Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m your host, Paula Thomas, and if you work in loyalty marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from loyalty specialists around the world.
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Hello and welcome to today’s short episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty. I’m your host, Paula Thomas, and in today’s episode I’m summarizing my interview with Vanesa Jovanovic and Chayya Bassi, who together designed, built, and launched an innovative shopping mall loyalty program in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.
Galerija Belgrade is the largest luxury shopping and fine dining destination in Serbia. Vanesa is their marketing manager and she explained the history and the concept of the Center. Galerija Belgrade is positioned as a unique place for shopping with over 200 shops, as well as licensed restaurants on the beautiful waterfront promenade.
From the very start of the mall’s development, customer loyalty was a key objective. Chayya Bassi is the Chief Loyalty Consultant for Quick Brown Fox Consulting in Dubai, and she was instrumental in designing the loyalty program along with the Galerija Belgrade team. She explained the guidelines, the principles, the research, and the pre-launch work they did for the loyalty program, even before the mall was open to the public.
For example, they designed a launch campaign to drive customer acquisition, and of course, attract footfall on the opening day with a huge campaign offering 10 million points to 10 lucky winners. Vanesa highlighted the importance of educating all of the various stakeholders in the project, and of course, balancing the various needs of merchants, the mall operator, and of course, most importantly, the shoppers.
This comprehensive education ensured a great team spirit working closely together to achieve the core objective. With enough time and team focus, every detail of the loyalty program had been considered. Many of the mall’s tenants began issuing and accepting the points currency, so members were able to earn and redeem points very quickly.
And of course, that delighted both the members and the merchants alike. Alongside the points currency that’s used to track members’ transactions. The program includes a gamification element and that drives engagement and what the team call constant gratification, not just instant gratification. Overall, it seems the Mall was really delighted to have achieved such a strong marketing platform with tools to engage their customers, and with that, they can ensure long term customer loyalty across the various stores and restaurants on a daily basis.
There are loads of great insights in this episode, and especially discussing all of the unique challenges of creating a loyalty concept for a shopping mall rather than just a single retail brand. So if you are interested to hear more, you can find it as always, on our website, this episode is available on letstalkloyalty.com/131.
That’s it for now on this short summary. Tomorrow we’re featuring an exciting new loyalty proposition from an app called Sweat Coin, which literally offers users free rewards simply for walking. It’s an innovative model and helps address some real health challenges that many of us are facing right now.
Then on Thursday, we are delighted to bring you Ultamate Rewards, the US Loyalty program with over 38 million members, which is proving to be a useful differentiator in the competitive retail sector for beauty products. Please make sure you join us for both of those great shows, and thanks again for listening to 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. Through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 245 executives in 27 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
For more information, check out thewisemarketer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.
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