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.
Paula: So, welcome to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: And today, I am delighted to be speaking to one of the most famous ladies, I guess, in the industry worldwide.
Paula: So, Annich McIntosh is no stranger.
Paula: In fact, she’s probably one of the people who really did professionalize this industry from many perspectives.
Paula: Her official title is Managing Editor of Loyalty Magazine Group, and very excitingly, CEO of The Loyalty Magazine Awards.
Paula: And she also in the past has been running The Loyalty Surgery, which is a phenomenal conference I’ve been to several times in London.
Paula: So, I’m sure we’ll get into talking about Annich’s plans for those events as well coming up later this year.
Paula: So, first and foremost, Annich McIntosh, welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: Great to have you.
Paula: Great to have you.
Paula: So, you’re in the UK at the moment, I’m guessing, at home in London?
Annich: At home, yes.
Annich: Not in London, in the middle of the countryside.
Paula: Even better, even better.
Paula: That’s fantastic.
Paula: So, listen, Annich, by way of background, I suppose many of the listeners know that I’m a former judge for The Loyalty Magazine Awards myself, doing two years of supporting the overall event, which has been phenomenally exciting.
Paula: So, I’m going to get into just talking about all about loyalty as an industry.
Paula: Even, I think, we’ll talk about some of the trends that you’re seeing, again, just as an industry observer and commentator, because I know you like to explore and investigate some of the big issues that are going on, which are always fascinating.
Paula: So, before we get into that, first of all, tell me, the usual starting question, what is your favorite loyalty statistic?
Annich: I find this a really difficult question, because everyone likes to come up with a statistic.
Annich: And at the moment, so little remains relevant, because we’re reinventing everything.
Annich: So I thought I’d tell you about how much effort from so many people go into choosing the winners of the Loyalty Magazine Awards.
Annich: So we launch in October, and entries then dribble in slowly, and then it turns into an absolute flood.
Annich: So by February, people are contacting us in all sorts of ways and saying, help, help, you know, we want the work, tell us how to do this.
Annich: And so by the time we close at the end of February, we have between 200 and 300 entries that then need to be shortlisted down.
Annich: Those entries are sent to a team of judges for that shortlisting.
Annich: It then takes 20 of the world’s most experienced and expert loyalty professionals, hours and hours and hours of detailed work to go through those funds.
Annich: And Paula, you know what I’m talking about.
Annich: I mean, it’s a really easy job.
Paula: Yeah, yeah.
Annich: So they do a final, a first judge, if you like.
Annich: Yeah.
Annich: Well, no, they shortlisted already, but will then mark against various criteria.
Annich: And this year, for the first time, normally we get together in London and argue around a table for the day.
Annich: But obviously, those in Sri Lanka and India and New Zealand and Australia and America can’t easily come and join us.
Annich: So this year, what was staggering is that our Zoom judging proved so, so exciting and invigorating and inclusive.
Annich: Because every judge was there, and we didn’t lose any of them.
Annich: And we spent the three full days debating, discussing, laughing, being amazed and impressed by the best entries.
Annich: And we won’t go back.
Annich: That’s one of the things that we will now always do because it was so successful.
Annich: So after all of that effort, and additionally, of course, a separate panel, I sort of missed this, choose our 30 under 40 loyalty, royalty.
Annich: So all those hours and hours and hours of effort resulted in our final list of winners.
Annich: And because of all this work, the work from the individual brands putting their entries together, the work from the judges, it was just crazy to think that we were just going to say, this year, we have a pandemic, it’s now canceled.
Annich: So we couldn’t do it.
Annich: So the job started of finding a way of doing a proper awards party.
Annich: We didn’t just want to slap a video on YouTube and say, there it is, go and have a look when you’ve got the time.
Annich: We wanted to have a party.
Annich: And so we found a system that would enable up to a thousand people to take part, and take part they did.
Paula: Totally.
Annich: Yeah, well, you were there, I was there.
Annich: The world’s loyalty industry were there, and we had a great time.
Annich: And we talked to each other, which was so exciting.
Paula: Wonderful.
Annich: We’ve all been missing that interaction.
Annich: And I think actually quite a bit of business has done as well, which is all so good.
Annich: And our sponsors were very happy.
Annich: And everyone was very happy.
Annich: And we got the opportunity to celebrate.
Annich: And I’m so proud that we managed to do that, because this is actually a watershed year in a lot of different ways.
