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45s
1
Go to Collinson group.com. Hello, and welcome to episode 147 of let’s talk loyalty today. I’m delighted to welcome the director of partnerships at air France KLM group Gerben cinema, who joins me to share the story of flying blue, the loyalty program, which supports both airlines Gerben has a great insight on the power of loyalty points to drive commercial value for partners of the program and explain some of the latest, innovative ideas they are most proud of. He also talks through some insights on how flying blue has supported the airlines and their global partners in recent months.
1m 32s
1
So Mr. Gervin cinema on delighted to have you on let’s talk Lloyd to you. Welcome to the show.
1m 42s
2
Thank you. Great to be here.
1m 44s
1
Great, great. So you are director of partnerships, as I said in the introduction at air France KLM, and that is of course leading the partnerships for the flying blue program. So it’s one, I have admired over the years and I had actually great fun going back and looking at the history of the companies. And so I’ll probably explain some of that to our listeners as we go through the conversation. But as you know, we always start our show asking about our favorite loyalty statistics and you’ve prepared a fabulous one for me. So please tell me, Garbin, what is your favorite loyalty statistic?
2m 18s
2
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. So I really didn’t want to pick a standard one. I really wanted to be specially specific for the partnership business that I work in. As you know, we to get a real partnership, we, we develop or we put miles incentive on their products. And what we see is they are that we actually, the partner sees incremental seals on those products. And my favorites a statistic is then the percentage of that incremental partnerships.
2m 51s
1
Wow. Wow. And tell me, so, I mean, w when partners come to you, Gerben, you’ve been doing this I for, I think nearly 11 years in fact, across the group. And so you have extraordinary experience, so our Brahms clear on what to expect when they come and talk to flying blue, like, what are their expectations in terms of a sales uplift, or what do you think they should be aiming for or expecting?
3m 16s
2
Yeah, that’s a good question. So initially, sometimes it’s just about the Brent exposure of our Parscale and other apartments want to be associated with, I think in the, in the, in the course of our discussion, it’s also, it’s almost, almost always comes down to the currency, how to use our flying room miles in dare channels because Derek it’s where our customers are, and they are actually aware where the partner incremental sales. And I just want to explain it’s it happens. So what actually partners should that we work with are showing is that an uplift of 15 to 20% of their, their sales and that is, and that’s where we are aiming for together with them to create a win-win situation.
4m 9s
1
Yes, absolutely. That’s incredible because I think many of us have worked in marketing roles and, you know, with huge and commercial expectations and, and that’s obviously the purpose of our, of our jobs and our roles, but I think loyalty is perhaps sometimes underappreciated in terms of having the power to uplift sales by 15 to 20%.
4m 31s
2
Exactly. That’s a, that’s also the journey that we are going through with our clients is to see where we can achieve such numbers and how can we make the proposition to our customers as such that we can steer towards these shakers.
4m 47s
1
Yeah. And I know there’s a lot of dependencies, so again, I’m sure you have, you know, a huge team actually, I think I saw is that 18 people in total that are, are supporting the flying blue program overall Durbin.
4m 60s
2
Yeah. So that’s the, that’s the partnership department I’m leading, but overall I think with flywheel, we working with 50 people all directly 50 to 60 people, but if you also account for the it persons and small, probably over a hundred or 200 people, okay.
5m 19s
1
Oh my goodness. Wow. And she sent me through a fabulous fact sheet as well. Gerben, which I’d love to be able to share with the listeners of the, of the program, if it’s okay with you, you know, as, and when they’re listening so that they can listen. So, but, but super impressive. And so, for example, just for listeners, you have about 18 million members across five continents, and you mentioned 45% of air France, KLM turnover comes from members of flying blue. So that’s extraordinary.
5m 48s
2
Yeah. That’s exactly through so true. So yeah, we’re also aiming and we, of course also always want to improve. This is figure what’s a, yeah, we’re aiming at nearly 50%, almost 50% of our new is generated through our member.
