#151: Connecting with Customers through Compelling Content & Experiences

PAULA: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for Loyalty Marketing Professionals.

PAULA: I’m your host, Paula Thomas, and if you work in Loyalty Marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from Loyalty Specialists around the world.

RICHARD: Thank you.

PAULA: Marketeers have a choice to make when engaging their audience.

PAULA: They can build first-party relationships that bond consumers and brands in meaningful long-term relationships, or they can snoop, creep, and deliver content and offers that hold little or no relevance.

PAULA: If you want to build more meaningful relationships with consumers, then join Cheetah Digital at Signals 21 this October, the award-winning Virtual Content Series for Marketeers.

PAULA: Register for free today for a host of unmissable sessions from the brightest thought leaders, leading brands and industry heads.

PAULA: Signals 21, bigger, bolder, and better than ever.

PAULA: Visit cheetahdigital.com to save your spot and don’t miss out.

PAULA: Hello and welcome to episode 151 of Let’s Talk Loyalty.

PAULA: Today in particular, I want to extend a special welcome to everyone perhaps listening to the show for the first time as part of Signals 21, the event from our friends in Cheetah Digital.

PAULA: My conversation today is with Richard Jones, the Chief Marketing Officer at Cheetah Digital, someone who realized very early on the power of capturing customer data in such a way that brands can actually finally achieve the massive scale they need to build their databases, and of course then using those experiences and fun to build true loyalty over time.

PAULA: Richard shares some fascinating insights on how increasingly more and more industries, such as consumer manufacturing brands, are realizing the critical need for direct customer relationships.

PAULA: And some of the great things that he’s hearing from customers directly as well as from brands in terms of what they want from loyalty in 2021.

PAULA: So, enjoy the show.

PAULA: So, Richard, joining me today from the UK, first of all, welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty.

RICHARD: Thank you Paula, good to be here.

PAULA: Yeah, great to have you.

PAULA: So, as you know, we always start our show talking about our favorite loyalty statistics.

PAULA: You have an incredible career, which we’re gonna talk about, very entrepreneurial, very innovative, of course.

PAULA: So, tell us, what are you going to start off our show with?

PAULA: What is your favorite loyalty statistic?

RICHARD: Yeah, this is a stat that I think represents a bit of the sign of the times.

RICHARD: And it’s actually from the 2021 Digital Consumer Trends Index research that eConsultancy did sponsored by Cheetah Digital, where they went after consumers in five different markets.

RICHARD: 5,000 people responded to the research.

RICHARD: The particular stat that resonated with me is that 79% of those asked said that they actually would prefer it if brands spent less on Facebook advertising to them and instead invested more into their own loyalty programs to reward the individuals for their business.

RICHARD: So really, really interesting stat, I thought.

PAULA: That’s incredible, Richard.

PAULA: Yeah, definitely resonates with me.

PAULA: I mean, I make it a point actually, when I see stuff on Facebook that’s just not working, I just make sure to tell them to hide it and go away because I really find it even more intrusive.

PAULA: And I think the feedback we get consistently is people want rewards to come through in ways that are more meaningful to them, in ways that are more accessible, I guess, just make it quicker and easier for them.

RICHARD: Yeah, I mean, we’re actually in the same research where 63% of consumers prefer to buy from brands that do not advertise to them on Facebook.

RICHARD: So, there is this sort of era we’re in where consumers in general have very suspicious about the kind of personalized ads that they’re getting on platforms like Facebook.

RICHARD: It’s not just Facebook, I shouldn’t just pick on Facebook, it’s not just Facebook, of course, but the industry itself has created a situation where there’s a lot of distrust with consumers.

RICHARD: So, as marketers, we have to figure out what’s the best way to navigate that landscape.

PAULA: I know, I think it was a world of opportunity when we did figure it all out and we had our cookies working and we had all of this amazing information coming through.

PAULA: But one of the ones I really liked on your website, actually, as well, was that 39% of consumers don’t like ads that contain information that’s been picked up from cookies.

PAULA: And I remember that from the word go, Richard, like, actually, it started to feel intrusive quite quickly.

PAULA: So am I the only person who felt like that or?

RICHARD: No, no, in fact, I had a situation, which I wish I’d said a few times, you know, to sort of illustrate it, which was, I had a hernia operation a couple of years ago.

RICHARD: And it was one of those things, I’d been meaning to get done for a while, but I hadn’t told anyone about it.

RICHARD: In fact, I think only my wife knew.

