This episode is also available in video format on www.Loyalty.TV.
Dr Melanie Van Rooy talks openly in this podcast about what it takes to run a 30 year old leading loyalty programme which delights almost 13 million active members. Clicks ClubCard won three awards at this year’s South African Loyalty Awards and most notably Team of the Year.
Clicks Clubcard represents 84% of sales of its iconic mother brand, Clicks and members enjoy a 90% redemption rate. These are hard-hitting loyalty KPIs which position perfectly as South Africa’s most used loyalty programme.
Hosted by Amanda Cromhout
Show Notes:-
2) Clicks
4) Book recommendation : Primal Leadership
5) Book recommendation: Never Split the Difference
Dr Melanie: Clicks Group is South Africa’s leading health, wellness and beauty retailer.
Dr Melanie: Obviously a very strong pharmacy group as well.
Dr Melanie: Headquarters are in the beautiful Cape Town, and we listed, of course, on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Dr Melanie: We employ about 20,000 people, so we are a major employer in South Africa, and we literally have stores everywhere in South Africa.
Dr Melanie: Both our key strategy is convenience.
Dr Melanie: It became the first loyalty program in South Africa that many South Africans ever joined, which is so special.
Dr Melanie: And as you said, today, recognized as the most used loyalty program in South Africa.
Dr Melanie: Big part of our loyalty strategy is content, because what you want to be known for in this industry, Amanda, is being an expert.
Dr Melanie: Our partnership strategy is very focused.
Dr Melanie: It’s to add real value to customers’ everyday lives and then bring that incremental value back into the ClubCard ecosystem.
Dr Melanie: We’re quite disciplined when we consider a partner.
Dr Melanie: And we say, does this partner make ClubCard more valuable for our customer and more convenient?
Paula: Hello and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, a show for loyalty marketing professionals.
Paula: I’m Paula Thomas, the founder and CEO of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, where we feature insightful conversations with loyalty professionals from the world’s leading brands.
Paula: Today’s episode is hosted by Amanda Cromhout, the founder of Truth, an international loyalty consultancy.
Paula: She’s also the author of the book Blind Loyalty, 101 Loyalty Concepts Radically Simplified. Enjoy.
Amanda: Hi, I’m Amanda Cromhout from Truth Loyalty and author of Blind Loyalty.
Amanda: Today I have the pleasure of talking to Dr.
Amanda: Melanie Van Rooy.
Amanda: She is the CMO of Clicks Group, Total Health and Beauty.
Amanda: She tells us the most amazing story about a 30-year journey of Clicks ClubCard.
Amanda: The Clicks Group itself has over 1,000 stores, 20,000 staff and approximately 2.8 billion US dollar turnover.
Amanda: And the Clicks ClubCard is the oldest retail loyalty program in South Africa, 30 years old, with 12.7 million active members.
Amanda: It has a partnership ecosystem and with all of that together, it is driving an incredible 84% sales penetration and 90% redemption rate.
Amanda: And she talks us through how machine learning helps them drive the best segmentation modeling.
Amanda: However, the use of AI allows them to do everything faster with better test and learn methodologies for customer groupings, for creative execution, for channel choice.
Amanda: And the whole cycle really is working much better for better customer experiences, but also a better delivery from internally at Clicks.
Amanda: This is a real masterclass in customer loyalty and I hope you enjoy it.
Amanda: For today’s Lets Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV show, I have the biggest honor to introduce somebody who the world of loyalty really knows well, Dr.
Amanda: Melanie Van Rooy.
Amanda: She is the CMO of Clicks Group and for Total Health and Beauty.
Amanda: And she’ll explain what that means, but the reason she’s on this show is not only because for many years now, she’s led a phenomenal team that drives the highest usage of loyalty programs for the Clicks ClubCard brand, but she’s here as well because we recognized through the South African Loyalty Awards, which was supported by Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.
Amanda: We recognized the Clicks ClubCard team as being team of the year for their phenomenal work over, well, Mel’s going to tell you for over 30 years.
Amanda: So it’s such an honor, Mel, to have you on Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.
Dr Melanie: Thank you so much, Amanda.
Dr Melanie: Always a pleasure to have a chat with you.
Amanda: And we’ve had many conversations before, but I think this one’s extra special because it really was such an honor to recognize your team.
Amanda: And I know you and you’re incredibly modest, so you wanted your team to get that recognition rather than you standing there with the trophy.
Amanda: So you’re leading this brand that is an iconic loyalty brand in South Africa, but obviously our audience at Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV is global.
Amanda: And that’s the journey I’d like you to talk everyone through in a short while.
Amanda: But there is a first question on Loyalty TV, and that is, what is your favorite book?
Amanda: Could be a business book or other inspiring book to share with the audience.
Dr Melanie: So Amanda, I’m a Gemini.
Dr Melanie: I can never give you just one answer, but I’ll give you two, right?
Dr Melanie: Because there are two books that made, you know when you get to that point in your life where something really makes a difference, and the one was a book called Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman.
Dr Melanie: As a young executive, I read the book and it really formed the way I lead teams, and to this day influences that.
Dr Melanie: And the second one was actually given to me by my son by Chris Foss, Never Split the Difference, Negotiate As If Your Life Depended On It, which was such an amazing book that made such a difference to me in a difficult time of my life, even the way I was negotiating something really difficult.
Dr Melanie: And to this day, I promise you, I apply those principles.
Dr Melanie: So those are two major books in my life.
Amanda: I need to read Negotiate As If Your Life Depends On It, that’s amazing.
Dr Melanie: What a title, eh?