6m 5s
1
My goodness, my goodness. It’s fantastic. And as I mentioned, I did have to go back through some of your history because what I’ve always loved about, I probably know the KLM brand more if I’m honest, but I am aware obviously that air France and KLM operate very much as independent air flying brands in terms of the airlines and obviously share then the flying blue program. And I know you, you came together, was it in 2005 for the combined loyalty program and following the merger of basically the two airlines a couple of years previously?
6m 40s
2
Yeah. I’m not sure what the exec to year we merged as loyalty programs we’ll put the fourth was soon after the merger of, of air France. KLM.
6m 50s
1
Yeah. So my, my I’ll tell you the history that I read on, on the website, so merged in 2004, flying blue then of course launched pretty quickly in 2005. And also I have to, to wish you a happy birthday. I think particularly the, the KLM predecessor, the airline is turning 102 in a week’s time on the 7th of October.
7m 12s
2
Yes. Thank you very much. Yeah. So what were the oldest or oldest airline brands in the world actually? So we’re quite proud of that.
7m 19s
1
That’s incredible. Wow. Yes. And also we should acknowledge that air France is also pre-World war two, so, and they both share the same birthday, which I think is an extraordinary coincidence. Exactly. Wonderful. So would you mind just talking through, I suppose, the, the general business perspective in terms of, you know, what is flying blue intended to achieve? Because I know you kind of classify the business according to how it supports the airlines. And I know this obviously, various airline brands as we’ve talked about, but I know increasingly you’re focusing, I suppose, on the non airline segment. So just to get a sense of exactly what, what flying blue is aiming to do and to be
8m 1s
2
Yes, exactly. So I’m actually flying rule. We defined two purposes, sort of our double purpose as we call it internally. The first purpose is the first purpose is about, you had a more classical part over a loyalty program or an airline to reward and incentivize our members of course, to also to enrich the travel experience. And of course with one goal to, to make sure to retention is as high as possible. Sure. But next to it. So our second purpose, and that’s really on the known airline segment as, as, as we call it. So that’s the partnership business that I’m leading really want to do is engage our members, not only when they’re flying, but actually also in their daily lives and our loyalty currency fits right into place there because we can, we come, we can make sure that we enrich.
8m 58s
2
Now we’ll start to dispense of, of our members in our daily lives. So that means if you want to make, give them more opportunities to earn and to learn their mouth so to accrual and redeem them.
9m 13s
1
Yeah. And it does seem that you have a very clear awareness Gerben again, from, you know, just the background stuff that you sent me on the importance of, I think you said burn drives, earn, which I think it’s fabulous in terms of its clarity, because I think a lot of people, you know, particularly maybe non loyalty people may be just, you know, senior executives of businesses. They, they really think that the earn obviously is the priority in order to drive all of state the burn. But I like the way that you have said, you know, it’s crystal clear and it’s almost like once you focus on rewarding the customer and closing that loop, then obviously it drives the overall earning the excitement I suppose, about earning.
9m 55s
2
Yeah. That’s exactly. That’s exactly what we also said a couple of years ago that we said, okay, we have to focus more on the Vern side of the business, but not enough, not so much on the burn on the airline parts because that’s Sherry well arranged, but also also for people that are not, don’t have excess to, to those awards seats out there are there many members actually fly two or three times a year? And of course, yeah, it’s, it’s, it takes them a little bit longer to deem only a flight. And sometimes it’s even more possible for them.
10m 37s
2
They don’t reach that, that amount of, of mastery. That’s mainly for our, for some of our Explorer. And so our first year numbers, and therefore we say, we also want to engage with them better. So we don’t want discriminates the breakage that you have often in, in such programs, what we want to make sure that all our members can use those miles and therefore also stimulate it to add, to, to earn again. And so we think it’s surely important. Yeah, that’s a burn is accelerated, especially for our entry tier levels and members, and that will also improve our program tremendously
11m 20s
1
And keep your part they’re super happy. I can imagine.
11m 24s
2
Exactly. So we’re also, and that’s a little bit different than our competitors are doing is that we also talking directly with partners, how they can stimulate our redemption. So how can you introduce being with your miles in the checkouts of our partner?
