two shops that you can spend it in.
Kelly: So the Flying Club still has all of the rewards that have existed for a long time within there.
Kelly: And Virgin Red is additive to the Flying Club members.
Kelly: Likewise, Flying Club rewards are additive to Virgin Red members.
Kelly: And over time, we will continue to simplify the journeys and make it more seamless to be interacting with both.
Kelly: But yeah, they are two separate programs with one common currency that can be enjoyed in more places these days.
Paula: Yeah, and I think it’s a good insight, Kelly, because we all know that travel is the ultimate reward.
Paula: I mean, nobody’s going to dispute that.
Paula: But as you said, sometimes you’re either not in a position like unfortunately at the moment with the pandemic, or for other kind of family or personal reasons, you might not be able to travel at a particular point in time.
Paula: But I love the Virgin Wines.
Paula: I think that’s always a beautiful concept.
Paula: And I’m sure that’s thriving in the middle of the pandemic at the moment.
Paula: So I’m hoping actually Virgin Wines comes to where I live at some point in the future.
Paula: In fact, I was looking because I was like that, which brands do we have?
Paula: We do have Virgin Mobile here, Kelly.
Paula: So that seems to do extremely well.
Paula: So hopefully the points will extend quite soon.
Paula: We also have Virgin Hyperloop, which may be further down the journey.
Paula: But just for listeners, actually, I just find it fascinating.
Paula: The Hyperloop as a Virgin product is a train that’s going to operate over a thousand kilometers an hour at some point.
Paula: I’m not sure when it’s going to be coming out, but yeah, at some point you may have to build in a reward for a Virgin Hyperloop journey, Kelly, I think.
Kelly: Absolutely.
Kelly: And that’s very much in our thinking, you know, when you get to play with things like Hyperloop and Orbit and Galactic, you know, the world’s poster.
Kelly: And so we get access to all of these amazing, innovative companies that can bring something completely different that no other loyalty can bring to the party.
Kelly: So we’re very lucky with the gifts that we have to play with in the long run.
Kelly: And really interestingly, when Orbit had its very successful test flight a few weeks ago, we carried a lot of the merchandise within Virgin Red and within about a week, the whole shop was sold out, if you like.
Kelly: So it doesn’t need to necessarily be that you go and experience that physical experience.
Kelly: It can be that you enjoy the things that sit around it as well.
Paula: Oh my goodness.
Paula: But that’s also a really good insight Kelly as well, because I have heard of some airlines, for example, that maybe do end up using their merchandise as rewards for loyalty club members.
Paula: And that’s extraordinary.
Paula: I didn’t know you had done that yourselves.
Kelly: Yeah, we’ve actually got quite a lot of physical goods in the product at the moment.
Kelly: So EMI, so it used to be Virgin EMI, but EMI, you can go and buy Vinyl.
Kelly: Today you can buy, we’ve just got some Virgin Voyages merchandise coming on the app, but it allows us to be quite topical.
Kelly: So when you’ve got Galactic, we’ve been there with supporting from Galactic jackets or bags or caps or whatever.
Kelly: And it just, you know, while we’re working through how we actually get people to show some support, we’re actually bringing some synergies together a bit quicker.
Paula: Okay, brilliant, brilliant.
Paula: I wanted to ask you Kelly as well, just around how long it’s really taken, and I suppose the journey from realizing that Virgin really wanted to recognize all of the group company customers.
Paula: And you’ve mentioned an extraordinary statistic of 35 million across all of the brands globally.
Paula: So what would you say in terms of that overall journey?
Paula: Has it been a longer, dare I say, journey and a more complex product project?
Paula: And would you say that’s connected to the pandemic or has it just been easier than you expected?
Paula: I’d just love to get a sense of what it’s been like, because to me, it’s like, I don’t know where I would start.
Kelly: I don’t think it was really easy, but I think it was easier to set up a loyalty business.
Kelly: No, so that’s not true.
Kelly: I think it’s been an idea in the minds of our chairman and certainly Richard for many, many years.
Kelly: And Virgin turned 50 last year.
Kelly: Yeah, I know.
Kelly: So we had a funny 50th birthday.
Kelly: It wasn’t the birthday year that we were imagining, but still some very cool things happened in that year for the brand.
Kelly: And yeah, we’ve wanted to have a loyalty program for a very long time.
Kelly: And actually Virgin Red probably got up and running around 2018 when we started working through the plans of how we take over the currency and scoping out the type of program that we want to be and all that good stuff.
