Unlocking Insights: The Latest in European Loyalty Trends with Mando Connect

Paula: This show is brought to you by Phaedon and the Tally platform, the power behind the world’s biggest and most beloved loyalty programs.

Paula: Formerly known as ICFnext, Phaedon works with many of the world’s leading brands to create standard customer experiences that drive emotional loyalty and lead to true bottom line impact.

Paula: Trust Phaedon to help you forge unbreakable bonds with your customers and future-proof your brand.

Paula: Phaedon, driving brand love is what they do.

Paula: To learn more, visit www.wearephaedon.com And to help with the spelling, you can find a direct link in the show notes for this episode.

Paula: Hello, and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, a show for loyalty marketing professionals.

Paula: I’m Paula Thomas, the founder and CEO of Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV, where we feature insightful conversations with loyalty professionals from the world’s leading brands.

Paula: Today’s episode is hosted by Carly Neubauer, Managing Director of Elevate Loyalty.

Paula: An Australian-based company specializing in loyalty and incentive services.

Paula: Carly is also the Managing Director of OneTap Group, a UK-based company providing loyalty payment services.

Paula: Enjoy!

Carly: Hi, I’m Carly Neubauer, Managing Director of Elevate Loyalty and OneTap Group.

Carly: Today, I’m lucky enough to introduce two leading strategists in loyalty from Mando Connect, and we are discussing the latest loyalty white paper conducted across Europe.

Carly: Charlie Hills is the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of Mando Connect, WPP’s Specialist Partnerships Loyalty Promotions and Rewards Agency.

Carly: James Davies is the Senior Strategist and Analyst with specialisms in Loyalty Reward and Analytics, Partnership Strategy and Consumer Insight.

Carly: Together, they’ve worked with YouGov and a team of European loyalty experts to produce the third edition of Understanding Loyalty in Europe, The White Paper, which explores membership, appeal and impact across 24 European markets.

Carly: It’s the leading study of its kind.

Carly: Hi, Charlie and James, and welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty TV.

Carly: Although, I think, to be honest, Charlie, you’re a host of this show, so really it’s a welcome back, I think, is more apt.

Carly: And I love that you’re a guest just for something different today.

Carly: And a big welcome to you, James.

Charlie: Oh, thank you for having us.

Charlie: It’s really exciting to be here today.

Charlie: And really nice to be on this side of the questions.

Carly: I’m loving it.

Carly: And James, so good to meet you and have you on here to chat with us about the new white paper.

James: Yeah, thank you very much for having us.

James: It’s always a really exciting opportunity to be able to speak on these kind of things.

James: So, yeah, happy to be on.

Carly: So we do need to keep up with tradition, though, and then we’ll get to your fabulous new white paper.

Carly: First question that we ask every guest, and this time, Charlie, you’re on that side.

Carly: Which is your favourite non-fiction business or loyalty related book?

Charlie: It’s a really good question.

Charlie: I love asking it as well.

Charlie: I’m building up quite a nice library, and some of my guests on my episodes have done some extraordinary things, from really highbrow poetry, right the way through to loyalty 101 books.

Charlie: So I thought I’d bring something a little bit different today.

Charlie: So lots of people know that I’m a super loyalty data nerd, and so I brought along, I don’t know if you can see it because of the blur, but Knowledge is Beautiful is one of my favourite books.

Charlie: It’s a fabulous book with loads of really exciting ideas, infographics, and how to produce data and really tell stories through insights.

Charlie: So that’s been a kind of a favourite of mine for many years.

Carly: Oh, that’s awesome.

Carly: And you’re right, as the host, it’s hard to find new ones.

Carly: I guess bring some fabulous books along, that’s for sure.

Carly: And James, what about yourself?

James: Mine’s quite an odd one.

James: It’s something I read probably about 10 years ago.

James: Now it’s 0 to 1 by Peter Thiel, and it’s actually a new business book and a startup book, more so than a loyalty one.

James: And I think the kind of the central premises around the fact that you should really aim to kind of create something entirely new, whether it’s a new business or a loyalty program, whatever it is, rather than trying to make kind of incremental improvements on whatever’s in the market already.