RICHARD: I was like, all right, I’m off, I’m gonna go and have the operation now.

RICHARD: I managed to find a better time to squeeze it in.

RICHARD: And, you know, I took, I think it was an Uber to the hospital, which was a specialized hospital for hernia treatment.

RICHARD: But anyhow, this wasn’t something that I was broadcasting at all in any way.

RICHARD: It was a private thing.

RICHARD: It’s a, you know, it’s a procedure, it’s a private medical procedure.

RICHARD: And within about 24 hours of waking up, you know, in the hospital from the meds and going home, I was getting ads on Facebook from lawyers saying, hey, we’re a specialist legal firm that, you know, can help you when your hernia operation goes wrong.

RICHARD: I’m thinking, how on earth that happens so quickly?

RICHARD: You know, and how did this invasion of privacy happen?

RICHARD: And I figured out, eventually, it must have been one of the apps on my phone.

RICHARD: Could have been Facebook, could have been Uber, could have been any of these apps.

RICHARD: The way the tracking was turned on, saw my location going to this specialist hospital where you can only have kind of earlier operations.

RICHARD: So, put two and two together.

RICHARD: But it’s clearly an illustration of where it’s gone too far.

PAULA: Totally.

PAULA: And can I ask what country was that in, Richard?

PAULA: Because I know you’ve spent a lot of time in the US as well as the UK.

PAULA: Where did that happen?

RICHARD: That was in the US.

RICHARD: Yeah, that was in the US.

PAULA: Oh, my goodness.

PAULA: Yeah, yeah.

PAULA: They have a long way to go, huh?

RICHARD: No, they have.

RICHARD: And if you think about the etiquette of these things, I think we got drunk on data as marketers.

RICHARD: And just because we can collect stuff doesn’t mean that we should.

RICHARD: And I think we lost all sense of etiquette of what actually would be the respectful, polite thing to do on behalf of consumers.

RICHARD: And I do another analogy, which kind of sums it up for me.

RICHARD: And if you were living in your street, you know, in cul-de-sac or whatever, and you get to know all the neighbors, and you have a new couple move in, a new family move in down the road, you know, you don’t go, well, I need to make a really great impression with this new family.

RICHARD: So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna put a tracking bug under their car and spy cameras through their window in order to learn about them.

RICHARD: So when I do get to choose myself, I’ll do it in the most effective way.

RICHARD: You don’t need, you bake an apple pie and take a bottle of wine rounds and ask them about themselves.

RICHARD: And I think we can take that analogy into what’s happening around privacy now in the digital space.

PAULA: Oh, totally.

PAULA: I love it.

PAULA: Absolutely.

PAULA: And you don’t try and make money out of them on the first visit either, you don’t try and flog them stuff.

RICHARD: Exactly.

RICHARD: You give something, you know.

RICHARD: That’s the way it should be.

PAULA: Oh, wonderful.

PAULA: Wonderful.

PAULA: So how did you end up in Loyalty, Richard?

PAULA: I was looking on your LinkedIn profile there.

PAULA: And I’ll first of all say, I love to find surprising things on people’s profiles.

PAULA: The bit that surprised me about yours was your actual academic studies, which I see was you studied history in the University of York, if I’m right.

RICHARD: That’s right.

RICHARD: Yeah.

PAULA: Path into innovation.

RICHARD: Yeah, exactly.

RICHARD: Into running a tech company.

RICHARD: But that’s the way it worked for me.

RICHARD: And yeah, all of these things, it’s really, can you ask inquisitive questions and search for answers?

RICHARD: And that’s ultimately what innovation is all about.

RICHARD: So it’s not too weird.

PAULA: So tell us then the career story because you do have a great journey.

PAULA: I think you described it from being a sales guy for a tech company into a very entrepreneurial journey, which I’m very envious of.

PAULA: I think I said to you, I’m waiting for my big startup idea to hit me someday.

PAULA: So you certainly found one.

PAULA: Tell us how it all happened.

RICHARD: Yeah, I’d been working in sales, selling marketing technology in the whole to large enterprises for 15, 16 years or so.

RICHARD: And it just sort of got to the point where I was becoming a little bit jaded with the whole process and thought there must be more of an intellectual challenge out there than what I was doing, which I was starting to become very comfortable in.

RICHARD: And it just so happened at that time, the company that I’d been working for previously got sold and it created a payout for some of the senior team.

RICHARD: And I was actually offered the chance to go and set up a company with two other colleagues, but without an idea, a very unusual way of doing it.

