Flying Tiger Copenhagen: Loyalty, Omnichannel & Building the Flying Tiger Club (#759)

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 Nyeleti Su Angel Nkuna, a customer loyalty strategist with a proven record of helping blue chip global brands forge deeper connections with their customers.

PAULA: Enjoy!

NYELETI: Hello and welcome, my name is Nyeleti, and in this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, I have the privilege of being joined in conversation with Mathilde Yung Bruyant, who is the marketing director of Flying Tiger Copenhagen.

NYELETI: As the name suggests, this is a Danish retailer that has its origins in Copenhagen, but now serves more than 30 markets around the world, and serves more than 100 million customers annually.

NYELETI: Its ethos is that a virtual life doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

NYELETI: And so Flying Tiger Copenhagen is known for its quirky home goods, stationary gadgets, and seasonal items at a low price point.

NYELETI: But the strength really is in the experience.

NYELETI: Their stores are a destination experience where customers come in to browse, to discover, and then impulse buy.

NYELETI: So the loyalty question in having a membership program is, how do you reward customers and digitize an experience that is built upon in-store discovery?

NYELETI: This is one of the many questions that Mathilde and I will explore on this episode.

NYELETI: So I invite you to listen in and be inspired by this dynamic and very courageous and inspiring company, Flying Tiger Copenhagen.

NYELETI: Mathilde, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show.

PAULA: Welcome.

MATHILDE: Thank you very much, Nyeleti, it’s a pleasure to be here.

NYELETI: So, you know, I’ve already given you a bit of a heads up around the first question, because it’s the question we ask all our guests.

NYELETI: We try to get to understand a little bit of what’s going on in your home bookshelf.

NYELETI: So let’s start by uncovering what would be a non-fiction book that has inspired you in your professional journey, and why has it left an impression on you?

MATHILDE: So actually, it was an interesting question because I mostly read fiction books in my spare time, and that also has an effect on my professional life, I’d say.

MATHILDE: But for the non-fiction ones, for me, in my professional setting and my career, it’s been how brands grow by Byron Sharp.

MATHILDE: It’s just completely rewired the way I think about branding and marketing in general.

MATHILDE: And I know it might be controversial in the field of loyalty and how to talk about loyalty, but I think it’s super, super relevant still because it essentially starts with the customer as the focal point of how you should treat the way you do marketing in general.

MATHILDE: So that’s definitely had a huge effect on me.

NYELETI: I think that’s actually very in line with how I think about loyalty because it starts with a but serving customer needs.

NYELETI: So that’s something for me to actually put on my reading list and will definitely link the book and your point on reading fiction.

NYELETI: I think more guests seem to answer that than not.

NYELETI: So another thing that’s interesting about you is your background.

NYELETI: You started anthropology and not traditional marketing.

NYELETI: How has that training shaped the way you see customer behavior?

MATHILDE: Yeah, that’s true.

MATHILDE: I sort of stumbled into marketing.

MATHILDE: But I think, well, in many ways, anthropology is a great starting point to think about customers first.

MATHILDE: It seems a little trivial, but I think sort of having that eye for uncovering the everyday lives of customers and what actually sort of moves them to make decisions is a huge advantage when you work in marketing, right?

MATHILDE: Because you have, of course, all sorts of internal stuff going on around you and your brand and your offerings.

MATHILDE: But in reality, what really matters is how you sort of fit into the lives of your customers.

MATHILDE: And in order to do that, you need to have some form of understanding of what that life is and what it looks like, right?

NYELETI: Yes, and customers are humans, right?

NYELETI: They have all sorts of emotions throughout their day, a lot of decisions to make within their day.

NYELETI: So how does that brand penetrate with everything else that’s going on in that person’s life?

NYELETI: So totally.

MATHILDE: It’s exactly that.

MATHILDE: I think as market seers, sometimes we have a tendency, of course, to think about the brand first and what you can offer.

MATHILDE: That’s not relevant.

MATHILDE: But for us, we think about brands all the time.

MATHILDE: For the standard customer or consumer, they don’t think about brands.

MATHILDE: They think about their lives.