James: So it’s something which has kind of stuck with me over that time.

James: And yeah, so I think it’s pretty valuable in loyalty programs as well.

Carly: Differentiate yourself in market if possible and where possible, right?

Charlie: Yeah.

Carly: Awesome.

Carly: And the second question we always ask guests, and I’m super keen to hear this one, especially from loyalty professionals.

Carly: Favorite loyalty program, Charlie?

Charlie: I got so many.

Charlie: And I’ve just come back from holiday as well.

Charlie: So I was just going through Duty Free.

Charlie: And a good sort of friend and work colleague of mine has just launched the new Avolta loyalty program, which I would really recommend checking out.

Charlie: It was all over Duty Free and all over the service stations in France as we were driving through on this sort of epic 14-hour journey where I was curled up effectively in the boot of my friend’s car.

Charlie: So there’s some brilliant programs out there at the moment.

Charlie: I know we’re going to talk about the ones in the white paper shortly.

Charlie: So I won’t choose any of those, but please don’t be upset, people.

Charlie: My favorite loyalty program, and I think the one I talk about the most, I like and I knew as well.

Charlie: And I think it’s been really interesting to see what’s been happening in the British market in the dining sector and the coffee sector.

Charlie: I think we’ve seen some real innovation and explosion of new programs in that sector.

Charlie: And actually they’re kind of ranked right up from kind of one of the smaller loyalty sectors in our British research, right the way up to kind of one of the dominant four, which is really exciting.

Charlie: So one of my favorite programs is the Costa Club program.

Charlie: And I think what I really love about this program is they realize what they’ve done wrong.

Charlie: You know, they kind of they move from a collecting beans program to a points program.

Charlie: And they sort of stood up and actually they’ve come back to a really cool collect your beans mechanic.

Charlie: They’re constantly innovating it.

Charlie: So one of my favorite features is that it’s twice as good if you demonstrate a sustainable behavior.

Charlie: So you can earn your free coffee twice quickly if you use your own cup.

Charlie: And then they’re constantly thinking ahead.

Charlie: So one of the other really great things they’ve introduced recently is the Little Sips device, which is where rather than having to kind of save up 10 beans to get free coffee, you can save up 2 now and claim them for a syrup or an upgrade.

Charlie: And I think that’s a really nice kind of recognition that people are really struggling at the moment and those little treats really matter.

Charlie: And it’s giving people a little bit of extra value.

Charlie: So some really nice kind of features around sustainability and really thinking about what people need from their program, as well as all the sort of basics of a good coffee shop program, payment integration, a really good app, really good features, treats on your birthday, all that kind of stuff.

Charlie: They’ve covered the basics, but they’re always trying to go one step ahead.

Charlie: So that’s my favorite.

Charlie: James, I hope I haven’t stolen that off you.

Charlie: I hope you’ve got a different one.

James: Absolutely.

Carly: What are you thinking?

Carly: What’s your favorite?

James: Mine does change on a monthly basis, depending on what we’re seeing in the market and what I think is a nice kind of fun innovation and that kind of thing.

James: The current favorite is Mary Bonvoy.

James: It’s a kind of program that obviously everyone’s very, very familiar with.

James: But I just love how they do both the kind of the basics very, very well.

James: As a guest, you know, you’re getting an improved experience.

James: The UX is amazing.

James: And then the big stuff they do on top of it as well, all those kind of Mary Bonvoy moments, that kind of money buy, money can’t buy activity is really, really cool as well.

James: I’ve noticed they’ve been doing drops recently as well.

James: So just very intrigued to see how that goes for them and where they’re going to take it from here.

Carly: I love hearing it from people so much in the space, especially with not only your backgrounds, but the research you’re doing, you’re across so many programs.

Carly: And let’s go into that a little bit further.

Carly: James, can you tell us a bit about your background?

Carly: How did you end up in Loyalty?

Carly: What’s your story?

James: Well, I started actually in a food subscription business, working in brand partnerships.