Kelly: And we have the advantage of starting from scratch.
Kelly: So brand new systems, AWS, working with the leading edge tech providers, we’ve had the beauty of building on brand new technology.
Kelly: So that’s been really cool.
Kelly: And we were actually due to launch in March 2020.
Kelly: And it would have been on a smaller, much more lighter MVP than we actually went to market with.
Kelly: But so in some ways COVID helped us from a perspective because it gave us more time to pour into the proposition.
Kelly: We’re not the finished article right now, but any stretch of the imagination.
Kelly: We still view ourselves as an MVP of what we will become.
Paula: Yeah.
Kelly: And so, yeah, so the journey really this year was we were due to launch the week after we went into national lockdown.
Kelly: So that was interesting.
Paula: My goodness, yeah.
Kelly: And we went in a period of knowing that while people were furloughing with all the businesses that we were working with, and we really looked hard at that question.
Kelly: Should we put ourselves on ice for a while while we just weathered the storm?
Kelly: And thank God we didn’t, because we’d be still on ice.
Kelly: It would be very hard to thaw at this point.
Kelly: So we kept going and we kept investing in tech and we kept investing in development and we kept pushing the proposition.
Kelly: So we did have a legacy engagement act called Virgin Red Vaults, which is really different to what we’ve got today.
Kelly: A highly engaged group of people, but very it was very engagement focused.
Kelly: It was competitions and quizzes and stuff like that.
Kelly: But we had a great audience that we could launch with and learn.
Kelly: So we went into beta for from the end of October until last week, pretty much, till we launched the Flying Club customers.
Kelly: So we got loads of great, rich insights, understood the pain points, really worked to listen, learn and develop.
Kelly: And so we did that for a period of time.
Kelly: And then we launched, obviously, last it was on the 9th of February, actually, with the Flying Club base.
Kelly: And there’s there’s just short of a million in the Flying Club.
Kelly: So it’s not a small audience by any stretch.
Kelly: I think, you know, for us, the things, the positives out of this is, you know, our continual test and learn.
Kelly: And we’re just iterating all the time.
Kelly: Like I said, we’re not the article.
Kelly: It’s very much MVP at the moment.
Kelly: We have really grand plans for what we can create.
Kelly: And I guess the great news is, you know, there’s going to be a hell of a lot more partners on board even in the next couple of months, completing the ecosystem, OK, so media active.
Kelly: And we went live with Virgin Money last week for a personal current account switching, which you can earn 15,000 points.
Kelly: So in the next couple of months, we’ll have the completeness of the Virgin companies.
Kelly: And then we’ll be bringing more third parties on to really complement the offering and make sure that members can get value across all of the reward types.
Kelly: And I’m really thinking out the everyday rewards for us is important because, again, we’ve got the travel and spades.
Kelly: We can do that very easily.
Kelly: But making sure that people are getting value from all types of points holding.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: Yeah, you’re right.
Paula: I mean, travel, no question.
Paula: You know, Virgin is a world leader and that’s extraordinary.
Paula: What I loved that I saw you’ve added in as well to the proposition, Kelly, is essentially all of the affiliate partnerships.
Paula: So shopping online and earning Virgin points for those.
Paula: So I think that’s one, actually, again, very kind of pandemic friendly.
Paula: So I guess is that one working well for you at this stage?
Paula: You know, again, kind of two, three weeks in.
Kelly: Yeah.
Kelly: So the everyday earn is super important and it’s a behavioural shift that we really want to get our members engaged in early doors.
Kelly: So to try and do that, we’ve launched an incentive as well.
Kelly: So you get 500, anybody who joins Virgin Red gets 500 points on their first earn.
Kelly: We want to ingrain that behaviour because earn unlocks your ability to go anywhere, right?
Kelly: And all you do is shift some of your everyday practices to shop via the Virgin Red earn portal.
Kelly: You’re earning money for the stuff that you’re doing anyway.
Kelly: IE, Switching Energy, shopping at John Lewis, all of the big retailers.
Kelly: You know, we’re only at the start of what we want to do in that space.
Kelly: We’ve got about 40 merchants at the moment.
Kelly: We can scale that to 1500.
Kelly: But it’s making sure that we’re picking the ones that are really valuable for our members.
Kelly: And so earns going to be a massive focus.
Kelly: But we’ve also got other categories, which is probably worth talking about.
Kelly: So we’ve touched on the everyday treats, which is the attainable rewards from 200.
Kelly: And we developed that based on insight as well around the Virgin Atlantic customers.