Amanda: Yeah, stunning.
Amanda: Very, very cool.
Amanda: Wonderful.
Amanda: So Mel, you and I know each other in the industry, but I really do want you to talk through on the show how you’ve got to the role that you do now, because you have an incredible pedigree, not just in loyalty marketing, but in marketing in a broader sense, but you have a PhD in econometrics, and I think we need to know a little bit more about that as well.
Amanda: So share with us what takes you from the start of your career to leading this amazing team now.
Dr Melanie: Absolutely.
Dr Melanie: I always say to people one day when I retire, I’m going to write a book about this, and it’ll be three volumes, because I started out wanting to be a gynecologist.
Dr Melanie: So I ended up being a doctor, but definitely not a gynecologist.
Amanda: No.
Dr Melanie: And at the very tender age of 17, and because of a boyfriend, I ended up getting a bursary to study actuarial science.
Dr Melanie: But the university that I was going to didn’t have that as a main line, so I actually then ended up studying econometrics.
Dr Melanie: And that’s how my journey with data started.
Dr Melanie: Now, I’ve always loved numbers, right?
Dr Melanie: And I also started my career at the Econometrics Department of the South African Reserve Bank.
Dr Melanie: I was very fortunate to get that role.
Dr Melanie: And then I got married.
Dr Melanie: I became a lecturer because I wanted kiddies.
Dr Melanie: And so for the next 10 years, I actually had an academic career where I went from a lecturer to senior lecturer, et cetera, et cetera.
Dr Melanie: And that’s also where I did my PhD.
Dr Melanie: It’s part of your developmental roadmap while you’re a lecturer.
Dr Melanie: I was very fortunate at the time to then co-head up a research unit for the University of Johannesburg at that time.
Dr Melanie: This was called Rwanda Frikant University, where I really got into data and trends, et cetera, et cetera.
Dr Melanie: I then decided to run my own businesses where I did everything from I ran a computer center for maths tutoring at some stage for my sons at a coffee shop, but that’s besides the point.
Dr Melanie: And then at the very ripe old age of 36.
Dr Melanie: Now, by this time, I’d had a good career in terms of all these different things, but then I got approached for the first time by a corporate to run a research unit in ABI, which was the soft drink division of SAB breweries before they got bought over.
Dr Melanie: And that research unit sat in a marketing department, and my boss actually had a master’s degree in econometrics as well.
Dr Melanie: And that’s where I realized, wow, I actually have a creative side and a knack for marketing, because the marketer of today, it needs to be a unicorn.
Dr Melanie: You need to be left and right brained at the same time.
Dr Melanie: And so that’s really, I got trained in the best FMCG system in the world, in the Coca-Cola system, which was absolutely amazing.
Dr Melanie: And from there, I was drafted into Macro, which is part of the Walmart Stable Note for our international listeners.
Dr Melanie: That is very similar to Sam’s Club, where your loyalty program is your entry into the store.
Dr Melanie: So that was my first venture into loyalty and into retail, so a big box format.
Dr Melanie: And then from there on, I became the group marketing director for Dischem, Dischem Pharmacy Group, which gave me my first flavor of the health, beauty and wellness industry.
Dr Melanie: Today, they’re my competitor, but I spent two years there really understanding this industry.
Dr Melanie: And then I was extremely fortunate to be drafted into Clicks just in the middle of COVID, can you believe it, in 2021.
Dr Melanie: Initially, just to caretake the team, it was in Cape Town, I was in Johannesburg at the time, and I haven’t left.
Dr Melanie: I’m still here and it’s been an amazing journey.
Dr Melanie: And I think the golden thread throughout my career was my love for numbers and my love for data.
Dr Melanie: And little did I know as a 17-year-old student, not becoming a gynaecologist, that I would end up really having fun with brands, doing these amazing campaigns.
Dr Melanie: And just before the recording, we were talking about my yellow outfit at our beauty playground, so I get to do all those fun things, but then also drive a very strong personalization and data-driven team, which has just stimulated me.
Dr Melanie: So it’s been a fun journey over the last 35 to 40 years.
Amanda: That’s incredible.
Amanda: I thought I knew you quite well.
Amanda: I learned an awful lot there, and I had no idea about your ambition initially to be a gynaecologist.
Dr Melanie: There we go.
Amanda: Still in health and beauty.
Amanda: So let’s talk about Clicks as a company.
Amanda: Before we get into ClubCard, which is obviously Clicks ClubCard is a favorite subject of mine, but I think to give the audience a sense of how much a phenomenal brand the Clicks brand is, talk us through more about Clicks so that we understand its sector, its size, the stores and so on.
Dr Melanie: Absolutely.
Dr Melanie: Absolutely.
Dr Melanie: So, I mean, Clicks Group is South Africa’s leading health, wellness and beauty retailer, obviously a very strong pharmacy group as well.
Dr Melanie: Our headquarters are in the beautiful Cape Town, and we listed, of course, on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Dr Melanie: Now, Clicks Group consists of a wholesaler, which is UPD, which does business to business wholesaling.
Dr Melanie: And then we’ve got Clicks Retailer, which is the bulk of our business, which I’ll talk about mostly.
Dr Melanie: But we also then have other beauty businesses within.
Dr Melanie: So for instance, we own the Sorbet Franchise Group, which is a spa group with a chain of franchisees.
Dr Melanie: And then of course, the Body Shop, which a lot of people will know, we are the franchisee in South Africa of the Body Shop.
Dr Melanie: So we operate, I can tell you, to the point, 999 stores, Amanda.
Dr Melanie: And how do I know?