11m 43s
1
Yes. This is an extraordinary concept and I’d love to know how advanced you are in that strategy. Is it live with some of your maybe key partners or is it at the early stages of development? Because as a consumer, I have to say that’s like, it’s always a gorgeous experience when I am, you know, on the airline website and I am lucky enough to have, you know, okay. Usually a reward ticket, but I haven’t actually had that experience on a partner website with any of the programs I’m engaged with.
12m 15s
2
So actually this strategy is quite mature and our RDS are there for some time. But of course the implementation is the implementation is of course where we now, where we have challenges also with, with our, the COVID periods. Of course that’s not yet even behind us that delays some of those discussions, but we are in stages with partners to discuss things. And the problem here, we had some, some proof of concepts around, around the globe, for instance, in our, in our KLM Crum lounge at Schiphol airport, you could already play with your miles in the restaurants for instance.
12m 56s
2
Wow. So actually technically we, we are quite advanced on it, the challenge, and I think some of this, the nurse will, we will notice it’s about to scaling of these, of this capability. That’s where to challenge lace. So that’s where we are. That’s where we are moving forward in order to scale these kind of capabilities. Yeah.
13m 21s
1
And that’s where I think true loyalty comes from actually as well. Gerben because we all know that there’s a difference between the loyalty program and the currency that we all know and love, but actually those extraordinary experiences and which make my life easier, you know, because I think with the best will in the world, you know, going through an airport can be super tiring so he can make that even easier and even nicer. And again, you know, tap into that moment of joy at the burn time. I think that’s fabulous. And your, your customers must love it.
13m 53s
2
Yeah. It’s, it’s indeed some, some of the darkest stuff that we’re setting also to get the better emotional connection with, with our members. I think that’s very much needed and appreciated by our, our members. And yeah, I know it’s from my own experience, I was actually a Jewish married and then I went wow. Some years ago, whether we went, we went for our honeymoon and there I could be with my miles for death for that fantastic restaurant on the airports. And then we have quite some good, it was quite great for us to experience death it’s feels like a free, a free lunch.
14m 33s
2
Right. So it was quite amazing. So that’s, that’s really the experiences. That’s not only for me, by the way, hopefully for a lot of numbers. Oh yeah,
14m 49s
1
Yeah. Always feel as well. Gerben, you know, when I’ve had those lovely moments, it’s it almost, you know, I feel like a hero, you know, with whoever my, my friend or my husband or whoever’s with me, you know, there’s, there’s a sense of just being the cool kid. Who’s just got this extraordinary opportunity, figured it all out. So, so I’m always like super proud and you’re absolutely right. That drives emotional loyalty way more than it’s not the transaction. It’s the fact that it’s easy. And as you said, it feels free. Wonderful. So Gerben, I do love the absolute focus that you have on building, I suppose, more of a lifestyle program, because again, with the best will in the world, I know plenty of people are not frequent flyers.
15m 32s
1
And so they probably only have the opportunity, you know, to maybe engage with flying blue across their, maybe everyday lives. So, so I’d love just to get a sense of the lifestyle focus and on what you’re building for consumers, because I think you mentioned you have over a hundred partners at this point.
15m 49s
2
Yeah. It’s actually related to the previous point that I mentioned, but in addition to that, indeed, what we saw happening is that we actually are, we were giving all the benefits and creating these shed, these new benefits for our elite members, as we call them from flying blue, agile, silver membership, we call them elite upper tier. She has our upper tiers member and we showed that we were designing the program really focused on those tiers because those are your, your, your biggest, your best, your best members.
16m 35s
2
But what actually is that, that’s what we want to do as I tried to explain earlier is also to engage the group below. And so where, where does, where does that engagement happen is not always in the airline channels. And so it’s also beyond those airline channels because you’re not in your daily life, not spending our time at the scale and touch points. We really would like to, of course, that our customers, that’s not the case. So that’s why we want to engage them in other channels. And there were the partnership. I mean, that’s what we mean. That’s what we mean by moving from a more frequent flyer, focus to a lifestyle, loyalty focus, and really engage our customers beyond the travel, the travel channels that’s heard that we already serve.