MATHILDE: They think about what they are going to buy for dinner, the new pair of running shoes they need to get exercising more, or what they should bring to their kids’ birthday party.

MATHILDE: That’s how it starts for most customers.

MATHILDE: They don’t think about the brand first.

MATHILDE: That’s why I think if you take that as your starting point as well, you get closer to the actual lives of who you want to reach.

NYELETI: I think we’re really getting into where I want to go into this conversation and talking about the things that customers are looking to have, for example, what to buy for your kids’ birthday party.

NYELETI: This is where I think Flying Tiger comes in.

NYELETI: Now, it’s a Danish retailer, you’re in more than 30 markets and doing extremely well.

NYELETI: But for our audience, that might not be so familiar with Flying Tiger Copenhagen.

NYELETI: Could you tell us a little bit about this brand and why it’s so distinctive in the marketplace?

MATHILDE: Yeah, sure.

MATHILDE: So Flying Tiger started over 30 years ago by a founder, Leonard Leibesitz, who sort of sold smaller products for only 10 Danish DKK.

MATHILDE: That was sort of the concept at the start.

MATHILDE: The reason is called, at that time it was called Tiger, and it was called Flying Tiger because the Danish word for Atena is Tja, and that’s the same word as Tiger in Danish.

MATHILDE: So that’s sort of how it fits together.

MATHILDE: I think it sort of speaks to, generally speaking, the quirkiness of the brand which is still intact today.

MATHILDE: So we produce a wide variety of different products for your everyday lives, or everyday lives, but it’s sort of always with the twist or with the quirkiness and contemporary feel to the way we do it.

MATHILDE: So you can find everything from toys to stationary products to kitchen items across our stores.

NYELETI: That quirkiness is the DNA, right?

NYELETI: The fun things that you can discover and play with at the store.

NYELETI: So you already indicated that you’ve been around for more than three decades.

NYELETI: But the Loyalty Club is relatively new and it also introduces a membership program.

NYELETI: So let me just take me through the thinking of that.

NYELETI: Having established a strong retail presence, why did you think that a Loyalty program is something that you needed?

MATHILDE: Yeah, sure.

MATHILDE: I mean, I think it’s sort of twofold.

MATHILDE: That’s a twofold answer to that question, right?

MATHILDE: One is, of course, as the business side of it, what is it that you can learn from your customers about their behavior, about what they want, what they’re looking for, what type of insight can you gain into sort of their journey with you as a brand?

MATHILDE: So that’s definitely one component.

MATHILDE: And then I think the other one is more customer-led and is around what can we offer to our customers, because we’re definitely also a brand who tries to stay very close to them, as I also said before, and how we can engage with them.

MATHILDE: And so we started thinking about, and we’re not quite there yet at all, but we started thinking about what can we do that brings value outside of course of our product offering, but how can we sort of engage with our customer base in different ways and purely transactional things.

MATHILDE: Yes.

NYELETI: And that point of engaging with a customer base and being one of the primary drivers, understanding your customers.

NYELETI: So who is this primarily designed for?

NYELETI: Like what customer segments and within the database is it everybody?

NYELETI: And who are they?

NYELETI: Yeah.

MATHILDE: So I think it’s designed for all of our customers.

MATHILDE: And then of course we can dive into the numbers and what is it that we see.

MATHILDE: But generally speaking, it’s not like we’ve sat down and said, okay, this is a specific customer segment that we want to hit.

MATHILDE: And so we’ve also decided to be sort of hopefully very broadly appealing to the many different types of people that come into our stores, right?

MATHILDE: And that being said, what we do see is that while of course we hit our heavier bias, it actually has quite a wide sort of appeal also to people who don’t shop with us all the time.

MATHILDE: And that the club sort of moves them to shop with us a bit more and shop different types of baskets with us.

MATHILDE: So I think we’re still in that phase where keep it broad.

MATHILDE: And then of course, as we grow the program, you’ll see more sort of defined segments emerging within that and how we treat and reward different types of behavior tracks, if you can call it that, right?

MATHILDE: But it wasn’t sort of to hit a specific target group that we faced it in.

NYELETI: So at the moment, it’s about keeping it broad, making sure that everybody is included in the offering.