Kelly: And, you know, a large, quite a large proportion of them having less than 10,000 points.
Kelly: So making sure that they’re engaged in the currency early doors is really important.
Paula: Yeah.
Kelly: And then we’ve got travel, which we’ve all talked about and know.
Kelly: Extraordinary experiences, which is more around, you know, it is how do we bring the virginness to the product?
Kelly: It would be working with, we’ve got Virgin Experience Days, we’ve got London Theatre Direct.
Kelly: So they’re all the core ones.
Kelly: But then how do we go above and beyond?
Kelly: So if you go on a voyage, for instance, how do we make you feel special for being a Red member?
Kelly: And we can do fun stuff with competitions with Galactic and the merchandise and all that good stuff that I’ve talked about already.
Kelly: And then Points for Good is another area that we’re really passionate about.
Kelly: So it’s making sure that we’re giving members lots of ways, easy ways to give back across the charity, community and sustainability angles.
Kelly: So we’ve got charity partnerships at the moment, ranging from Guide Dogs for the Blind and Edinburgh Food Bank and quite a few others, which were actually, they were crowdsourced.
Kelly: So we did.
Paula: Oh, lovely idea.
Paula: That’s brilliant.
Kelly: And we’re going to do more of that with our members because the angles, which is probably underrepresented anywhere actually is, you know, if I’ve got, if my son’s playing for his local football team and they’re, you know, they definitely need a new kit or whatever it is.
Kelly: Like how can we help facilitate giving back to more things at home?
Kelly: And I think, you know, that that message really landed for us when back in lockdown one where the community spirit had never been more alive.
Kelly: When you’re at the end of your driveway banging pots and pans for the NHS with your neighbours, it was just such a lovely moment that we wanted a pot in the pot.
Kelly: We’ve got a few community based, but definitely more work to do in that space.
Kelly: We’ve got a very cool partnership with Carbon Engineering.
Kelly: They are a Canadian based company.
Kelly: They’re leading edge pioneers in carbon removal.
Kelly: So that’s like the future.
Kelly: Offsetting is great, but it’s the other new modern angles.
Kelly: And members can donate points to enable that business to scale.
Kelly: Because it’s only when it scales can it really start doing what it needs to do.
Kelly: So it’s a very, very cool business.
Kelly: And then another area which again, we’re loving is our partnerships with Virgin Startups.
Kelly: So Virgin Startups is one of the businesses that gives loans to very small businesses to get up and running.
Kelly: And we’ve got a couple in there at the moment.
Kelly: Scent Fragrance being one of the very popular ones.
Kelly: This is a one man band who is producing gorgeous scented candles at home pretty much.
Kelly: And he is doing great on the app actually.
Kelly: He’s really doing really well.
Paula: Wow.
Kelly: So we’ve got loads more of those.
Kelly: So we’ve got a whole 15, 20 small businesses that we’re going to be supporting within our channels.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: So, essentially, anyone who has Virgin Red points can convert them into contributions towards the startup, the incubator businesses.
Paula: Is that right?
Kelly: That’s right for carbon removal, but actually for the startups, you just buy products.
Paula: I understand.
Kelly: And then you can buy directly.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: So it’s a marketing service to get them in front of the Virgin customer base.
SPEAKER_3: That’s right.
Paula: Beautiful.
Paula: Beautiful.
Paula: And I like the distinction you made, Kelly, because I had seen the carbon removal concept again on your website, and I haven’t really made the distinction between offset and removal.
Paula: So you’re right.
Paula: One is kind of, I suppose, preventative, and one is starting to fix the problem.
Paula: And we all know it’s a problem that’s going to take a lot of fixing, but, you know, to go out and find those solutions and again help Virgin customers support those kind of businesses to really make the difference that they can potentially make.
Paula: That’s extraordinary.
Kelly: Yeah, definitely.
Kelly: And doing it in a really easy way, because you don’t want to have faff in these situations.
Kelly: So you literally, one click, you’ve made the contribution.
Paula: Lovely.
Paula: Lovely.
Paula: Lovely.
Paula: And just when you were talking about experiences, I do remember Disney Plus was part of the proposition, maybe only in the early stages.
Paula: Is that still something you’re working with or is that still part of your proposition?
Kelly: So Disney Plus, you can earn points when you subscribe to Disney Plus through merchant funded offers.
Kelly: That’s through our shopping portal.
Kelly: But as a direct partnership, we don’t have anything like that just yet.