Annich: And it is the people doing amazing things now that will be able to respond to the fast tracking of trends that we’re seeing taking place going forward.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: Well, I think you know what’s coming to mind for me, Annich, is first of all, the cliche never waste a good crisis.
Paula: So it totally, I can hear how the awards have actually, you know, bizarrely benefited from the restrictions and limitations.
Paula: And as we’ve talked about, you know, I had great intentions when I was judging with you to come to London and join that judging day, and I just could never make it happen.
Paula: It was just too far for me and too difficult.
Paula: And of course, you know, you had enough there and obviously you did a great job because plenty of people could show up.
Paula: But now I know, please God, going forward, that there’s always an opportunity to take part in that remotely.
Paula: So delighted to hear that the judging, first of all, can be more collaborative with our global colleagues.
Paula: So well done that.
Paula: And also just well done on a great event.
Paula: So again, many people probably couldn’t have gotten to the live event in London for an award ceremony because flying internationally, let’s be honest, is an expensive thing to do, but it was super fun and it was much different to any kind of Zoom conference or webinar or anything else I’ve done.
Paula: It’s the only event I attended where you could obviously drop in on conversations with people.
Paula: So you did find a great platform, and I know we’re not here to talk about platforms, but the same way that you would at an award ceremony where you pop over to the next table when you see somebody you know.
Paula: We did all do that, and we toasted our glasses of champagne virtually.
Paula: So first of all, well done on doing a great virtual event.
Annich: Thank you very much.
Paula: Indeed it was.
Paula: Great.
Paula: So listen, we said we won’t go through every single one, but I will just for listeners mention you have a total of 25 categories that you award the various loyalty programs within.
Paula: Tell us some of the top winners and key things that stood out for you this year.
Annich: It’s difficult to know where to start, but let’s go right to the top and choose the one that actually, the reason it’s the reason it’s front of mind for me is that let me read to you what the judges said.
Annich: We have to read a lot of entries, but this one made us laugh out loud.
Annich: One of them commented, it made me feel really jealous that I hadn’t been involved in this program.
Annich: It is unheard of for a communications program to reach 93% awareness, but this one did.
Annich: What we’re talking about here is Unser O’Bonus, which is a program, Datalab, with a company doing the work.
Annich: The job was to integrate the REVA company loyalty program.
Paula: Sorry, Annich, to interrupt you, but it’s in Romania, am I right in remembering?
Annich: REVA, which is a supermarket chain, big, big, big in Austria.
Paula: Austria, pardon me.
Paula: Okay, so yes.
Annich: And the way they did it was they decided that because they didn’t have an emperor, because the last emperor died 100 years ago, they had to create a new one.
Annich: So they created a new emperor, Robert Heinrich, and who was crowned, and he had permission to establish and expand the O’Bonus Club himself.
Annich: What happened was that in just five days, the emperor welcomed one million YO members to the program.
Annich: In six months, this had increased to 3.7 million.
Annich: And this is 93.7% of all Austrian households, which is staggering.
Paula: Extraordinary.
Paula: Yes.
Paula: I knew there was a mind-blowing figure, so 93% of Austrian households, and we’ll make sure, Annich, just to link to that program as well in the show notes, because my Austrian or German, forgive me, I’m not sure the correct terminology, but I could never remember the name of that program.
Paula: I kept seeing the Wynn, and I’m like, what’s it called?
Paula: What does it do?
Paula: Is it a coalition program, Annich, or is it a straightforward supermarket loyalty program?
Annich: Yeah, but it is.
Annich: And the beauty is it can be in the future whatever they want it to be.
Annich: So the people behind it, this club is good because people find it funny.
Annich: People are enjoying it.
Annich: The loyalty program doesn’t have to rely on just one brand or have anyone really major behind it.
Annich: It can be something in its own right.
Annich: And another example of that, the loyalty redefined category, which was renamed for 2020, was one by VOXY working with TNW and Mando Connect.
Annich: And VOXY is actually a part of Bodefone.
Annich: But Bodefone have dropped their branding on this.
Annich: It’s a completely new branding because it’s both inspired by youth culture and it’s for youth.
Annich: It’s for the Generation Z that are so difficult to connect with.
Annich: And one of the trends that we saw this year is for brands to wake up to the fact that they can’t use traditional loyalty programs to excite and connect the young people.
Annich: It has to be something different.
Annich: And so they did it with just a good use of customer insight and joined up thinking, really, and good analysis.