RICHARD: Normally, entrepreneurs have an idea and pitch endlessly to get the seed funding, whereas we actually had it the other way around.

RICHARD: We had a senior executive say, if you three form a company, I’ll back you.

RICHARD: That’s how it turned out.

RICHARD: And so we had a weird situation of going, right, we better start a company.

RICHARD: What are we going to do?

RICHARD: And that was the start of our journey, just figuring out what to actually do.

PAULA: And how long did it take for the lightbulb to go off?

RICHARD: Not too long, actually.

RICHARD: It was about four to six weeks of kind of milling it over, that kind of solidified ideas.

RICHARD: And essentially, where we landed was we’d been helping marketers set up their web platforms via a web content management system vignette for a number of years.

RICHARD: And we had good success in doing that.

RICHARD: But the thing is, these web content management platforms didn’t actually work for marketers.

RICHARD: You know, they work for IT in terms of locking down content and security and workflow and all the rest of it.

RICHARD: But for a marketer that wanted to go, you know, I’ve got a promotion.

RICHARD: I want to get something up quick and fast.

RICHARD: I want to create a great experience.

RICHARD: I want to do something that looks amazing.

RICHARD: All of these different sort of things that are typical to marketers and this campaign time that we have, where, you know, everything’s last minute and things got executed quickly and everything has got to look cool and deliver a great experience.

RICHARD: That kind of agility is not what content management systems were built to do.

RICHARD: So we thought, well, let’s set up a software as a service platform that helps marketers create interactive campaigns for their customers that could be delivered on websites.

RICHARD: That was the original thinking as we started doing that.

RICHARD: And then Facebook actually came knocking saying, hey, would you like to also create these experiences inside Facebook, in Facebook apps?

RICHARD: When that was something Facebook was interested in doing.

PAULA: Yeah.

RICHARD: So that was that was the original set up.

PAULA: And it really then ended up specializing in experiences and capturing customer data and an extraordinary client portfolio.

PAULA: Richard, I remember you mentioned, for example, Discovery, Microsoft, National Geographic, Etihad.

PAULA: These are incredible.

PAULA: And all brands that I think we know are pretty mature in their loyalty and execution, so have, you know, huge platforms, great solutions.

PAULA: So where did the experiences piece fit in?

PAULA: Like, what was the gap that you spotted that you were filling?

RICHARD: Yeah, it was.

RICHARD: Our business, which was really these experiences, these campaign experiences that were being created on our platform, they were primarily things that would engage a consumer and collect data from them.

RICHARD: And this was happening at the same time as Facebook was growing its business, where we’re sort of saying, hey, you know, you don’t need to know who your consumers are.

RICHARD: We know everything about them, so just give us your money and you’ll be successful.

RICHARD: You know, you don’t worry about getting to know your customers and building a customer database and the rest of it.

RICHARD: So our business grew in sort of direct competition, if you like, to this huge growth that Facebook was having, where they were literally telling marketers the opposite.

RICHARD: And we were finding individual sort of niche pockets of marketers that were like, I’m not so sure putting all my eggs in the Facebook basket is going to be the right thing to do long term.

RICHARD: But we were certainly swimming against the stream, there is no question about that.

RICHARD: But it wasn’t always like that.

RICHARD: That’s the thing, thinking about the history of Facebook, it wasn’t always like that.

RICHARD: When we became a Facebook partner in 2010, I think it was, 2011.

RICHARD: At that point, Facebook was very interested in trying to, and had very lofty and idealistic goals about trying to rewire the relationship between brands and consumers.

RICHARD: And to do it in a much more interactive, social, and engaged way.

RICHARD: And we thought, well, that sounds brilliant, that really does sound like these faceless ads on TV and bombarding, taking up the airspace and billboards, trying to hit consumers with messages, how about engage with them, have a dialogue, interact, get to know them personally.

RICHARD: So we thought this was great, and what they were relying on us was to help them create those experiences on behalf of brands to engage consumers.

RICHARD: Everything from quizzes to sweepstakes to product recommenders to challenges to all sorts of different things that would engage consumers.

RICHARD: And that was their goal.

RICHARD: But it was probably, I can’t remember, 2013 or something like that, 2012, where Facebook suddenly turned 180 degrees and was like, actually, that all seems like it’s too hard.

RICHARD: Let’s just become a display ad, a network for brands.

RICHARD: But to do so on the basis of data that Facebook harvested directly from consumers.