Kelly: Not to say that we wouldn’t love a direct partnership with Disney.
Paula: Oh, wow.
Kelly: I definitely watch my fair share of Disney Plus having a three and a four year old.
Paula: Oh, my goodness.
Paula: OK.
Paula: OK.
Paula: So you’re probably up to speed on all the cartoons, Kelly, that I certainly am not.
Kelly: I really am.
Paula: Oh, wonderful.
Paula: How big is the team, Kelly, then, in terms of Virgin Red at this point?
Paula: Because as you said, it’s already been a couple of years in development and a huge amount more to go with your global ambitions.
Paula: So where are you at at that stage at the moment?
Kelly: So we started from zero probably late, I think it was late 2018.
Kelly: And we’re now a permanent fixture of about 110.
Kelly: Yeah, with some contracting resource.
Kelly: And that, you know, the two large areas are the CMO space.
Kelly: So in my area where I look after business development, partnerships, research, insight, customer support and marketing, digital and brand and acquisition, and then the CTO space where that’s where a lot of the product owners sit and development and you guys all are.
Kelly: So they’re the big functions.
Kelly: And then we’re supported by a brilliant finance team as well.
Kelly: But very, very, very close workings with V&L, so the main hub for Virgin.
Paula: Of course, of course, yeah.
Paula: And the part of your journey that I’m familiar with, Kelly, in terms of I know it was invitation only, late 2020.
Paula: So I think that was early November’s.
Paula: You said you started to bring people across from the Vaults product and now into into Flying Club.
Paula: So what’s the next phase, I guess, for Virgin Red?
Kelly: Yeah, sure.
Kelly: So just world domination, really.
Kelly: That’s where we’re going.
Kelly: Cracking the UK in the first half of the year.
Kelly: So I’m with the Flying Club guys.
Kelly: We wanted to get value to them as soon as possible, given the current situation.
Kelly: We’re then rolling out to the rest of the Virgin companies in April.
Kelly: We’ve got a brilliant campaign launching on TV and digital a bit later on.
Kelly: And then we’re going to just continue building, developing, enhancing the product.
Kelly: And then we’re going to be really focusing our efforts on the US and getting to market out there as soon as we possibly can.
Paula: My goodness, Kelly, it’s an extraordinary opportunity.
Paula: I’m sure it keeps you awake some nights very late trying to keep the whole show on the road.
Paula: But I love the proposition.
Paula: I have to say, I think particularly the integrity of what you said at the beginning, which is this idea of really, you know, having the maximum engagement, maximum usage of the Virgin Points, you know, rather than trying to build it as a P&L, you know, like really to build it as a way for people to love the brand.
Paula: So I do think that deserves extraordinary recognition to you, the team, and obviously that the man at the top, in fact, was reading one of the quotes, I think it was on your homepage, Kelly, where Richard Branson literally is quoted as saying that imagination is one of our greatest gifts.
Paula: And I can see that coming through in everything that you’re doing with Virgin Red.
Paula: So I think it’s a beautiful program.
Paula: I don’t have any more questions from my side, Kelly.
Paula: Is there anything else you wanted to touch on before we wrap up?
Kelly: No, I don’t think so.
Kelly: No, that’s great.
Kelly: But yeah, I look forward to talking more when we’ve got more to share.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And I said to other guests before, Kelly, I really think we’ll need to kind of be in touch like at least once a year to kind of go, my goodness, where has Virgin Red gone to in the last 12 months?
Paula: Because I can see from all the stuff you’re doing, it is built for the future.
Paula: And as you said, with kind of innovation at the core, there’s bound to be some lots of new things coming down the track.
Paula: So we’ll certainly be watching very closely from our side.
Paula: So with that, I will say thank you so much, Kelly Best, from everyone at Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: Well done and great to talk to you.
Paula: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights and research.
Paula: The Wise Marketer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 170 executives in 20 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
Paula: For more information, check out thewisemarketer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.
Paula: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on letstalkloyalty.com, and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox every Thursday.
Paula: Or just head to your favorite podcast platform.
Paula: Find Let’s Talk Loyalty and subscribe.
Paula: Of course, I’d love your feedback and reviews, and thanks again for supporting the show.
Publisher’s Note:
This transcript was generated with the help of AI and podcast publishing tools such as Apple Podcast’s transcription service.
In the interests of efficiency and minimising our costs as a small business, it has not been checked by a human.
If you have any comments or concerns about the accuracy of this content, please do contact us for changes or corrections.