Annich: And another one that is similar is seen, No Excuses Day, working in Canada, run by Bond brand Loyalty.
Annich: And what the judges said is too often people see a loyalty program as functional rather than brand ideas.
Annich: And No Excuses is an idea that enables the brand to bring customers with it in an abstract and experiential way.
Annich: So one of the reasons, Paul, I was having a job with your question about statistics is because I don’t think loyalty at the moment is about statistics.
Annich: I think it’s about big ideas.
Annich: We’re going to be changing everything in our world.
Annich: And retailers and even governments are finding this rather difficult.
Annich: We like working at home.
Annich: Yes.
Annich: We don’t want to commute for several hours every day.
Annich: We still care about the environment.
Annich: We care about other people.
Annich: We want a better world.
Annich: You could say, oh, gosh, it’s going on again.
Annich: But we do.
Annich: We all do.
Annich: And you can tell anyone, and they’ll say the same thing.
Annich: And we’re not really too happy with government saying, go back to work.
Annich: Fill the city centers, fill the restaurants, fill the shops, buy more stuff.
Annich: Do we want more stuff?
Annich: Maybe not.
Annich: So, therefore, the companies that we work with, that we watch, that can benefit from loyalty programs, we’ll just have to tweak things a bit.
Annich: Because all of these ideas are going to be important in the loyalty offerings of tomorrow.
Paula: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree, Annich.
Paula: And at the risk of repeating myself, I think anybody listening really can take the perspective of let’s not waste a good crisis.
Paula: Let’s challenge ourselves to reinvent our world.
Paula: So I think that’s the message that you’re seeing and hearing.
Paula: Just because, again, you’re talking to a lot of people in the industry.
Paula: And I totally agree that the vast majority of people are very comfortable working from home.
Paula: I always work from home.
Paula: So from my perspective, the idea of commuting is just unthinkable.
Paula: So, yeah, how is my loyalty going to change?
Paula: I’ve already talked to a couple of people, for example, that I’m subscribing, for example, to new products and services that I would have never done in the old world.
Paula: So, yeah, so I think it’s fascinating.
Paula: And while I think that actually you mentioned, I suppose, environment indirectly there, I know you did have a category around eco-loyalty this year as well for the first time.
Annich: Totally.
Annich: And our sponsor has in fact, E-Points, has in fact reinvented his company to an extent to make it eco-points because he believes so passionately that this should be a central tenet of loyalty.
Annich: And the winner of this category was John Lewis because it’s a leader, because it’s the name that people look at.
Annich: And because it’s not doing anything that you think, well, that’s outstanding.
Annich: It’s recycling beauty bottles, a huge 120 billion units of packaging.
Annich: Every year by beauty containers.
Annich: But it’s setting a big example.
Annich: It’s saying we will recycle any beauty containers that you give to us.
Annich: Because if you put it in the bin, even if you put it in your recycling bin, they can’t do anything with it because it’s got oils.
Annich: It can’t be recycled easily.
Annich: But none of us are doing that.
Annich: And a few other retailers.
Annich: But what the judges said was that only a small proportion of retailers are truly green, but many are trying to get that.
Annich: And John Lewis is setting big example.
Paula: Love it.
Paula: Love it.
Paula: That’s a really, really good one.
Paula: And we have listeners all around the world, Annich, obviously, in terms of being a podcast.
Paula: So for people outside the UK, they might not really understand what a premium and well-respected retailer John Lewis is.
Paula: But it very much is a top department store in the UK.
Paula: Yeah.
Annich: And to give you an international example of a company that is doing incredible things.
Annich: And I know one of your favorites, too, and that’s Turkcell.
Paula: Yes.
Annich: They won the best corporate social responsibility initiative linked to loyalty category.
Annich: This year, they won it with the WizKids project.
Annich: They’ve been our organization of the year in the past.
Annich: They win every year.
Annich: They’re outstanding.
Annich: They do some of the best loyalty work in the world.
Annich: But what the judges noted is that they move the whole country with them.
Annich: And it isn’t purely about investment and return on that investment.
Annich: It’s not just a brand.
Annich: Turkcell is an institution.
Annich: And something that the whole of Turkey can be proud of.
Annich: The scheme they particularly won with this year was about helping kids to access technology and to understand technology.
Annich: But to be honest, we could have given it to them for so many different reasons.
Annich: And Turkey is a very young country, and so they have to relate to young people, and they seem to do that effortlessly.