Dr Melanie: Because next week, Thursday, we open store number 1000, which we are super proud of.
Dr Melanie: And we operate in the Southern African landscape.
Dr Melanie: So we’re in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland.
Dr Melanie: And more than 800 of our stores actually have a pharmacy in it as well in about 300 clinics.
Dr Melanie: Now, to give you an idea of size, for the end of our financial year, which ended now in August of 2025, the group generated a turnover of about just under 48 billion South African Rand.
Dr Melanie: Now, if I translate that or currency, and it depends on who does what, but it’s roughly, I would say roughly around 2.8 billion US dollars at our current exchange rate.
Dr Melanie: We employ about 20,000 people, so we are a major employer in South Africa.
Dr Melanie: And we literally have stores everywhere in South Africa, because our key strategy is convenience.
Dr Melanie: And what we want to do is have a Clicks within 5 to 8 kilometers of over 60% of the community so that they’ve got access to health care.
Dr Melanie: And in many instances, in smaller towns in South Africa, the Clicks Clinic is basically the only medical facility in the area.
Dr Melanie: So as I say, our core brand is the Clicks retailer, but then we’ve got specialist formats like Clicks Baby, the Body Shop and Sorbet.
Dr Melanie: And recently, what we’re really proud of is we launched a chain called Unicare.
Dr Melanie: We’re opening our second one, by the way, on the same day, next week in Johannesburg.
Dr Melanie: And this is a 24, 7, 365 days a week specialized pharmacy, specializing in things like orthopedic equipment, et cetera, et cetera.
Dr Melanie: It also has doctors and specialized clinics.
Dr Melanie: So if you think about a one-stop destination where you can fill your prescription, get your health and beauty essentials, earn rewards, that’s essentially what Clicks Club does for South Africans.
Amanda: Incredible.
Amanda: Incredible.
Amanda: Honestly.
Amanda: Well, congratulations on the thousandth store.
Amanda: That’s a great milestone.
Amanda: Amazing.
Amanda: Okay.
Amanda: So my soft spot for Clicks ClubCard, I’m not the only South African, and I’m not even South African, but being here in South Africa as a South African consumer who loves the Clicks ClubCard, why can I say that with no bias?
Amanda: Because I’m not allowed to have any bias.
Amanda: Because as you know, and I’ll share with the audience, that year on year, not every single year, but in the nine years that we’ve been writing the South African white paper that Truth writes, Clicks ClubCard is featured more than any other brand as the most used loyalty program.
Amanda: So the last year for 2024 slash 2025, Clicks ClubCard was the most used loyalty program across all South Africans, all demographics, salary, and so on.
Amanda: So that’s worth a good conversation about this amazing program.
Amanda: So just celebrate it your 30 years so you can take us through that.
Amanda: And you’ve been honored for many years at the South African Loyalty Awards, and I’ll come on to those awards in a little while.
Amanda: So I think tell us more about ClubCard.
Amanda: I know a lot about it.
Amanda: I follow you very closely, but let’s share the enormity of what the Clicks ClubCard is for South Africans.
Dr Melanie: Look, we are super proud of ClubCard, and it’s really at the heart of everything we do, Amanda.
Dr Melanie: Well, I mean, we sleep, breathe and eat ClubCard.
Dr Melanie: It is one of South Africa’s longest running loyalty programs.
Dr Melanie: In fact, it’s the oldest retail loyalty program in the country.
Dr Melanie: It was launched in 1995, exactly one year after we became a democratic country.
Dr Melanie: And so we celebrated it this year.
Dr Melanie: And it started very simply, right?
Dr Melanie: It is earn points when you shop and get money back when you spend in stores.
Dr Melanie: So over three decades, we’ve evolved it into a fully-fledged loyalty and engagement ecosystem.
Dr Melanie: We’ve got over 12 and a half million active registered members today.
Dr Melanie: And we’ve given back about 7.5 billion rents in the time that we’ve had over the life of this program.
Dr Melanie: We’re also the very first loyalty program in South Africa that introduced partners and the ecosystem as part of the value proposition.
Dr Melanie: I think what is so special about ClubCard is it’s grown up alongside South Africa’s democracy.
Dr Melanie: I think it made it so special.
Dr Melanie: You know, it was, for instance, born in the year, in the same year.
Dr Melanie: I don’t know if you know this, that the Constitutional Court came into play.
Dr Melanie: So it’s really fantastic.
Dr Melanie: And it’s also it became the first loyalty program in South Africa that many South Africans ever joined, right?
Dr Melanie: Which is so special.
Dr Melanie: And as you said today, recognized as the most used loyalty program in South Africa.
Dr Melanie: So it’s a it’s a 30 year love story, right?
Dr Melanie: And of continuous innovation.
Dr Melanie: And but the core promise, it never changed, it never changed.
Dr Melanie: So we give you tangible value back, right?
Dr Melanie: In your pocket for choosing clicks.
Dr Melanie: And it’s never changed.
Dr Melanie: And I think that’s been the beauty of, you know, there’s so many new things happening at the moment, Amanda, and it’s so easy to be pulled into all the fads and the news and whatever.
Dr Melanie: And I often get challenged by my own execs about it.
Dr Melanie: And I’m steadfast to say, guys, there’s something sexy about consistency.
Dr Melanie: Yes, innovate around it.
Dr Melanie: But the consistency of ClubCard and the offering, I think is what consumers just love.
Dr Melanie: And when we do the surveys, that’s exactly what they ask us, because it’s real cash back for real people.
Amanda: And you’ve landed, actually, you’ve ended that introduction on the word I wanted to share with the audience.