NYELETI: And I totally understand that from the maturity perspective, because you would need more of those data signals to further understand the customers and then personalize based on the different segments that you have.

NYELETI: So that makes a lot of sense.

NYELETI: But in terms of the typical customer that goes to Flying Tiger Copenhagen, how would you describe that person or those groups?

MATHILDE: So I mean, our customer base is quite wide, but I mean, the most likely customer would be usually a woman aged somewhere between 25 and 35.

MATHILDE: Some of them with kids, you’re probably pretty interested in design and you’re interested in contemporary takes on everyday items.

MATHILDE: I think that’s sort of the very, if I had to do one persona, but we are actually pretty careful of thinking about segments in that sense because we try to let them be more behavior-led.

MATHILDE: So while we can, of course, think about what does that type of behavior, how does that materialize in a type of person, we try to let it be more, how do you actually shop exactly because we are a variety retailer, right?

MATHILDE: So the whole point of us is that we should ideally have something that’s interesting to most people, and we try not to limit that customers go too much to begin with.

MATHILDE: Because I’d love for any customers to come to our stores and to be part of our loyalty program as well.

MATHILDE: So it’s more led around, how do you then interact with us?

MATHILDE: How much do you shop?

MATHILDE: What do you shop?

MATHILDE: How much time has passed since you last went to us?

MATHILDE: That type of thing, right?

MATHILDE: If that makes sense.

MATHILDE: So that’s the starting point for us more than to think about it in persona ways.

NYELETI: Absolutely, because then it’s through these actions, the actions of the last purchase, what’s in your basket size.

NYELETI: Of course, one thing that most of us love about Flying Tiger is that discovery element.

NYELETI: I love going into the shops and it’s about touching and feeling the different products.

NYELETI: It’s about having fun also with your in-store people.

NYELETI: So that discovery element is strong and I think it’s very much an in-person experience.

NYELETI: So your digital journey, how does that complement that so that you have the same experience online and still want to drive people in stores?

MATHILDE: Yeah, that’s a super, super good question and you’re completely right in sort of that being a core part of what it is that we offer our customers, right?

MATHILDE: That sort of sense of going on a treasure hunt and finding something unexpected or something you didn’t know existed.

MATHILDE: So it’s in the pipeline right now.

MATHILDE: It’s not something we offer today in the app, but it’s definitely something we’re thinking about, how to recreate that discovery space digitally and through the app.

MATHILDE: So you could imagine that be browsing pages, maybe looking through digital product catalogs, or even getting a sneak peek of campaigns that are coming and hitting the stores in a few weeks and months.

MATHILDE: And maybe you could find spaces for doing wish lists or whatever type of thing digitally and then going and finding products in store, maybe with member benefits or something similar, right?

MATHILDE: So that’s how we tried to sort of merge the two worlds or dimensions of what we are.

NYELETI: I think that’s super fascinating, especially when you talk about the early access and being able to actually set a wish list.

NYELETI: So those are some of the things that you casually can’t do in store.

NYELETI: So I like the fact that the membership program and the app experience gives you more than what you could if you’re going in the shop.

NYELETI: And so it doesn’t compete with one another, but it just gives another different type of experience and reasons to return.

MATHILDE: That’s hopefully, I mean, that’s the point, of course.

MATHILDE: But I think you’re completely right in sort of trying to…

MATHILDE: I mean, that’s part of it.

MATHILDE: We’re not quite there yet, right?

MATHILDE: It’s always a process and a journey.

MATHILDE: But what we’re trying to do is think holistically about the different customer touch points that we have, right?

MATHILDE: And how they are used in the best ways and how they complement each other, right?

MATHILDE: And I think that’s sort of a key point in maturing these types of efforts is how to actually think of it as an entire ecosystem, because you have a tendency to sometimes think about it inside of us, right?

MATHILDE: Because then one team is working with this touch point and another one is working with this.

MATHILDE: So how do you actually tie it together and think about it as one joint thing?

MATHILDE: Because for our customers, it’s all one brand, right?

MATHILDE: So even though we might be working on it separately internally, for them, it’s Flying Tiger Copenhagen, no matter if you meet us online or install, right?

NYELETI: Absolutely.