17m 28s
1
So the typical ones we would all be familiar with, and I know you have years of experience yourself on the co-branded cards. So that’s definitely an obvious one and hotels and car hire again, fish within the category. And again, probably more relevant for, you know, those kinds of elite members that you mentioned. So what other cash degrees are, are relevant and interesting for you? And on I’m asking you that Gerben with the, the mindset actually that there might even be brands listening. And I guess most of your partnerships are probably across Europe. Would that be fair to say
18m 4s
2
Yes, actually also in the, in the us, we, we are developing quite some partnerships. The focus that we, that we are currently having is really on the, on the retail sides. And we already have, we are already having a branding around it. It’s called shop for miles already. Our members can, can, can go to their local and also a global brands and actually earn, earn miles there. It’s not yet burning, but it’s primarily focused on the earning. So yeah, all the, all the big brands in the, in, in, in the Dutch market, but also in the French market where we focus on, but also outside in Europe, we have quite some, some good retailers linked to this shirt, to this setup.
18m 57s
2
And this is what we’re really want to focus on further, but that’s really a specific example. We’re also looking at the older spent, get the glories that our members are having. So actually from insurance, from insurance to, to grocery stores, to, to telecom all the spend categories that we can, that you can think of, we’re looking at new partner business,
19m 26s
1
And I love this strategy as well. Gerben because again, I think over the years, the coalition brands have really led, especially maybe in markets, for example, like the UK, where it’s a coalition, it’s an independent company, but again, I’ve, I’ve talked to a lot of people, for example, in the Australian loyalty market. And I’m guessing you’re, you’re seeing some of the incredible results coming out of Australia by following exactly this very powerful strategy where, you know, you become as the airline, the, the anchor program, I suppose. And as you said, you’ve got the halo effect of the brand and flying blue and air France and KLM. All of those brands add up to a very powerful currency, which does make it super easy, I guess, for a retailer, rather than having to go and create an entire loyalty program and a strategy I suppose, partnering with you makes life so much easier for them.
20m 19s
2
Exactly. That’s exactly. Also the, the programs that you just mentioned are, are really our benchmark in terms of partnership business. We, we looked at at their models intensively, you also had a good discussions to get her. So, so indeed, yeah, that’s really something that we looked into.
20m 40s
1
Well, I’m delighted to hear that actually, because you know, it’s such a competitive industry, but again, I suppose it’s, it’s a big world. So, you know, we do, and I suppose parts of the objective is this show is to be able to share those insights or to facilitate direct conversations because there is incredible performance coming out of different countries. So to be able to learn from them as to exactly how to achieve that shift into lifestyle, because actually how long has that been your focus? Gerben because I I’ve heard this mentioned only recently, but I’m guessing it’s been in development for quite some time for you.
21m 16s
2
Yeah, I think it’s, it’s a, it’s friends in the airline loyalty for, for some time, maybe for maybe a year that we came across also other programs looking into it. We are looking for in its four years and we’re developing all kinds of capabilities around it. And so I think for the last two years we were actually, we had it’s validated internally. So for us the challenge also to, to roll out and to develop oldish, all these capabilities that enable the urn and the Buren in the daily life of our, of our consumers and for us, and for us, what’s really missing in the flying blue parks are not in the airline parts because there we are corporate, whether it’s the mobile, the mobile solution, because of course the mobile, the mobile is of course, in, in the already very much in the daily lives of our members.
22m 11s
2
And typically in the loyalty business, in, in the airline loyalty business, the, the link between loyalty and payments is, is fairly big. Or if we already, we already have it in with our corporate credit cards, we, we also want to expand this to a mobile solution and, and enabling our members also to spend their miles anywhere. So this is something that will come up and that is quite some internal discussion. Maybe show more listenership, recognize this processes, but also to get to, to, to find the right supplier for that. So that’s something that needs a lot of preparation.
22m 54s
2
So first she needs your strategy and then you need to actually execute it, which is the challenge where arts at the moments.
23m 2s
1
Okay. Okay. Yeah. These things never happened quickly. And, you know, and I think actually it’s almost like, because, you know, particularly in our airline industry though, that we love so much, you know, it’s been, th the systems have been around for so many years that actually, there’s a lot of legacy architecture. So, you know, to, to get the latest technology, to work with the original, you know, technology as it’s evolving over its lifetime. So I very much hear you I’ve been on your side as well. So as a well done.