Paula: Yes, and I remember it as well from judging the awards myself.
Paula: As we know, TURXL had just an extraordinary number of entries across multiple categories.
Paula: And the reason I love judging with you was actually because I have this insatiable appetite for learning.
Paula: It’s one of the reasons I’m a podcaster.
Paula: And you’re right, I was totally unaware that TURKEY had this mindset of innovation, and TURXL really seemed to come to the fore every single time.
Annich: They’re amazing.
Annich: Every year, I think, right, now what’s TURXL doing this year?
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: So we’ve talked about, I suppose, the breadth of categories.
Paula: And I think what’s also coming through is literally how many countries are represented.
Paula: I know everything from India, certainly from UAE, where I’m based, as you all know.
Paula: I know from the Americas.
Paula: So every single continent, you do get entries from Annich.
Paula: So first of all, also just wanted to acknowledge that.
Paula: So anyone listening in any country who is doing work with the loyalty program that they’re proud of should hopefully be considering entering with you next year.
Annich: Definitely.
Annich: One of our regional winners was with From Mauritius, that launched the first ever coalition loyalty program in the country.
Annich: Wow.
Paula: Yeah, it’s global.
Annich: And they can be little and they can be huge.
Annich: IBM was a winner this year.
Annich: All you’ve got to be is outstanding, brilliant, innovative, and top of your game.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: Best in the world.
Paula: Cool.
Paula: Well, listen, at the end, what we’ll do is I’ll get you just to give us a sense of, you know, the time scales for next year’s awards, so we can make sure if anybody’s thinking ahead, obviously, we can get them involved in that.
Paula: So I suppose the other thing we wanted to talk about, Annich, again, is just given your perspective, what are the key trends that you are seeing?
Paula: We’ve talked about, you know, I suppose, the evolution of thinking to understand different demographics, you know, younger than ourselves coming through.
Paula: I think it’s important to recognize that we don’t have the answers, I think, because our mindset is fundamentally different.
Paula: Well, what other trends would you say loyalty practitioners around the world should be thinking about that you’re noticing?
Annich: I think retailers are waking up to the fact that life is changing.
Annich: Some of them won’t have woken up quite quickly enough.
Annich: Some were going to fail anyway.
Annich: Most streets have probably changed forever.
Annich: Health centers have probably changed forever.
Annich: But some brands are motoring.
Annich: All the consultants, all the loyalty service providers that I talk to say they are so busy.
Annich: So the loyalty business is motoring.
Annich: It’s doing okay.
Annich: And the good companies are reinventing their loyalty programs because they know that customers are changing, therefore they’ve got to change with it.
Annich: I think we’ll see more loyalty and financial services.
Annich: Eurobank in Greece, I did an article with them quite recently.
Annich: I was blown away by what they’ve achieved in a country that, to an extent, has only just got over the last crisis.
Paula: Totally.
Annich: And they were really confident that working with their loyalty program will help them through this crisis because they now have this connection with their customers, that they’re all going to work together.
Annich: It was great.
Annich: I think we’ll get more loyalty programs from utilities and companies that we don’t…
Annich: I mean, you wouldn’t really think about IBM and loyalty, and yet they’ve got a huge loyalty program.
Annich: Edison Energia, working with a devise group in Italy, have been doing gamification and hugely learning from their customer data.
Annich: Data analysis is major.
Annich: We recently did an article, I think it was in the shortlist edition, with Andrew Burchett, who was one of the founders of Avios, and works for IAG now, the boss of British Airways.
Annich: He was saying that when she’s interrogating data, she looks for loyalty nuggets.
Annich: And I loved that.
Annich: She was telling me that she noticed a trend for customers traveling from one country to another, and she couldn’t understand why.
Annich: By interrogating this data, she found a big new business opportunity.
Annich: It’s that type of work that loyalty enables that can really transform a business.
Paula: Totally.
Annich: A really interesting thing happened to me this week, just out of interest, really, because I’m absolutely fine.
Annich: But I sent off for a testing kit, a COVID testing kit.
Annich: So my UK government testing kit was sent by Amazon.
Annich: This is a company making use of today’s Yes.
Annich: opportunities, even if it’s in a pandemic.
Annich: I was really struck by that.
Paula: That’s extraordinary.
Annich: Those that are working really, really hard and muttering, and those that are crying and saying, help me, I’m in trouble.
Paula: Yes.
Paula: And it’s not new.