NYELETI: You touched on one thing that I always love to dig deeper on, and that is the different teams that are working in the setup.

NYELETI: So you have the position of Marketing Director and looking after a lot of these different setups.

NYELETI: So could you talk us through the teams that report into you?

NYELETI: What are they involved in and how do they contribute to this membership experience?

MATHILDE: Yeah, sure.

MATHILDE: So first of all, I think I can talk you through my teams.

MATHILDE: And then there are some teams that are in different areas, but that are super central to how we think about our loyalty and how we do it in practice.

MATHILDE: So my organization encompasses our marketing channels.

MATHILDE: So that’s the club, newsletters, social media, both paid and organic and so on.

MATHILDE: Then we have our creative team producing our content and developing our marketing campaigns.

MATHILDE: And then we have an, it’s called our customer marketing intelligence functions.

MATHILDE: So they basically crunch all of the numbers and translate them into actionable insights for the rest of us.

MATHILDE: Then outside, of course, we have a brilliant tech team that works very closely with us and with our developers on actually putting all of these great thoughts into reality or put them out there and making it work hopefully smoothly for our customers.

MATHILDE: And then I also have to mention all of our local marketing teams.

MATHILDE: So as you said, Tiger spans a number of different countries.

MATHILDE: So we have local marketing teams that are sort of the last mile on the execution and they do a fantastic job in actually getting the word out there and to signing people up in stores and managing our social media accounts.

MATHILDE: And they, of course, are a huge part of any success that this program has.

NYELETI: And those markets, and I would love to get into more detail in terms of the relationship between them and global.

NYELETI: How do you maintain the universal feeling of Flying Tiger, but still appreciate local nuances, the culture within and give autonomy to those market leaders?

NYELETI: What is that dynamic looking like in your space?

MATHILDE: So, I mean, like any company, of course, we have brand guidelines and CVIs that we all need to stay within.

MATHILDE: And that’s one way of sort of ensuring the consistency of the expression of the brand.

MATHILDE: But that being said, as I said before, we have a brilliant team of local marketeers that know their markets and customer bases so well.

MATHILDE: So, for us, it’s been about building that relationship with them to ensure that they have the flexibility and the support they need from our side to actually do what they do best, which is to meet our customers where they are both on social media and in stores.

MATHILDE: So, I think for us, it’s been very relational and it’s been very trust-based to sort of make this work.

MATHILDE: So, I think, I mean, of course, it’s always a balance, what should be central, what should be local.

MATHILDE: But I think if you have sort of a good working relationship, and again, it’s pretty, I mean, nothing new is not rocket science, right?

MATHILDE: But it’s just absolutely integral to making things work, that you can, then you can hand something over and then have full trust that there are excellent teams that will take it from there.

NYELETI: Absolutely, and I think it’s that, you know, the delegation, but also, as you said, very importantly, empowering those teams to actually take those decisions.

NYELETI: And then a follow up question to that.

NYELETI: When I think about the local impact with regards to the club, when customers join in the different markets, are they joining for that markets loyalty program, or is it all going into a central global market loyalty program?

MATHILDE: So they are joining for that markets local loyalty program, but that local loyalty program is part of a bigger whole and the reason why I say it like that is that it’s one club, but there might be local variations depending on local regulations or stuff like that.

MATHILDE: So when you become a member, let’s say in Denmark where I’m based, then my loyalty program works in Denmark.

MATHILDE: But for us working on it here in the company, it’s one whole thing that then may have local specifics that may get a little different than the others.

NYELETI: So being in Denmark, if you were to travel for vacation and be in Spain, would you be able to redeem points in that store in Spain?

MATHILDE: Unfortunately, not as it stands right now.

MATHILDE: But that’s again one of the things when you roll out on an MVP logic.

MATHILDE: You make it work and then you follow up.

MATHILDE: I think that’s very much the situation we’re in right now, where we rolled out with the basics.

MATHILDE: Then now is the time where we are maturing this.

MATHILDE: This is again one of the other key things we would like to do.

MATHILDE: So how can we tie it all together?

MATHILDE: How can you ensure that you are a member and you feel that wherever you are, when you travel and you can use it in a similar way in stores, you can online and so on and so forth.