23m 32s
2
Yeah, no, and actually what’s, what’s interesting is that before this period be so distracted, you could only have, I think what you say is quite ripe, it could be, you could only have the strategy if you are, if the basis is right. So before we had this, the strategy, we actually worked on our renewed flying blue program. We have now for some time w which also involves yeah. Creating a new backend sort of shifted back and system was fully renewed because we knew that we, we had to be ready for, for these kinds of additional developments. And that’s why that, that also enables us now to skill in a much faster foster way.
24m 16s
1
Okay. The next thing I wanted to ask you about Gerben was, you know, as we’re, hopefully coming out of the other side of COVID, I just wanted to get a sense of, you know, your experience. Again, you’ve been with the group for a long time, you know, thankfully before the pandemic. So, so how would you say the pandemic has, has changed either consumer behavior or your own thinking, or how has it been for you guys going through? Because we all know that the airline business has probably had the biggest immediate commercial impact let’s say, but I think loyalty programs have been quite different from their airline owners actually, in terms of how they’ve evolved.
24m 58s
1
So, so I’d love just a couple of insights from your side on that.
25m 2s
2
Yeah. That’s a good, it’s a good point to Paula. So indeed. Yeah. Everybody knows how tough are not sure everybody knows how tough, but the fact it was biggest clear for everybody, for, for the airline. Of course, we’re still not there, but we were seeing some, some great recovery figures and, or actually the loyalty program and the commercial business that, that I’m in. We showed, we showed that we had a lot of resilience started the results. Actually, they, we, we had impacts, but not as much as, as we expected actually, and, and offer now of course, compared to the airline.
25m 43s
2
So, and that has to do with, of course we already with our co-brands and, and other business is, is not always directly related to, to travel. So, and, and our hotel partnership, some of them actually performed quite well during, during the pandemic, also with people staying in their own country. So actually did the impact was not as a big issue as we show for the airlines. So, and, and interestingly enough, also the recovery is much faster. So some of the partners are . Some of them are already back to a 2019 levels again for the past month.
26m 26s
2
So what you see is that, that actually this, this business is quite it’s coming back.
26m 32s
1
Wow. I love that. Gerben because I’ve often said on this show that loyalty is counter cyclical, and it’s when we face, you know, whether it’s an economic crisis or a health crisis, like we’re facing now, I think loyalty becomes so much better respected. And I think you’ve used exactly the words it’s because of the resilience of the program of the members of the, and the proposition. So, you know, it really does support us when we need it most. And I don’t think we get that recognition when there isn’t a crisis almost.
27m 7s
2
No, I think it’s a, it’s it showed, I think in the U S it was a little bit more clear that that load two programs, they are took a more prominent step also in funding, some of the, the loans and, and that was, was I think, a Europe a little bit less clear, but yeah. So we also shared internally that, that we, we are becoming now seen as an important business, and I think that’s also nice for our, for our departments. Yeah,
27m 35s
1
Sure, sure. So the other big section, as you know, I’m very passionate about innovation, and so I’d love to get a sense of some of the other concepts that you’re working on. And you’ve already mentioned a couple, and so I really love the earn and burn and checkout with your partners. I think that’s, as we’ve said, technically challenging, but definitely the way of the future and definitely creates an extraordinary moments of joy. And you also mentioned shop for miles, which I know our friends in Collinson support you on. So that’s an extraordinary one where, you know, people have been shopping increasingly online throughout the pandemic. So to be able to earn miles for things that we’re going to do anyway, I always loved that proposition.
28m 18s
1
So I feel like actually, I don’t know whether it’s, you know, Europe felt a little bit, you know, maybe slower than the U S to realize the power of that proposition, but have you had that in place for a while, or is it one of your newer innovations?
28m 30s
2
There’s no promos was there for quite some time. And yeah. So we see that actually the, also during the pandemic, we shall, we shall sign quite some growth on the, on this, on the segments, but we, yeah, we still want to develop it’s a much more because it’s, it’s, it’s still a great proposition for our members and that’s actually what we’re doing there. And it’s really, we looked also at the shadow of our current websites and we also came to the conclusion that we also focus more on these kind of offers to improve the visibility of those of those offers for our members.