RICHARD: And that’s where you got all the investments in cross site tracking and using Facebook logins and anything they could do to harvest data from consumers and then use that to power the display ads.

RICHARD: Essentially, it was a business model.

RICHARD: So the lofty ideals were soon bucketed under the pressure of venture capital powered growth, I think.

PAULA: Totally.

PAULA: But I will credit them, Richard, and I don’t know if you’ll agree with me on this one, but I will certainly credit them with teaching us agility because, you know, that was your point as an objective for a software platform.

PAULA: And I think when we all realized, oh, my God, I can publish stuff on the Internet on a social media platform in five seconds.

PAULA: That was the game changer.

PAULA: And that, I think, then probably set the expectation for what future software platforms had to deliver is that level of capability.

PAULA: So I think to credit them, they did a good job along the way, even if they did a bit of an about turn for you guys.

RICHARD: I think the Maxime move fast and break things, which is Facebook ethos.

RICHARD: You’ve got positives and negatives that go along with that.

PAULA: Of course.

RICHARD: The positives is the ability to execute quickly, to empower teams to go and try things and the rest of it.

RICHARD: So, you know, that’s great.

RICHARD: There is actually an interesting story here.

RICHARD: So one part of my entrepreneurial journey, the company that I found Engage Sciences merged with a company called Weyin, and I took over the CEO of the combined entity.

RICHARD: And that was a company that was founded by Scott McNealy.

RICHARD: He was the CEO and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, which, of course, was massive Silicon Valley, you know, legend company.

RICHARD: 25,000 people.

RICHARD: And actually, Facebook took over the Sun, the former, the Sun campus, because of the Sun’s role to Oracle.

RICHARD: They took it over and actually they left on the, as you kind of drive in and out of the campus, on the front, as you’re coming in, it says Facebook.

RICHARD: And they actually left the Sun Microsystems old sign as the employees were driving out.

RICHARD: So you can see that.

RICHARD: I want to leave that as a reminder of what can happen if we don’t innovate quickly enough.

RICHARD: So there is good things, but the move fast and break things, that kind of works when you’re a small startup, because that’s where innovation comes to.

RICHARD: But I think when you get to a certain size, the breaking things can also mean breaking society.

RICHARD: And there are massive issues with what happens when a company doesn’t take its responsibility seriously.

RICHARD: And I think that’s why Wall Street Journal today is putting Facebook fairly squarely in the dock for some of its past practices and its transparency.

RICHARD: So the story, I think, will yet to unfold on whether overall it was a positive or a negative impact.

PAULA: Yeah, you’re absolutely right.

PAULA: It is human nature.

PAULA: And, you know, as you said, the inevitable pressures of scaling something mean that the decisions that are made are sometimes just in the company’s interest and not in the user’s interest.

PAULA: So definitely one.

PAULA: I think the history books of the future, Richard, will definitely be, you know, focusing on the stories of Facebook and the like.

PAULA: So incredible stuff.

RICHARD: Yeah, good question.

RICHARD: But I didn’t ask you a question about loyalty.

RICHARD: How did the loyalty piece come in?

RICHARD: And it was actually interesting because it’s all around this sort of time.

RICHARD: In 2013, 2014, 2015, we started to get contacted by some of the largest operators of loyalty platforms in the world.

RICHARD: They wanted to speak to us because they had seen what we were doing with these kind of, you know, everything from quizzes to surveys to scripts, all these different experiences to engage consumers and collect data.

RICHARD: And they came and pitched to us with this view that, bear in mind, we didn’t know anything about loyalty at that point.

RICHARD: We were just doing these experiences directly around CPGs, all sorts of retailers, all sorts of companies.

RICHARD: And they came to us and said, actually, we’re really interested in looking at what you’re doing because loyalty programs, we believe, are going to transition away from the points to purchase method of the sort of traditional way things are done into more experiential programs that engage, reward, delight and collect data from the consumers.

RICHARD: And, you know, that’s something that might have not been in the experience base of some of those companies.

RICHARD: So they were looking at what other technologies and startups were out there doing interesting stuff.

RICHARD: And so that’s how we first connected with the sort of loyalty ecosystem.

RICHARD: And then subsequently, we then started having a number of platform loyalty programs that were already out there, very successful.

RICHARD: So, you know, people like Nectar and Kellogg’s and AB InBev and others that were looking at saying, well, we’ve already got a loyalty program, but what we want to do is have more experiences to engage people within that loyalty program.

RICHARD: So could we work with your technology and your platform to do that and then reward people with points if they engage in these experiences?