MATHILDE: So those are the the follow ups we are doing currently.

NYELETI: One of the things that I want to upload you and your team on is in starting, because it is quite a huge undertaking to have a loyalty program.

NYELETI: The speed to market that Flying Tiger has actually done it has been quite remarkable.

NYELETI: It takes a lot of bravity.

NYELETI: Like what made you actually do this and do it at the speed that you do it just so you get started?

NYELETI: And I think that is the best way to get started and get the learnings and have an iterative approach.

MATHILDE: No, absolutely, I completely agree.

MATHILDE: I think, honestly, this program is a testament to sort of the company culture and the logic.

MATHILDE: So even though, as we talked about, we are an old company and we are in many markets, the sort of start-up-y kind of sort of passion is still very much in tech.

MATHILDE: And I think we have a very empowering culture here in trying to get ideas, good ideas out there and to prove the concept and then you can scale from there.

MATHILDE: And that’s usually how we see the best results is when we do things incrementally, right?

MATHILDE: So you get started with something that is manageable and then you can put things on top.

MATHILDE: And I think it goes for loyalty programs, but in general, right?

MATHILDE: That when things, we want to get 100% right from the start, it grows too big.

MATHILDE: So how do you actually just, as you say, start, learn something?

MATHILDE: You might not always do it right or perfectly the first time, that’s for sure, but then you’ll learn something and you’ll integrate it and you’ll make it better step by step.

MATHILDE: And that’s very much sort of the, that’s the logic of how we operate here.

MATHILDE: And I mean, it’s incredible what you can do if you give that type of freedom or that type of empowerment.

MATHILDE: I mean, the team brought the first market online in just six weeks.

MATHILDE: And so I think that’s just, that’s how you get things going.

NYELETI: And it makes me wonder about the partnerships you have in place, because to kind of bring in, you know, the first market live in six weeks, there’s the team that you have and you’ve spoken a lot about, you know, your marketing team and the different touch points that you’re in, the analytics, the technical team and everybody coming together.

NYELETI: But maybe speak a little bit also about the partnerships that you have in place that have been part of this journey.

MATHILDE: Yeah, sure, we have two great partners, The Garden, which is our sort of developers and then in Taube, which support us with the actual loyalty platform of the app.

MATHILDE: And those have been absolutely fantastic.

MATHILDE: I think it’s again sort of how do you build your relationships?

MATHILDE: So you need to ensure that you pick the right partner for you, right?

MATHILDE: And there are of course different requirements and companies might look differently at things and need different things.

MATHILDE: So I think that selection process where you say, okay, are we actually the right fit?

MATHILDE: And is a key element in doing any program, really.

MATHILDE: And yeah, I think again, the team did an amazing job in sort of setting out what’s actually important for us, what are the most important things?

MATHILDE: And I think one key thing has been actually for us, and it was sort of kind of by accident, right?

MATHILDE: But our developers set two buildings away from us.

MATHILDE: So we actually have the possibility of also going over there, come to us, and that’s actually super easy to work together also on the daily.

MATHILDE: And that’s just been an incredible plus when doing these kinds of things, right?

NYELETI: It really sounds like a passion project, Mathilde.

NYELETI: It sounds like this was the right people at the right time with one vision in mind and just had that spirit of let’s do it.

MATHILDE: No, absolutely.

MATHILDE: And we have a couple of very skilled, very passionate people on the team that drive this forward.

MATHILDE: And I think that’s…

MATHILDE: I can’t give them enough credit.

MATHILDE: I mean, I just…

MATHILDE: I’m talking to you and that’s incredibly fun.

MATHILDE: But on the days to days, right, it’s an incredible team that really wants to do this and has also a really good feel for the brand.

MATHILDE: Because, I mean, that’s just another key thing in this.

MATHILDE: How do you do a loyalty program that feels like you?

MATHILDE: And that’s also where you can really use your teams and your employees, because often they’ll also know the brand super well and know sort of the nuances and the elements that you want to put forth in this type of endeavor.

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NYELETI: Now I want to go back to the actual customer base, and because this is a new program, I would imagine that acquisition is one of the metrics that you’re looking at.