Paula: I think you’re right.
Paula: There was an element of us all being shell shocked when COVID landed.
Paula: Totally.
Paula: You can wallow for a couple of weeks, but then it’s time to go, OK.
Paula: There are, again, opportunities right now.
Paula: So fascinating to hear that the UK government has realized the logistics expertise of Amazon.
Paula: I mean, it’s not a surprise to the private sector.
Paula: We’re very clear on that.
Paula: But just, again, a completely off topic.
Paula: But I personally had a COVID test last week because we have a land border with the capital city of Abu Dhabi.
Paula: And we have family in Abu Dhabi, so I wanted to go down, and we had a four-day holiday, and we had a fabulous, efficient, I won’t say the test was fabulous, but the process was fabulous in terms of a swab done from the car, minimal inconvenience and results in 24 hours.
Paula: So I didn’t have to get any test shipped or whatever.
Paula: So I always like to acknowledge the UAE, actually, because there’s a lot of innovation in this part of the world, as you know.
Paula: But that’s great.
Paula: So we both have a COVID story.
Paula: That’s hilarious.
Paula: Completely nothing to do with the Loyalty Awards.
Paula: Wow.
Paula: So listen, I loved the, you know, all of the insights there that you shared about particularly unexpected sectors.
Paula: I think that’s very true.
Paula: I’ve personally worked in, you know, Electric Ireland, for example, where, again, it probably wasn’t one that I would have expected to have launched a loyalty program, but they did a very, very great work.
Paula: Data analysis, you’re absolutely right.
Paula: It’s an ongoing theme.
Paula: To me, it’s a very specialized area of loyalty, and you need very clever statistical people to support that.
Paula: But you’re right, it’s all about finding the loyalty nuggets, and then, you know, we creative and strategy people can get on and build new concepts.
Annich: There’s probably two that I’d just like to do a call out for.
Annich: One, the travel and experience category.
Annich: I mean, this is an area where they have a challenge.
Annich: Jet Privilege had gone into administration the year before.
Annich: Within days, they relaunched the loyalty program.
Annich: So, Intermiles still exists, even without the airline, and won the travel and experiences category, because it really was a phoenix coming from the flames, and shows the power and the importance of the loyalty program, if it can survive, even if the airline doesn’t.
Annich: And if you think about Virgin, which is wobbling at the moment, it would be very interesting to see what happens to the Virgin loyalty program.
Paula: Indeed.
Annich: And the other one I’d like to do a call out for is the fact that Cheetah Digital won the best use of technology, and it’s the first time that I can think of where a service provider won a category, rather than for an actual product.
Paula: Wow.
Annich: So I think that was quite impressive.
Paula: Well done, you.
Paula: My goodness, yeah.
Paula: OK, well, you’ve certainly name checked some amazing brands there, from John Lewis, as we talked about, Intermiles to Survive Beyond the Airline.
Paula: That’s an extraordinary story, and Turkcell as well, as you mentioned, and the program in Austria that I can’t pronounce.
Paula: Can you pronounce that one again for me?
Paula: Wonderful.
Annich: And the other thing you’re saying about all over the world, Shell won for their program in China this year.
Paula: They sure did, yes.
Annich: We really do cover everywhere.
Paula: Wonderful.
Paula: And again, I’m dying to do more stuff about China.
Paula: We’ve talked about this before ourselves.
Paula: And in fact, Shell is coming on to the podcast now in a few weeks as well, exactly to recognize their incredible achievements, relaunching their loyalty program as well in the UK.
Paula: So they’ve done phenomenal work.
Paula: So I’m a big fan of anything in convenience retail.
Paula: And it’s a very challenging sector, I think, in the retail side because it’s just so such minimal interaction.
Paula: But yeah, it’s great to see the incredible brands that are coming through.
Paula: So well done, you and another great awards.
Annich: Thank you very much, Paula.
Paula: Brilliant, brilliant.
Paula: So I think that’s all of the questions I wanted to touch on.
Paula: Maybe actually just I will mention the two other categories, the top 30 under 40.
Paula: So I know you do invite people to highlight rising stars of the loyalty industry, which is important.
Paula: And then you also choose from your side, I think, one personality of the year.
Paula: So tell us just about the idea behind that particular award and who won this year.
Annich: OK, well, the 30 under 40 we’ve mentioned a little bit in that we thought that we should recognize the people coming up through the ranks.
Annich: I’m struck.