Amanda: So we see in the marketplace that, like in many other markets, you see a vacuum cleaner has been called a Hoover.
Amanda: So the brand has made the noun.
Amanda: And I believe that the Clicks cash back, which is your noun for your name, for the currency, has become a noun in South Africa for rewards cash back.
Amanda: South Africans don’t refer to points or cash.
Amanda: They refer to cash back.
Amanda: And I think that’s because of the role that Clicks has played, as you say, consistently over 30 years.
Amanda: So tell us, Mel, what a consumer gets.
Amanda: Like, what’s the structure of the program?
Amanda: You mentioned earn and burn, but I know it’s a lot more than that.
Dr Melanie: Yes, absolutely.
Dr Melanie: So in its core, right?
Dr Melanie: The core of this value proposition is that people earn points, which convert into cash back, obviously, on almost everything in a Clicks, right?
Dr Melanie: Or at the body shop, and then obviously at some of our partners like Arc, et cetera, et cetera.
Dr Melanie: These points then convert into cash back that can be spent like cash as a currency in our store.
Dr Melanie: Cash back is the benefit that South Africans that they want most, right?
Dr Melanie: But on top of that, we then have everyday value, right?
Dr Melanie: So after everyday, so it’s not just the ones of promotion that you get now, but it’s almost building an everyday value proposition for our customers.
Dr Melanie: We overlay, we overlay the exclusive member prices, right?
Dr Melanie: With bonus point events, My ClubCard deals, which is specifically for you that is personalized to ClubCard only rewards.
Dr Melanie: So there is an element of immediate redemption, but there’s also then the delayed wait for this until until the two months pass.
Dr Melanie: So that’s the and by the way, in terms of in terms of our program, and you you absolutely find that personalized offers are refreshed quite frequently.
Dr Melanie: So savings feels relevant to the life stage that you are in.
Dr Melanie: If you’re a baby club customer, you get rewarded for that behavior, et cetera.
Dr Melanie: Then what we have is we’ve got a connected ecosystem of partners, which we’re really proud about.
Dr Melanie: So members can earn that cash back on lifestyle partners like FUEL is massive for us.
Dr Melanie: Enginers is the top FUEL brand in South Africa.
Dr Melanie: But also, you know, car rental, having your nails done and having a medical insurance policy.
Dr Melanie: So all of those, that value.
Dr Melanie: But the premise is here, you earn points there and the cash back is then burned in Clicks.
Dr Melanie: And then, of course, there’s the omni-channel convenience, right?
Dr Melanie: So your cash back, your digital card is all available on our app and you can manage your rewards on there.
Dr Melanie: So it is really omni.
Dr Melanie: You can do your scripts on there.
Dr Melanie: So it means that you can track your cash back, you can access your digital cards, you can speak to the pharmacist, all on the back of that.
Dr Melanie: So at the end, for me, the two CVP of ClubCard is it’s meaningful cash back.
Dr Melanie: It is sharp everyday pricing through different promotions.
Dr Melanie: It’s personalized deals.
Dr Melanie: And then of course, the partner network, all banded together in a wonderful, seamless, omni-channel type of experience.
Dr Melanie: And it’s predictable.
Dr Melanie: It’s, I don’t have to take a double page spread in a Sunday newspaper to explain this to you.
Dr Melanie: There are no difficult hoops to jump through.
Dr Melanie: It is what it is.
Dr Melanie: And people know it for what it is.
Amanda: And I think that’s always been my observation, A, in our role as Truth, but when we talk to other brands and they always say, you know, we go through the white paper and we discuss why is, why are you doing so well?
Amanda: Is that consistency?
Amanda: So when you walk into store, there’s no question that you have a loyalty program.
Amanda: You know, you’re not trying to hide it.
Amanda: You’re making sure your customer’s benefits are up.
Amanda: And as you say, that consistency and the richness, I think you, maybe you did mention it, and I’d like to upplay it a little bit, upweight it a little bit.
Amanda: It’s an offering that adds up quickly if you are spending in the store.
Amanda: I’m always super happy to get my cash back.
Amanda: When the kids are a bit younger, before they knew what I do for a living, I said, come look at this, it’s magic.
Amanda: We can go shopping for free.
Amanda: They were like, mom, you didn’t pay.
Amanda: And I was like, well, I tried to, but I didn’t need to.
Dr Melanie: No, no, I hear you.
Amanda: So you mentioned 12.5 million active members.
Amanda: That’s a really sizable active base.
Amanda: A lot of companies do quote big membership bases that aren’t necessarily active.
Amanda: So very impressive active base.
Amanda: Please share with us any other KPIs about the performance of the program.
Amanda: I mean, I know quite a few of them because I see them through the laws.
Amanda: But what would you like to share with everyone?
Dr Melanie: Yeah.
Dr Melanie: So obviously, we track a blend of scale, quality and impact, right?
Dr Melanie: Because, you know, as you say, it can be a very nice vanity stat to say we’ve got 12.5.
Dr Melanie: By the way, it’s now 12.7, I’m just saying.
Dr Melanie: Active members.
Dr Melanie: So that’s our first one.
Dr Melanie: Obviously, how many members have actively shopped you in the last 12 months, right?
Dr Melanie: But then secondly, very much is the sales penetration, because you can have a whole heap of customers with cards in their wallets, but they never take it out, right?
Dr Melanie: There’s never a reason to take it out.
Dr Melanie: Now, you guys do a lot of research about how many cards people actually have in their wallets.
Dr Melanie: And what I want is I want you to have that top of mind.