NYELETI: Would that be correct?

MATHILDE: Yes, that’s correct.

MATHILDE: Of course, we’re still in the phase where we want to grow the base.

NYELETI: And so I always ask to ask this question, because earlier you spoke about the onboarding program, what you’re currently doing and what you hope to do.

NYELETI: But I always like to ask about thinking about those customers that are in the base but are not really active, they’re not really responding and perhaps not very valuable.

NYELETI: Any thoughts on that, on those type of customers?

NYELETI: Do you have plans in the futures on how to deal with that problem space?

MATHILDE: Yeah, I think that’s a super important point because, I mean, of course, you want to see the number grow on your base, but you also want that to be actually engaged and active, right?

MATHILDE: Otherwise, it really is just that just a number.

MATHILDE: So today, we already have in place different types of wind back flows and activities that we try to hit you with, if we don’t see this level of activity we would like.

MATHILDE: So one example could be, if you haven’t shopped with us in the last 90 days, you get an offer from us.

MATHILDE: So that’s just one thing that we’re trying to do.

MATHILDE: Of course, we’re looking to mature that even more.

MATHILDE: And if you can, then a listical point where you can say, oh, here are some early warning signs and we can hit you early or with the right metrics.

MATHILDE: Or you can start saying what type of wind back activity is working the best.

MATHILDE: And it might also of course differ from segment to segment.

MATHILDE: That would sort of be more of an end state view of where we would like to go.

MATHILDE: But even just starting with these, these kind of metrics where you can learn and say, okay, it’s 90 days.

MATHILDE: Is that the right, is that the right sort of time or period you’re looking at?

MATHILDE: Is it shorter or longer?

MATHILDE: How is it that you want to approach it?

MATHILDE: I think it’s how we try to do it.

MATHILDE: So again, back to the mentality of just, just getting going and then you can always optimize afterwards.

MATHILDE: I mean, absolutely.

NYELETI: It’s a test and learn journey as we’ve already spoken about.

NYELETI: But it also sounds to me that you are definitely employing prevention rather than cures, which is a very healthy place to be.

NYELETI: So you spoke about win back campaigns and it sounds to me like you do also have quite a mature CRM system.

NYELETI: In your organization, is CRM and Loyalty in the same house or do they work separately but speak to each other?

MATHILDE: So they have the same, they are under the same manager.

MATHILDE: So then and then two separate teams just because right now they work a little differently to what’s different.

MATHILDE: It’s sort of overall goes exactly speaking.

MATHILDE: So we’re still maturing the program.

MATHILDE: So what type of KPIs is it that we’re trying to, that are the most important right now for us, right?

MATHILDE: But they, of course, because they sit in sort of the same overall team and with the same manager, they work super closely together.

MATHILDE: And as of course, they tie into a lot of the same things and are also mutually dependent.

NYELETI: And as we go into the closing segments of this conversation, I want to kind of go back to where we started, and that was the in-store experience and the discovery and element.

NYELETI: I would say, you know, the teams in store are really the hidden engine for it all.

NYELETI: How are they being equipped to think about the Loyalty program when they’re engaging with customers?

NYELETI: And, you know, what type of playbook are they working with?

MATHILDE: Yeah, that’s, I just want to start with saying that it’s absolutely central to the success of this program, and because we have incredible store staff that really make, I mean, come to life.

MATHILDE: And the way we’ve done it is that we’ve done store trains.

MATHILDE: So our staff go through sort of, of course, the concepts of the program and what it is that we are trying to achieve.

MATHILDE: Then usually when we roll out to a new market, we also further incentivize stores with sort of compensations and who can get the most signups.

MATHILDE: But then after the sort of initial startup phase is really just about working very closely with them, keeping them close.

MATHILDE: I think there’s sort of an employer branding element of it as well, right?

MATHILDE: Because usually staff is super excited about the program.

MATHILDE: They’re excited about their brand.

MATHILDE: They’re happy to sort of make it come to life and to be part of it.

MATHILDE: So that’s how we’ve done it.

MATHILDE: Of course, sort of saying, can we remind customers when they’re at the till, do you want to sign up to the program, get a percentage discount for your next purchase, that type of thing.