Annich: I mean, I’m struck every year by how good they are.
Annich: The original plan was to have a winner, but they’re all too good.
Annich: And diverse and talented.
Annich: And you see them moving up and think, well, these are tomorrow’s industry leaders, and they are carving out the future of loyalty.
Annich: And they’re brilliant.
Annich: For our organization or personality of the year this year, it was felt by the judges that they wanted, because of the emphasis at the moment on community and caring and charity and the fact that we’re all in this together, it just made sense to pay tribute to the cooperative movement generally.
Annich: And we chose somebody to receive the award on behalf of the cooperative movement, but it’s very, very much an award that went to cooperatives all over the world who work together in lots and lots of different ways, Paula, to use that benefit of…
Annich: It’s so much easier to sell your cheese or your milk or even your clothes if you’re doing it together.
Annich: And so, you’ve got more bargaining power, you’re selling more.
Annich: It just makes sense.
Annich: And that’s what won the award this year.
Paula: Wonderful, wonderful.
Paula: Well, it’s a beautiful theme.
Paula: And I mentioned to somebody this morning, Annich, that for me, because this show is called Let’s Talk Loyalty, I love to be able to explore themes that drive the emotion of loyalty.
Paula: It’s not just about here’s a program and this is how the value proposition works.
Paula: It is very much around understanding those things that you’re highlighting there.
Paula: So cooperatives are a phenomenal business model.
Paula: So definitely one I think lots of listeners really truly respect.
Paula: So I love the fact that you’re recognizing that.
Paula: And yes, I think community is another big trend that I’m hearing coming through as a key pillar of loyalty.
Paula: So what can loyalty managers and loyalty program directors do to connect with community and in a very authentic way?
Paula: Because it’s beyond CSR.
Paula: I think we all know it’s not just a charity check once a year.
Paula: It really is, you know, connecting on a local level that really builds that connection to various brands.
Paula: So I think that’s all of the questions from my side, Annich.
Paula: Is there anything else you wanted to highlight from your side?
Annich: No, I think that will do it probably for you, will it not?
Paula: Oh, it sure will.
Paula: So the final point, I guess, then, is very much around if somebody is running a loyalty program and wants to enter the awards for the next round, which I know will close in February 2021.
Paula: What is the application process and deadline and what do they need to be thinking about?
Annich: We launch in October.
Annich: We’re working with the judges.
Annich: We review the categories, decide what needs to change for the next year.
Annich: We’re going to be changing the category for financial services because while we had lots of financial services entries, they didn’t enter the financial services category, which was interesting.
Annich: And I think it’s because we say best loyalty program in financial services.
Annich: And I don’t think that that’s what financial services are doing.
Annich: They’re doing loyalty stuff, but they’re not launching loyalty programs.
Annich: So we’re going to change the wording to make it more attractive to banks and people.
Annich: More financial services.
Annich: So that is being done now.
Annich: So we launch in October.
Annich: Then people have until the end of February to put in their awards.
Annich: Most people leave it till the last minute, which is silly.
Paula: But human nature, that’s it.
Annich: Yes.
Annich: Then the shortlist is worked on.
Annich: That’s announced March, April time.
Annich: And then we will either be at the Tower of London for a big party, or if the corona is still wobbling on, then in a comfy chair in my home, and we’ll be able to take part in a virtual party.
Annich: It’ll take place one way or another.
Annich: And we’ve proved that it can take place, and that the Loyalty Magazine Awards have legs, regardless of what is going on around it, because it’s important.
Paula: It totally is.
Paula: And certainly there’s plenty of people I know that still haven’t ever managed to get themselves organized to enter on time.
Paula: So I’ll be using this to give lots of people a nudge, and I’ll probably come back to this maybe in January time to say, you know, the countdown is on.
Paula: Make sure you get your entries in.
Paula: And I have a couple of clients in mind that I’ll definitely encourage to take part.
Paula: So listen, I just wanted to say from my side, Annich, it’s been a pleasure talking to you.
Paula: You’ve done extraordinary work to elevate the industry and all of the players within it.
Paula: So just wanted to say Annich McIntosh, CEO of Loyalty Magazine Awards and The Loyalty Group, 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.
Paula: If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on letstalkloyalty.com and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox every Thursday.
Paula: Or just head to your favorite podcast platform.
Paula: Find Let’s Talk Loyalty and subscribe.
Paula: Of course, I’d love your feedback and reviews, and thanks again for supporting the show.
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