Dr Melanie: Now, currently, that figure is actually already 84.5% of all of our sales is actually swiped on a Clicks ClubCard, which means it gives me a huge base of insights that I can drive.
Dr Melanie: So it shows really how embedded loyalty is in our consumer behavior.
Dr Melanie: Then, of course, I look at how much cash back was issued and how much was redeemed.
Dr Melanie: Both the absolute value of cash back, now to give an idea, in the last financial it was just over 800 million rands.
Dr Melanie: And then, of course, the redemption rate, because I don’t want you to just earn, but then you don’t see a reason to redeem it.
Dr Melanie: And our redemption rate is over 90%, which to me is really a stat that I, because unused rewards do not, to me, if you’re not using your rewards, to me, it’s like almost like a trust break for me.
Dr Melanie: So I’m very strong on that one.
Dr Melanie: And then we look at the value metrics of the ClubCard member versus the non-ClubCard member.
Dr Melanie: You know, the usual average spend, frequency, size of basket, the mix, et cetera, so that we can quantify the loyalty uplift over time.
Dr Melanie: And then the last thing we do is of course, all your engagement stats.
Dr Melanie: How many of them are app users?
Dr Melanie: How many of them are email?
Dr Melanie: How do they engage on push engagements?
Dr Melanie: How do they respond to the personalized offers?
Dr Melanie: And how many of them use the partners on feel, et cetera, et cetera?
Dr Melanie: So obviously you’re quite careful about what you necessarily disclose publicly, but directionally, I’ll tell you this much, ClubCard members visit us more often, they spend more, and they stay with us longer.
Dr Melanie: I mean, that is the essence of it.
Dr Melanie: And that is exactly what I want from a loyalty program.
Dr Melanie: So by looking at those metrics, it gives me a very good idea of where we are moving and which strategies are working and which not.
Amanda: Mel, thank you.
Amanda: You’ve been incredibly generous with the stats you’ve shared.
Amanda: The two I just want to play back to you was 84% sales penetration.
Amanda: I mean, that’s phenomenal.
Amanda: I mean, that’s world class.
Amanda: Absolutely.
Amanda: And then your 90% redemption rate, it really shows the excitement I told everyone about when I go into the store with my daughter.
Amanda: It shows that 90% of your 12.7 million active members feel the same, which is really powerful.
Amanda: That’s a lot of happiness.
Dr Melanie: And the beauty of what we’re doing currently, Amanda, is you can very easily drop that 10% to your bottom line that people are not redeeming.
Dr Melanie: We don’t do that.
Dr Melanie: We actually reinvest that in two campaigns.
Dr Melanie: You know, where we drive, where we drive and reward our customers.
Dr Melanie: Like we’re currently we’re running a 5X campaign just before Black Friday to allow people to boost their cash back because it’s landing on Sunday evening.
Dr Melanie: And then obviously a Black Friday week starts so that people have enough money to come and spend with us during this Black Friday week.
Amanda: Yeah, stunning.
Amanda: Very, very cool.
Amanda: Great.
Amanda: So I think what I’d like to move to is we started off saying, not only are you through research the most used program by South Africans, it’s very solid research.
Amanda: But by loyalty professionals, when we run the South African Loyalty Awards, you were awarded three separate awards.
Amanda: And I just like to unpack them just because of the content that comes behind why you won them.
Amanda: So the first one actually is about content.
Amanda: So thanks to Paula.
Amanda: Paula Thomas is one of our advisory board members for the South African Loyalty Awards.
Amanda: And she asked the question, we should see how brands use content in loyalty to drive customer engagement.
Amanda: And Clicks ClubCard was recognized as the winner for South Africa for that.
Amanda: So share with us what you do, how it works.
Amanda: Why would the industry have recognized you for that?
Dr Melanie: Absolutely.
Dr Melanie: So I mean, this is the fun part as well, right?
Dr Melanie: So a big part of our loyalty strategy is content, right?
Dr Melanie: Because what you want to be known for in this industry, Amanda, is being an expert, right?
Dr Melanie: That you genuinely want to help customers to live healthier and, of course, more beautiful lives.
Dr Melanie: It’s content that also sells, right?
Dr Melanie: That makes people actually come to your store.
Dr Melanie: So we use different layers.
Dr Melanie: I mean, one layer, for instance, is our ClubCard magazine, right?
Dr Melanie: Which is a digital magazine and install content, which focuses on health, tips, wellness, beauty, and baby.
Dr Melanie: And it’s like stories and product education linked to our members, for one part.
Dr Melanie: But then on our social media and digital channels, we’ve got an always on educational content drive.
Dr Melanie: Anything from chronic health management, mental health, skin care problems.
Dr Melanie: One of our most successful personalization journeys is around baby milestones.
Dr Melanie: There’s menopause, there’s men’s health.
Dr Melanie: I mean, too many to mention.
Dr Melanie: And we see amazing engagement from our loyalty members when the content addresses a real life issue that I have.
Dr Melanie: And then the last layer is of course data led personalization, my personal favorite, where we create and curate segment specific communication and content journeys for anything from a new mom, a student, a chronic patient, a beauty lover.
Dr Melanie: And we do that across all of our channels, whether it’s an emailer that’s specific or an app notification or a WhatsApp, et cetera, et cetera.
Dr Melanie: And then, you know, the content feels written for you.
Dr Melanie: It’s not just dear Amanda, and then it’s the same old blah, blah, right?
Dr Melanie: But the great example that I want to refer to and why we got the award that really shifted loyalty for us was our Beauty Playground, which is a social media content campaign that played a major role in this.