RICHARD: And so that was really the beginning of our journey into loyalty, which ended up with the selling of the company to Cheetah Digital, who obviously had great strides in the loyalty space.

PAULA: Oh, my goodness.

PAULA: Super exciting.

PAULA: And there’s loads of bits I want to pick up on.

PAULA: The first bit I’ll ask you about is, I suppose, that role of gamification, because what I’m certainly hearing and maybe it’s been accelerated by COVID.

PAULA: And I definitely think it was already there.

PAULA: But I think, as you said, the transactional part of loyalty programs has been done so well.

PAULA: And it’s important.

PAULA: But this opportunity to really just have fun with your customers, I feel like that’s really only now coming of age.

PAULA: And that surprises me because I’ve been talking about it for probably, you know, maybe quite as long as you have.

PAULA: So do you think it is accelerated by COVID?

PAULA: Or is it just a natural evolution in terms of the loyalty industry?

RICHARD: No, it’s 100% it’s been accelerated by COVID.

RICHARD: You know, what hasn’t been accelerated by COVID in the digital space?

RICHARD: You know, I feel like we’ve had seven years of digital acceleration happened in the first, you know, matter of months of COVID-19.

RICHARD: And the programs and the way they’ve evolved have been no different.

RICHARD: In fact, in many of the segments that we work with, you know, the industries take restaurants and bars as an example.

RICHARD: You know, this period of digital acceleration has happened because of COVID-19 has not had sort of loyalty on the side.

RICHARD: It’s actually been done through loyalty.

RICHARD: So the loyalty programs have actually been the way that, you know, the industry has reinvented itself in terms of how it not only engages with consumers and reward them, but also how it serves them, which I think is super, super interesting.

PAULA: Yeah.

PAULA: And somebody asked me a question a couple of days ago, Richard, which I’m going to pass on to you because I didn’t feel I answered it as well as I think you might.

PAULA: And somebody said, what’s the role of the loyalty program in acquiring new customers?

PAULA: And my sense is that might be in the same space around gamification, because as we’ve talked about, it’s the value exchange, it’s the fun piece, and it’s almost when you can, I think, just ask for the data and just get them started on that loyalty journey.

PAULA: Would that be fair to say?

RICHARD: Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

RICHARD: So, you know, to give you some sort of stats around this, just with what is now Cheetah Experiences, that’s the technology that I co-founded, we’ll add 750 million net new names into a database for our customers every single year.

RICHARD: And it’s accelerating as we speak.

RICHARD: So by doing experiences, you know, brands, this is proof, brands, retailers, can, you know, multiple different industry segments, can connect with audiences that may have been customers, but they just didn’t know about them.

RICHARD: So they can actually take that unknown audience and convert them into a known audience in the database to establish that first handshake, establish that first direct relationship.

RICHARD: And actually the value exchange that you offer consumers is the hook with getting that data, getting that handshake, getting them into the marketing database.

RICHARD: And obviously loyalty programs have always been that sort of vehicle for delivering a value exchange.

RICHARD: In fact, there’s a recent launch of DelTaco, the Delyear rewards loyalty program.

RICHARD: They just did, you know, it’s just launched recently.

RICHARD: And I actually find that a really interesting way that they’ve constructed it, because the value exchange up front is very real.

RICHARD: It’s get two free DelTaco’s just by creating a Delyear rewards account.

RICHARD: So right off the back, two free meals essentially for joining.

RICHARD: That’s the value exchange.

RICHARD: And then when you think of what the loyalty program is, what they’ve done, which I think is what we’re seeing as people are kind of re-imagining this relationship between the brands and their consumers, is the loyalty program itself, it’s got four different tiers to it.

RICHARD: And so they’re using experiences, you’re getting points for making purchases, there’s challenges, there’s rewards, they’ve got gamification, and then you have to level up to get to each tier with these four different tiers in order to unlock basically more and more benefits.

RICHARD: And it’s a very fun experiential program, and I think we’re seeing much more of that.

PAULA: For sure.

PAULA: And somebody gave me a buzzword to round it, Richard, which I’ll share, because it’s always good to have a bit of jargon in a chat.

PAULA: And the guys I was talking to called it progressive profiling.

PAULA: And I thought, you know, it’s genius, actually, because I think it’s exactly what you’re saying.

PAULA: You can’t be greedy upfront, but people will share if there’s a reason in it for them.

RICHARD: If you go back many years, I’ve got to say loyalty programs have always been a fantastic vehicle for understanding customers.