29m 13s
2
And we really want to make sure that our websites and later on the, our mobile app is really a place for our members go if they want to earn and beer miles, okay. This, this, this methods fits perfectly in that objective.
29m 30s
1
Yeah. Yeah. And I was just remembering as well. Gerben that it was, I’m going to say two years ago now and not part of flying blue, but I did make just a booking on KLM. I was, I was traveling on a sector, which I wouldn’t normally be traveling what I was super impressed actually, because my M my confirmation, my ticket came through and WhatsApp, and that absolutely blew me away. And then I was invited to check in on WhatsApp. Then the boarding pass came through and again, 2019. And even to this day, it’s not a level of innovation that I see in, in any other airlines. So, so I think particularly KLM seems to have that mindset of innovation.
30m 13s
2
Yeah. It’s a, we’re, we’re, we’re proud of death. It’s, it’s not my department who, and where this, what is innovation to play, but it’s indeed it actually started when the Ash clouds in Iceland, I can’t pronounce the volcano name by the way, Part of their, when I think a lot of traffic of flights were grounded and actually what we’ll be sure there is that our, our members and our customers actually are present on social media. And, yeah, so we actually got connected with our members through those channels instead of the difficult, big call centers, where you have to wait for, for a half an hour before you come through.
31m 1s
2
So we really, as an opportunity rather than of course it was a big challenge by the way, but we also saw it as an opportunity in that lights. Yeah. We’re, we’re, we’re proud at our digital department that makes this.
31m 18s
1
Yeah. Yeah. And again, as we said, I know it’s not in the flying blue loyalty program, but it is within the air, France KLM, overall loyalty, you know, building that emotional side. So, so definitely kudos to your colleagues. So, so that was amazing. So, so my final question then is about other kinds of innovations that you’re working on for flying blue. Gerben anything you can share. You mentioned, for example, the increasing importance between connecting loyalty with payments. And I definitely think that’s something again, the consumers want. So, so any other things that you’re thinking about as, as new ideas that you think customers are looking for?
31m 56s
2
Yeah, so, absolutely. So what is she happening? And I think the U S she’s always a step ahead of Europe, but so what we want to learn from them, which depending on the Gartland offer and the, and the account link of our model, which really enables, and which enables our members to register a payment cards, our Cobra can also be their own, can also be their own credit card without being co-branded what’s makes them a legible for earning miles on merchants that are linked to this program.
32m 35s
1
Yeah. That’s my favorite proposition, actually. In fact, I’m going to say, I came across this in, I’d say 2016 as, as a concept. And I’m sorry, which terminology are you using to describe that one when it’s not a co-branded card? Is that an account link offer that’s card LinkedIn or,
32m 55s
2
Yeah, it depends on if it’s for cart links, that’s the most easy way. So you register your cards and actually we are as an identification at the merchant size of the retailer partner, and then we know actually discuss summer yeah. Make the offer or wins for the offer that is shared that’s out there. And then a commission model can work and there, we can fund 30 miles from enables the customers to, to earn miles by just registering their card for free. Yeah. And make them suitable for many Nigel firsts.
33m 35s
2
And that’s I think, and that can enrich your programs. That’s one. Yeah. It’s not, it’s not a conflicting model at all. It’s actually, we think it’s going to also engage the customers that are not looking for a co-branded cards. And that’s also in the shift potential group. So we didn’t want to make sure that we utilize our member segments of course, but also offer yeah. These products for Nome Elitch as we call that 10. So our, our entry tiers. So actually we broaden our, our visibility and our expo exposure on miles earning.
34m 20s
1
And am I right? Therap? And then if, if I do have a co-brand card, for example, and I do register it, and I know that’s a one-off registration, so again, that’s a super easy customer journey. Am I right then that as a consumer, I get to double dip, essentially if I get miles on the cards and from the merchant. Yeah.