Dr Melanie: When our Beauty Playground was designed as a social first, a social first creator led Beauty Playground event for our ClubCard customers with trends, master classes, tutorials, reviews, etc., coming directly from real South African beauty voices.
Dr Melanie: And it attracts, you can imagine this, more than 5,000 hysterical women over a weekend in a glam event.
Dr Melanie: But the pre and post is insane, so we leaned very heavily on TikTok and Instagram creators that worked with us and showcase all of beauty and beauty from within routines in Clicks.
Dr Melanie: Our tone was very playful, inclusive, because we understood that segment of the market.
Dr Melanie: The get ready, the dupes, etc.
Dr Melanie: And then what we saw was it dramatically extended our reach into the Gen Zs and the young millennials.
Dr Melanie: And we always get awarded with the coolest brand as well, which I’m always proud of, with really short form, engaging content.
Dr Melanie: And then it really drove commercial outcomes, because that’s what you want, eventually you want a sale.
Dr Melanie: It increased the traffic to our beauty pages.
Dr Melanie: And also our aisles in store, very high engagement on our personalized office.
Dr Melanie: And then of course, conversation that we had with our customers.
Dr Melanie: So the campaign was completely holistic.
Dr Melanie: And I think what the award highlighted Amanda was, that our approach was not just about the pretty things and the creative things, it was strategic and it was powered by data.
Dr Melanie: We just do it for the sake of.
Dr Melanie: And so Beauty Playground, it blended entertainment, education, and value in such a way that it just strengthened the brand love and the loyalty that our customers had.
Dr Melanie: So for us, you know, content is not a side project.
Dr Melanie: It’s a core driver of loyalty.
Dr Melanie: And I feel when customers feel inspired and they informed and they feel they’ve been included, they shop more often, they explore more categories, and they just, you know, they stay loyal for longer.
Dr Melanie: So it was a great, funny event.
Amanda: Watching it as an observer, I mean, I saw a lot of it on social media, obviously, and some of my team went to it and just utterly loved it, and just said it was…
Dr Melanie: Others have tried to copy, but they are not successful.
Dr Melanie: I shall…
Amanda: No, but I promise you, it had an incredible impact, like just watching it from the sidelines.
Amanda: So honestly, well done.
Amanda: And as you say, it’s not just hearsay that you’re doing it properly.
Amanda: It’s a thorough, well thought through strategic approach.
Amanda: You have mentioned, Mel, the partnership strategy that you’re one of the first, if not the first, South African loyalty brand to work with partners to boost the customer value proposition.
Amanda: You’ve touched quite a lot about it.
Amanda: So we might not go into it in more detail, but the relationship with Engin, how important that is, and you’ve got obviously your own internal brand, Sorbet and so on.
Amanda: But strategically, how important is the partnership strategy for the business?
Dr Melanie: So it’s one of the key pillars of loyalty for us, because our partnership strategy is very focused, right?
Dr Melanie: It’s to add real value to customers’ everyday lives and then bring that incremental value back into the ClubCard ecosystem.
Dr Melanie: So we based on the following premise, we only partner with the best in class, right?
Dr Melanie: To ensure that we’ve got a really world class offering to our customers.
Dr Melanie: And I think the three lenses that you can look at a partnership.
Dr Melanie: One, you make sure that your partnership has an everyday spend adjacency, right?
Dr Melanie: So we partner where customers regularly will spend, like fuel or optometry through spec savers or financial services through our bank and health partners like Discovery and F&B, so that they can earn that cash back where it makes sense.
Dr Melanie: Secondly, it has to have brand and category relevance.
Dr Melanie: And no use of me partnering.
Dr Melanie: I remember we had a flower partner and it didn’t make sense, right?
Dr Melanie: Because within health, beauty and wellness, we want to co-create promotions with our partners and with our suppliers.
Dr Melanie: Relevant to a life stage, baby with Discovery, skincare with the body shop, etc.
Dr Melanie: So our partners don’t just sponsor points, they actually co-create with us.
Dr Melanie: And then the last one is, of course, data and innovation partnership.
Dr Melanie: So we will always go with a partner that has a very strong data and technology fit with us, so that we can share the insights and we can design better offers and get to know your partners better.
Dr Melanie: And then, of course, exploring new digital payment mechanisms.
Dr Melanie: So I’ll end up with this and say across all of that, we’re quite disciplined when we consider a partner.
Dr Melanie: We say, does this partner make ClubCard more valuable for our customer and more convenient?
Dr Melanie: And if the answer is no, then we don’t partner.
Dr Melanie: Because you can’t partner for the sake of partnership.
Dr Melanie: So we’re very focused when it comes to our partners.
Amanda: And you don’t have to partner for the sake of partnering either.
Amanda: I mean, you’re strong enough as it is.
Amanda: So I love the stake in the ground that you’ll only partner with in class.
Amanda: And that completely makes sense.
Amanda: And it shows, you know, as a value proposition.
Amanda: So the other award that you were celebrated for was the best use of AI and personalization.
Amanda: So you’ve mentioned it a little bit in how you push that into your content strategy.
Amanda: But share with us, how is Clicks ClubCard doing in the journey of AI?
Dr Melanie: Did you say?
Dr Melanie: I mean, AI is just now embedded in everything that we do.
Dr Melanie: You know, between AI and machine learning, I often find there’s a bit of a grayness between the two.
Dr Melanie: So obviously, because we’ve got this rich data set, because so many people participate in the program, and of course, the data sets that we have in terms of our partner usage, etc., we use machine learning models to segment our customers.