RICHARD: I think the bit where the innovation really is happening right now is it’s not just transactional data, but the loyalty programs are surfacing up.

RICHARD: They’re surfacing up all of this, what we would call zero-party data, because as you’re creating these experiences that ask people about their attitudes, their motivations, their desires, getting their feedback on product services, the rest of it, and then leveraging that data to have that one-to-one relationship.

RICHARD: I think that’s where loyalty programs can really drive data collection in a privacy-first world, because you’re not snooping on them.

RICHARD: You’re connecting with them and offering them a value change in return for their engagement, their data, that then you can use to personalize your experiences.

PAULA: Yeah, for sure.

PAULA: And certainly everyone listening to this show is very aware of the imminent demise of cookies, for sure.

PAULA: What’s your experience, Richard?

PAULA: I think the broader business community maybe has less awareness.

PAULA: I think we’re, as I said, very clued in.

PAULA: But do you think everyone’s taking sufficient action at this point?

PAULA: I know it’s been delayed again in terms of Google kind of giving us all a bit more time to find solutions.

PAULA: But what are your clients saying to you about this huge change?

RICHARD: There are customers that are sitting extremely pretty giving this change.

RICHARD: And then there are other customers that are putting the pedal to the floor in order to play catch up and to hopefully be in a better position when the change takes place.

RICHARD: So one of our customers, which is a great example, is Starbucks.

RICHARD: Starbucks is insulated against these changes and the death of the cookie because its loyalty program is so well advanced, so mature and captures such a large proportion of their customer base.

RICHARD: When you’ve got the strength of that direct relationship to your customers via your loyalty app, it really does reduce the risk that you have with some of these external market forces and changes around privacy and personalization.

PAULA: Yeah, you’ve reminded me of, I’m sure I learned it in school or my MBA.

PAULA: I’m not sure which, but this whole Porter’s Five Forces model and who holds the power in a relationship?

PAULA: I mean, no one’s going to argue that Starbucks has it right there, huh?

RICHARD: Absolutely.

RICHARD: And to be fair, because I promote, I believe absolutely passionately in, we’ve gone through a period where the gravitational pull of the marketing norms have almost been turned on their head, where things that seem so obviously sensible, like build direct relationships with consumers, build your marketing database, learn about individuals directly, take control over your own customer relationships, that almost sort of went away with this weird period where we just went completely drunk on data and thought it was okay to steal data, snoop on people, sell data through the app tech ecosystem in a whole number of nefarious ways.

RICHARD: We’ve literally come out of that now, and we’re back to almost these marketing norms again.

RICHARD: And I will, hats off to Google, because what I think Google has been better than some of the other players in space is that they have come out unequivocally, rather than using it as a sort of way to go, oh, well, in this period of disruption, give us even more money, we’ll work it out.

RICHARD: They have come out and said, no, we’re not going to have some sort of hashed email identifier that is essentially another replacement for a cookie.

RICHARD: We feel that that infringes consumer privacy, that is not the way forward.

RICHARD: So they’ve gone out on record on March of this year saying, everyone needs to build first party relationships.

RICHARD: You need that direct data from consumers.

RICHARD: It’s absolutely vital in anything that we do to support you moving forward.

RICHARD: So they’ve been very, very clear, and I think that’s given guidance to marketers.

PAULA: Yeah, for sure.

PAULA: And I think again, obviously different verticals or different stages of maturity.

PAULA: So our retailers, our Starbucks, those examples are, as we said, very advanced.

PAULA: What’s your view on how do the CPGs get into this when they don’t have the transactional relationship, for example, as a starting point?

PAULA: And I know the company, again, that you founded did already start to build those solutions, but I’m fascinated by loyalty for manufacturers.

PAULA: Where is it at?

PAULA: Please tell me.

RICHARD: Yeah, and this is a really interesting thing because about five years ago, I think it was maybe six years ago, I was at a trade show, and I managed to get myself a very senior meeting with a senior, senior exec at Unilever.

RICHARD: I hope they won’t mind me saying that.

RICHARD: And I was really chuffed to be able to tell them everything we were doing and talk about how we could build all this data.

RICHARD: I kind of left the meeting absolutely deflated because I basically got told that we’re not interested in building out a data consent around consumers.

RICHARD: We can hyper-target and hyper-personalize content at will using all of the targeting criteria of Facebook and a coterie of third-party data providers.

RICHARD: And so, you know, why would we bother with your solution?

RICHARD: And I was very deflated at the time.