34m 39s
2
Great,
34m 41s
1
Lovely, lovely. Yes. We, we, we don’t have card linked offers in, in where I live. So if you could come over here and help them figure that out, I definitely am excited about that one. So, yeah. And, and actually, I will also mention in case say, other listeners haven’t come across, but there’s almost an implicit benefit. And on the sustainability side, because customers certainly in the convenience industry that sign up for carting doffers and using their payment card as the identifier, they can then get digital receipts. And that has become something that wasn’t a primary objective, but it really was something that actually consumers really said, oh, I really liked that.
35m 23s
1
We’re not printing till receipts for my groceries, because most people that really don’t want those, you know, that kind of paper. And I know for you guys, the whole sustainability piece is super important as well. And I think that comes through when people do register their payment cards.
35m 36s
2
No, exactly. So it’s very good point for us. So sustainability actually is on top of the agenda, both of them are lines and of the, of the, of the farm group program. Of course, we, we follow all initiatives of our airlines, making sure that we give the best incentives to, to sustainable products, as good as we can have. We, of course, we still have the, the leading position on the Dow Jones sustainability index. So for us, it’s really important. And also in our partnership business, we really look of course, at partners that are already sustainable.
36m 18s
2
So we got RNA focusing on that. And of course we also looking within the partnerships, how can we stimulate through the greener products that, that they have for instance, electric cars in, in case of Carla and Tulsa. So we’re really looking for how to give the OSHA yeah. Give a better incentive to a sustainable products.
36m 41s
1
And that’s, I love that actually Garbin because again, I don’t think it gets the recognition, you know, with, with consumers, you know, we’re also busy and we can see the big, you know, initiatives, let’s say that the airline is, you know, of course focusing on being the best sustainable approach, but then, you know, to directly incentivize people to, to get an electric car. I think that’s very powerful. I hadn’t seen that done anywhere else so far.
37m 8s
2
Yeah. And it’s, that’s, again, the difficulty is north of the ID. It’s more the implementation of that because she worked with, of course with partners, it has to be scaled up. It has to be, there Needs to be developed. So that’s a, that’s the phase we’re in currently. And I show the future. You will see a lot of new initiatives on donations also that you can actually be, which are miles for planting three trees. For instance, that’s kind of, that’s kind of new products we are constantly looking at and eager to, to develop.
37m 47s
1
Okay. Wonderful. Well, you’re definitely not alone. Gerben so I know there’s plenty of people probably listening the, the might have other ideas for you. So definitely good to know that you’d be open to those kinds of things. So, so I think that’s all of the questions I had from my side Garvin, as I said, I’m a huge fan of the flying blue program and clearly 18 million other people are as well. But what I particularly like is your focus on, you know, as I said, I think at the very beginning, you know, the burned, you know, drives the urn. So this very clear focus on the moment of joy for the member and, and making it at a time when it really makes a big impact. Like you mentioned, the restaurants and everything.
38m 28s
1
So I think it’s extraordinary work you’re doing. So I know you’re on LinkedIn. Gerben, I’ll obviously do a link to your, your profile am on the show notes. So you happy for, for people to reach out to you for any conversations or any ideas they may have, if that’s appropriate,
38m 45s
2
Of course, feel free to, to contact me also, of course, potential partners. So I’m open for also for suggestions on flying blue and on partnership business, particularly. So of course,
39m 0s
1
Wonderful. Well, as, as my listeners know Gerber, I got into loyalty in the exact same way as you. So I came in to negotiate partnerships and for a telco loyalty program. So it’s, it’s very close to my heart. So I’m a huge fan of what you’re doing. So listen, it’s been a fabulous conversation. I really do hope we can stay in touch and maybe record again on maybe a regular basis every year, just to see what you’re doing. So from my side, I just want to say, thank you so much to Gerben cinema, a director of partnerships, air France, KLM from everyone at let’s talk loyalty. This show is sponsored by “The Wise Marketer”, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights and research. The Wise Marketer also offers loyalty marketing training, both online and in workshops around the world through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 150 executives in 18 countries as Certified Loyalty Marketing Professionals. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of “Let’s Talk Loyalty”. If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on Let’s Talk Loyalty.com and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox every Thursday, or just head to your favorite podcast platform, find “Let’s Talk Loyalty” and subscribe. Now, of course I’d love your feedback and reviews and thanks again for supporting the show.
40m 38s
1
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