Dr Melanie: We predict and identify what is the next best offer or the next big action.
Dr Melanie: And whether it is a promotion that we design, whether it is a piece of content that we then develop, or just a reminder for your chronic medication.
Dr Melanie: Now, these models will power things like my ClubCard reward.
Dr Melanie: So you’ve got ClubCard only rewards, which everybody can get in a store when they swipe their ClubCard.
Dr Melanie: But then there’s the my ClubCard reward, which is hyper-personalized to you and your specific spin pattern.
Dr Melanie: So they refresh very regularly, they’re only digital.
Dr Melanie: And we really apply our AI to optimize things like the timing of marketing, the channels that we use, when to send a notification, you know, whether a customer is more responsive to a WhatsApp versus an email, and how often, for example, we’ve got a whole model that talks about how often do I communicate so that we don’t just cause noise.
Dr Melanie: It’s really across a whole spectrum of it.
Dr Melanie: And then of course, we use AI and advanced analytics to test and to learn, which is so exciting.
Dr Melanie: So we can run experiments on different offers, on different audiences, on different segments, or even different creative approaches.
Dr Melanie: And it has been recognized externally, which is always great.
Dr Melanie: But when you start looking at the results and you look at the result versus the holdout group, I mean, that’s amazing.
Dr Melanie: You know, our AI is really improving the customer experience.
Dr Melanie: It’s not just because it’s fashionable.
Dr Melanie: It’s because it really improves the customer’s experience.
Dr Melanie: And it’s a wonderful and exciting field.
Dr Melanie: It changes every day.
Dr Melanie: You know, sometimes I look at my data scientists and I think, my goodness, should you not be in school, does your mother know that you’re here?
Dr Melanie: But it’s amazing to see the brains and to even see my designers who are now so engrossed in what AI could do.
Dr Melanie: It started out as, oh, AI is going to replace my job.
Dr Melanie: And now I see our copywriters that write subject lines, using it right through to the designers, right through to the data scientists.
Dr Melanie: So it is a fantastic time to be alive, honestly.
Dr Melanie: I know a lot of people are scared of it, but I think you must grab the opportunity, quite frankly.
Amanda: Absolutely.
Amanda: Being scared of it is just going to threaten your life.
Amanda: You’ve got to run towards it.
Amanda: It’s very, very exciting.
Amanda: And it’s really special to hear you explain how you’re using it.
Amanda: So many brands say, yeah, of course we’re using AI personalization.
Dr Melanie: But not really.
Amanda: Yeah.
Amanda: But how are they using it?
Amanda: And how is it making their life for the customers better and the life of the team better?
Amanda: Which leads me on to your team.
Amanda: So I would say, dare I say, the biggest award that you were celebrated for at the South African Loyalty Awards was team of the year.
Amanda: And I know just by the reaction from you and your team, it meant the world.
Amanda: And it’s so well-deserved.
Amanda: I mean, for years, you’ve just been very much respected and serving the South African consumer.
Amanda: But I think, talk to us a little bit.
Amanda: So this is where Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV were involved in the South African Loyalty Awards, because they wanted to see the celebration of the team of the year and hence our interview today.
Amanda: So thank you to Paula for getting involved in that.
Amanda: From our point of view, what we’d love to understand is more about what goes on behind the scenes.
Amanda: You know, it’s all very well to be celebrated, but what really happens?
Amanda: How big is your team?
Amanda: What are the processes in place and so on?
Dr Melanie: Absolutely.
Dr Melanie: I must tell you, Amanda, I mean, apart from my two children and my two grandchildren, which are my greatest achievements, this was probably the highlight of my career for me personally, but also for a team that has just been amazing over many, many years.
Dr Melanie: So, you know, I think the way ClubCard is designed, it’s designed as a cross-functional effort, if I can put it that way.
Dr Melanie: There are many spokes.
Dr Melanie: It’s not just a loyalty team that sits on its own.
Dr Melanie: It’s really a whole universe of people.
Dr Melanie: So obviously we’ve got a central loyalty team run by Craig, as you know, and the CRM team that owns the strategy, right?
Dr Melanie: They’re the custodians, they’re the custodians of the customer journey and the campaign planning and all that goes with it.
Dr Melanie: But then there’s all these peripheral teams that support.
Dr Melanie: So obviously we’ve got a strong data and analytics team.
Dr Melanie: It’s a mix between, it’s a hybrid between in-house resources and outsourced.
Dr Melanie: And I’ve purposefully built it that way because especially around your data scientists, they need to churn, they need to come in with new blood because they’re building the models, the segments, the dashboards, they need to be on top of the latest tech in terms of personalization and measurement, etc.
Dr Melanie: Then we’ve got the Omni team.
Dr Melanie: Now the Omni team, with the help of the digital product and tech teams and IT, they manage the app, the website, the martech stack and the integration into all our other systems to make sure that we execute and deliver perfectly.
Dr Melanie: And then almost at the core of all of this is the brand and category marketing team.
Dr Melanie: Now they, in conjunction with our digital marketing and design teams, they work together with suppliers, with internal stakeholders, to translate all these wonderful customer insights that we gather, right, into campaigns and omni-channel executions.
Dr Melanie: And also, I mean, they make kick-ass above the line and through the line awareness.
Dr Melanie: And then, you know, never forget, we’ve got a marketing operations team, because all of this needs to happen on the front line in the store.
Dr Melanie: It’s wonderful to sit here and plan, but you have to get that brochure out, right?
Dr Melanie: You have to get that catalog out.