RICHARD: The world’s gone mad.

RICHARD: Fast forward to today, Unilever are in a completely different picture.

PAULA: Mindset, yeah.

RICHARD: There are clients of ours, and they’re really a very forward thinking progressive company in terms of how they engage with consumers and collect data transparently.

RICHARD: But that’s been mirrored across the CPG space in the last few years.

RICHARD: So we’ve, you know, the likes of P&G and AB InBev and a whole host of different CPGs around the world.

RICHARD: PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, you know, you name it.

RICHARD: It’s really a who’s who.

RICHARD: And they basically, as a sort of category, realized that because they don’t have that transactional relationship, it’s even more important for them to go and think about how do they collect first-party data?

RICHARD: How do they collect zero-party data, which is the data that’s transparently given to you by a consumer in return, usually for some value so that you can personalize your marketing.

RICHARD: So they’ve gone and done that.

RICHARD: I mean, P&G, the chief brand officer, came out about two years ago, I think it was about 18 months, two years ago, saying P&G, and we were fortunate to work with them in this process, have collected 1.5 billion first-party relationships with consumers.

RICHARD: So when they put their mind to it, these guys can do things very, very quickly.

PAULA: You know, I’ve often said, Richard, I wish I’d done a stint in FMCG, because it really, as you said, when they put their minds to it, my God, you know, the insights are super clear, the discipline and then the execution, my God.

PAULA: So how exciting to be part of that journey.

RICHARD: And, you know, the other side of it is in terms of how they pioneer these things.

RICHARD: In the CPG space, when you don’t have that transactional relationship, actually the onus for doing, you know, more in it to the things when it comes to the types of experiences that you put out and that being the value that you can connect with consumers is very much there.

RICHARD: They obviously do have a benefit in this, like a lot of these CPGs have packaging that we pick up and use every day that can be a vehicle for getting people to take some sort of digital action these days with QR codes and the rest of it.

RICHARD: So, you know, there’s options for them to go and collect this data.

RICHARD: We’re seeing more of them start to put in quite interesting loyalty programs because they don’t want just one campaign to collect a bunch of data.

RICHARD: They want that ongoing relationship.

RICHARD: So, the loyalty frameworks give that ability to keep people coming back and engaging between purchases and having more a relationship with the brand.

PAULA: Yeah, for sure.

PAULA: Well, definitely one I want to hear all of your thoughts on an ongoing basis.

PAULA: As I said, I’m fascinated with it.

PAULA: I feel like it’s the next big thing in loyalty.

PAULA: And just as a final point on that one, I know before COVID, Coca-Cola had launched, I think you referenced it yourself, the Coca-Cola Club, but actually it was a paid loyalty program.

PAULA: And that also to me was quite fascinating.

PAULA: And I think few brands can probably compete with Coca-Cola, obviously, in terms of their brand value to pay to get merchandise or flavors or whatever the benefits are.

PAULA: But yeah, definitely one we’ll have to stay close on.

PAULA: So listen, the final kind of main area I wanted to ask you about, Richard, was I know you guys do loads in terms of consumer research.

PAULA: So I’d love to get a sense of, you know, what exactly do you do?

PAULA: Is it in maybe just your main markets or how do you approach getting this research?

PAULA: Because I was looking on your website in advance of this call, and there’s some fabulous stuff on there, which we’ll obviously talk about as well in terms of your upcoming content as well.

PAULA: But tell us first of all about the research piece and then your whole kind of content strategy.

RICHARD: Yeah, so we aim to, we’ve totally dedicated to marketers.

RICHARD: That’s, you know, we’re sort of single-langed on that focus.

RICHARD: And so ultimately, that’s not just about providing technology and services to marketers, that community.

RICHARD: It’s also being part of the conversation about how the industry is evolving and trying to tee up and provide as much value as we can to the marketing community about the kinds of things that they should be doing to anticipate changes that are happening today with consumer attitudes, with technology, with things like privacy and the death of the cookie.

RICHARD: One of the ways that we can do that is going out there investing in original research, both research that’s focused on consumers, but also research that’s focused on the attitudes of marketers to see, you know, are they aligned to the way the marketing community see things, actually back to consumer trends and try and then share that information and start to hopefully spark conversation.

RICHARD: That’s what we intend to do.

PAULA: Nice, nice, nice.

PAULA: I didn’t realize you did both sides because I think sometimes again, like we research and we find what we want to find or.

RICHARD: Yes.

PAULA: Clever.