MATHILDE: But I think really also just staying close to them, listening to their feedback, trying to incorporating what they see, because they are really the experts of what customers ask and what they’re looking for, right?

MATHILDE: They’re much closer to them than we are.

MATHILDE: So having that sort of continuous dialogue and staying close to them has been super important for us.

MATHILDE: 100%.

NYELETI: Those feedback loops are so crucial, especially from those who are engaged in, in person with the customers.

NYELETI: So I think that that’s absolutely the right approach there, Mathilde.

NYELETI: And now, the membership program, as it develops, and I hope it develops exactly as you hope and probably will with all the ambition that you have set up.

NYELETI: But what would you want that experience to be like for the customers when it gets to a near maturity place?

NYELETI: You know, what is your vision?

MATHILDE: Yeah, that’s a super good question.

MATHILDE: And actually, something we discuss all the time within the teams that touch the program.

MATHILDE: I think, for us, it’s super important to think about the program as being more than just sort of the loyalty app or your membership card or offers, right?

MATHILDE: It’s part of a bigger community.

MATHILDE: And how do we actually as a brand offer you something that goes beyond just getting a percentage off or getting your extra member benefit?

MATHILDE: I think we return to the experience part, really.

MATHILDE: So can we do things that are part of a bigger experience?

MATHILDE: Again, early access things or maybe you actually get to feedback on product development or you get exclusive products or something that is more linked to sort of an entire brand experience and also maybe more closely linked to who we are as a brand, what Flying Tiger Copenhagen is, right?

MATHILDE: Again, back to sort of the quirkiness, but also the more sort of being an approachable brand, hopefully.

MATHILDE: And we do really enjoy and try to stay in a conversation with our customers.

MATHILDE: So having that type of more two way kind of of approach would be would be something that I hope we get to at some point.

NYELETI: I definitely have no doubt.

NYELETI: I think you have all the right elements in it and definitely a very clear vision.

NYELETI: So the very last question would be to offer a piece of advice for any retail brand that is starting out in their membership proposition.

NYELETI: You know, what would be the advice that you would give?

NYELETI: Perhaps something that you wished you hadn’t learned from the beginning.

MATHILDE: Oh, there are a bunch of things I wish I would have learned.

MATHILDE: I know honestly, the key advice is to keep it simple.

MATHILDE: It doesn’t need to be a full sort of fleshed out program to start.

MATHILDE: It can really just be, here’s a voucher.

MATHILDE: Would you like to be part of our program?

MATHILDE: And then you can build from there.

MATHILDE: So that’s sort of one thing.

MATHILDE: And then I think it comes with an additional advice, that is to stay as close to your brand as possible and actually think about what should a loyalty program look like for us.

MATHILDE: And it might not be the same as competitors, and it might not be the same as other successful loyalty programs.

MATHILDE: So I think having that sort of critical thinking around what is it that you should offer, because it needs to resonate with the rest of the things that you’re doing back to the holistic approach to your customer touchpoints.

MATHILDE: So I think that’s the add-on to the keep it simple.

NYELETI: Keep it simple and get started.

MATHILDE: Right?

MATHILDE: Absolutely.

MATHILDE: I think again, just trying things and figuring out what works is how you actually learn, how you actually get things.

MATHILDE: And I mean, I’m an ex-consultant as well, so I’ve done a lot of strategy plans and they’re all great.

MATHILDE: But honestly, it’s about sort of just starting and implementing things.

MATHILDE: And that’s how you actually figure out what’s working.

NYELETI: Well, congratulations, Mathilde, on the work that you and your team are doing.

NYELETI: And you said it earlier, there’s a great entrepreneurial spirit in the company.

NYELETI: And the program really shows that, that get it started and also the passion that’s in it.

NYELETI: So congratulations.

NYELETI: I am a fan.

NYELETI: I’m in the club.

NYELETI: And all I can say is congratulations for what’s to come.

NYELETI: And thank you so much for being on the show today.

MATHILDE: Thanks, Nyeleti.

MATHILDE: It was great to be here.

MATHILDE: I really appreciate the conversation.

NYELETI: All right, then.

NYELETI: Bye bye.

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