Dr Melanie: You have to get that point of sale that says, baby club member, get your 4% here, et cetera, et cetera, to make sure that when you take the customer proposition into the actual customer experience in store, it’s consistent and that our members can easily use and understand their benefits to whatever marketing assets we give them.
Dr Melanie: So there’s about 220 people across the marketing and Omni team, which also includes the guys in the basement that actually cut the pause and put them on a truck and get them off on a heister and a huge customer engagement center where people can call and query anything from cash back to et cetera.
Dr Melanie: So we run it as one integrated ecosystem because it’s the same customer, it’s the same data and it’s the same brand.
Dr Melanie: It’s just different skills working together at the same time.
Amanda: And I think it shows how significant loyalty is in an organization to be successful.
Amanda: It cannot sit in a small division in marketing.
Amanda: Craig and his team are doing a phenomenal job for what they need to do, but for it to be successful, you’ve got to pull all of that together.
Amanda: And I think one of my favorite quotes from you, Melanie, when we last chatted, actually at, I think, the white paper launch, is how you spoke about the role of legal, like you literally don’t have a meeting without the legal team added to that team.
Dr Melanie: Not at all.
Dr Melanie: We love to hate them, Amanda.
Dr Melanie: That is so necessary.
Dr Melanie: Absolutely.
Amanda: 100 percent.
Amanda: Great.
Amanda: So let’s leave with one last question.
Amanda: If thinking of the audience of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, there’s a lot of young professionals or older professionals finding their way in the loyalty industry.
Amanda: What pitfalls would you help them avoid?
Dr Melanie: Yeah.
Dr Melanie: So I think over the years, I’ve learned a couple of big lessons.
Dr Melanie: I think the first lesson really is value must be simple and visible.
Dr Melanie: If customers don’t understand how they can earn or redeem, or they can’t see their rewards or track their rewards, they just disengage, right?
Dr Melanie: And I think what is important is to simplify your communication and just surface it repeatedly, right?
Dr Melanie: Keep it simple.
Dr Melanie: Secondly, you don’t over engineer at the expense of trust, because you can make it very bells and whistles, right?
Dr Melanie: You can.
Dr Melanie: You know, with AI and the data that we have, it’s very tempting to go that route, become very clever, right?
Dr Melanie: But if, you know, I take for example, if personalization becomes creepy, especially in the health base, you can imagine, where it becomes unfair, you very easily lose trust.
Dr Melanie: And we’ve learned that you have to balance sophistication with transparency and clear permissions.
Dr Melanie: Hence my lawyer in the room.
Dr Melanie: The third lesson for me is partnerships is great, but it needs discipline, because it’s very easy to collect partners because let me tell you, I get courted often with lots of people that want to have access to your base.
Dr Melanie: But it’s harder to ensure that every partner that you add on must add value, number one, and it mustn’t over complicate your program or just simply confuse your customers.
Dr Melanie: Second last thing, and I guess it’s also from a retailer perspective, but I’m sure it’s also true in other industries is that tech debt is real.
Dr Melanie: Tech debt is real.
Dr Melanie: I mean, loyalty lives across many systems, and often these are legacy systems, whether it’s your POS system, which is 30 years old or e-commerce or apps and very modern martech.
Dr Melanie: I think one of the lessons that we’ve learned is that you under invest in your foundational software and tech.
Dr Melanie: It slows down everything later.
Dr Melanie: You know, that like be careful what you decide.
Dr Melanie: We’ve had to be very intentional about modernizing and integrating our ecosystem.
Dr Melanie: And then the last thing that I want to say, and it’s very true in the South African case, and the more I read about what’s happening in the rest of the world, I think it’s very apt there as well, is that I think economic pressure has changed how people view loyalty and use rewards, by the way, right?
Dr Melanie: We’ve seen in tougher times that we definitely experience at the moment, we’ve seen customers shift cash back from treating themselves a me, me, me, to actually funding the monthly basic, the soap, the toothpaste, et cetera.
Dr Melanie: We’ve seen that high-income customers are even more engaged in loyalty than ever before, and are the first ones to spend their loyalty.
Dr Melanie: And that’s really forced us to think very deeply about how ClubCard supports this financial stability and resilience, and give dignity, right?
Dr Melanie: Not just indulgence.
Dr Melanie: And I think that has been a key lesson for us.
Dr Melanie: We’ve got people that live in extreme poverty, that are our customers.
Dr Melanie: And very often, that tweeny-ran cash back that you get to the till and somebody says, ma’am, do you want to use your cash back?
Dr Melanie: Actually pays for the formula of an infant.
Dr Melanie: And I think that’s a great responsibility.
Dr Melanie: So those would be my pearls of wisdom.
Dr Melanie: Beautiful.
Amanda: Absolutely beautiful.
Amanda: Melanie, thank you so much.
Amanda: You really have shared very generously a journey of 30 years, 30 years of, I’m sure it wasn’t always easy before your time.
Amanda: And I’m sure it’s not easy every day for you.
Amanda: But I think anyone listening to this, and certainly anyone in South Africa has the utmost respect for what Clicks as a business is doing and what Clicks ClubCard has achieved and what it’s doing for the South African population.
Amanda: So again, from me personally, congratulations to you and your team.
Amanda: It’s such a pleasure to watch how it grows.
Amanda: And thank you for doing such an honor to the journey and sharing it with Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.
Dr Melanie: Thank you, Amanda.
Dr Melanie: It was a pleasure as always.
Paula: This show is sponsored by Wise Marketeer Group, publisher of The Wise Marketeer, the premier digital customer loyalty marketing resource for industry relevant news, insights and research.
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