RICHARD: And usually when we do the consumer and the market research, it’s never totally aligned.

RICHARD: There’s always gaps there because things are changing so quickly.

PAULA: Yeah, yeah.

PAULA: But to your point earlier, actually, I suppose there’s the opportunity to be inquisitive, opportunity to involve the community in, you know, answering and asking those questions.

PAULA: So a very valuable contribution.

PAULA: So the final thing, then, is, I suppose, just to talk about the ongoing content.

PAULA: So Signals 21.

PAULA: So we’re releasing this show now literally at the end of day four.

PAULA: And so there’s some amazing content already been released and some upcoming content as well.

PAULA: So tell us a bit about Signals 21 and maybe the background on that piece.

RICHARD: Yeah.

RICHARD: So, you know, Signals 2021, it’s a conference that we have as a virtual content series that we make available.

RICHARD: It’s for everybody that’s interested in all things, you know, loyalty, personalization, messaging and data, right?

RICHARD: CRM data.

RICHARD: So we create a whole set of content, which is it’s got analyst points of view, it’s got customer keynotes, it’s got original research, and hopefully is a guide to how marketers might think about addressing some of the challenges that they might be facing over the next 12 months.

RICHARD: And, you know, talking about kind of loyalty, one of the things that we saw around the original research that we did for the 2021 Consumer Trends Index versus, you know, going back to 2019, is there’s been this significant statistical change in what consumers think about loyalty and rewards program and what brands should offer them to keep them coming back.

RICHARD: And that the change is actually almost the opposite of what you’d expect.

RICHARD: You might think that in a pandemic, it’s going to be, give me more discounts, give me more points and rewards.

RICHARD: And it’s not.

RICHARD: It’s actually there’s been a noticeable reduction in discounts and points and rewards, being the main drivers of loyalty programs.

RICHARD: They’re still the main drivers, but they’re less of an impact than they were two years ago.

RICHARD: And actually more interest in things like exclusive access to products or early access to products and services, recognition, challenges and experiential things like contests and sweepstakes.

RICHARD: So we’re seeing consumers basically tell brands, give me more of an experience, get me closer to you.

RICHARD: Don’t just give me points and rewards and discounts.

PAULA: Oh, my goodness, that’s fascinating.

PAULA: And I did look myself as well, Richard, at some of the lineup.

PAULA: And I saw from last year from Signals 2020, I saw Seth Godin, who is actually the man responsible for me podcasting, actually.

PAULA: I’ll give him that credit.

PAULA: Yes, he convinced me it was a good thing to do.

PAULA: So well done, Seth.

PAULA: But then coming up on this year, I love the idea of the rise of the ethical consumer.

PAULA: So I’m guessing that’s coming through in your research as well.

PAULA: Obviously lots of zero party data and also customer lifetime value, which is obviously a topic that increasingly I just love talking about.

PAULA: I think everybody’s kind of finally realized that that’s the way we have to go.

PAULA: So an incredible lineup.

PAULA: So I guess just so sorry, go on, Tommy.

RICHARD: We’ve also got a bevy of brands that have been giving their opinion on how to build a direct relationship with consumers.

RICHARD: We’ve got blooming brands.

RICHARD: We’ve got Del Taco.

RICHARD: We’ve got Torchies Tacos.

RICHARD: We’ve got Unilever.

RICHARD: There’s a whole set of different fabulous marketers that you can hear from as well.

PAULA: Wonderful.

PAULA: Well, as I said, I’m totally geeking out on the CPG stuff, so I’ll definitely add Unilever to the list.

PAULA: So that’s wonderful, Richard.

PAULA: A fabulous conversation from my side.

PAULA: Love everything that you’ve created.

PAULA: So again, congratulations on coming up with something super useful to the community.

PAULA: Anything else that you wanted to mention for listeners before we wrap up?

RICHARD: The last thing I’d say is that the content and signals, if you register, you can all access it both live and get live Q&As, but you can also get it on demand if you register as well.

RICHARD: So bite-sized bits of content that you can access as needed.

PAULA: Wonderful.

PAULA: Brilliant.

PAULA: OK.

PAULA: Well, listen, on that note, Richard Jones, Chief Marketing Officer at Cheetah Digital, thank you so much from Let’s Talk Loyalty.

PAULA: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketeer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights and research.

PAULA: The Wise Marketeer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which has already certified over 170 executives in 20 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.

PAULA: For more information, check out thewisemarketeer.com and loyaltyacademy.org.

PAULA: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.

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