James: And essentially, we were using brand partnerships for both new customer acquisition, and also retention with a subscription business.

James: Obviously, Loyalty is a pretty, pretty important metric to keep track of and to try and get people to stay subscribed for just even one or two more deliveries.

James: So I was working there then, actually did some work with Mando, and was introduced to the agency that way, and eventually moved across to join Charlie and the team about five or six years ago, where again, I was working in brand partnerships mostly, and then gradually transitioned towards the strategy and planning team.

James: So yeah, been immersed in the world of Loyalty since then.

Carly: And clearly a fabulous decision by the way, obviously.

Carly: Charlie, tell us about Mando and your background in Loyalty.

Charlie: I was going to say James, just remember you’re on record now, I’ve got this on film.

Carly: We’re totally recording.

Charlie: So I feel ancient when I tell this story.

Charlie: It’s absolutely horrific how many years I’ve now been working in Loyalty, but I’ve exceeded my two decades now, which is really quite shocking.

Charlie: So I was really lucky.

Charlie: I was super unusual at university.

Charlie: So I went to Warwick and I did Mathematics and Analytics as part of an Economics and International Studies degree.

Charlie: And it was really unusual at the time to be a girl who loved public speaking, loved people, loved being out, but also really liked maths.

Charlie: So when I then was trying to look at my graduate programs, everyone told me I was supposed to be an accountant or an actuary.

Charlie: And I remember going to those programs and just going, oh, God, no, not in a million years.

Charlie: So I ended up in a marketing role, which I just thought was marvelous because the opportunity to get things on the shelves and actually kind of bring campaigns to life.

Charlie: And I loved it.

Charlie: And then when I look back at that with the power of hindsight, actually, loyalty has been a thread that’s run through my entire career.

Charlie: So I was lucky enough to start out at Boots, which is one of the big three programs in Britain, Boots Advantage Card.

Charlie: And I was actually in the product development side, but I was given access to data devolution at the time, which was the sort of very basic, you know, 20 plus years ago interface with all the ad card data.

Charlie: And I remember doing my first big presentation of a range review of skincare.

Charlie: And I’d used it all.

Charlie: And nobody had ever really thought about using it in that way.

Charlie: And I was obviously able to look at what everybody was buying, what all the categories were doing, what ingredients were doing well, what type of customer liked different things.

Charlie: And it was literally all on our sort of like dial up desktop.

Charlie: And I think that was the hallelujah moment for me, because I was like, well, this is really obvious, right?

Charlie: Because the data can help point us in the right direction.

Charlie: And that was brilliant.

Charlie: Boots loved it.

Charlie: And obviously from then on in, they got to do all sorts of cool things.

Charlie: And some of the skincare ranges I made still exist.

Charlie: So go check out Boots, Tea Tree and Witch Nasal, if you’re dialing in from the UK, it’s one of my favorites.

Charlie: And ironically, given that I ended up in partnerships, a brilliant partnership of two of the best ingredients that exists for teenage skincare, and my kids now use it.

Charlie: So there’s a lovely sort of founding kind of thing.

Charlie: And then what happened from that point in my career was always a sort of loyalty and partnerships thread.

Charlie: So I was privileged enough to work on McDonald’s, one of the other kind of most amazing brands in the world, on the McDonald’s Monopoly promotions.

Charlie: I worked with Masterfoods.

Charlie: I then went into consultancy and got to work on O2 Priority, which was a really cool kind of partnerships fuel program and programs for Aviva.

Charlie: And then I think it’s eight years ago now was given the opportunity to found an agency as part of Mando.

Charlie: So one of the oldest agencies within WPP, specializing in loyalty partnerships and rewards.

Charlie: And along with Becky Monday, my CEO and Joe Ashdown, who’s now our managing director, we literally sat around kitchen table, made up logos and thought, right, this is how we’re going to do it and how we’re going to use smart data and insight to inform partnerships, rewards and loyalty solutions.

Charlie: And to be honest, I was like a kid in a sweet shop.

Charlie: I couldn’t believe that anyone was going to let us do it, let alone support us to do it.

Charlie: And we’ve really, we’ve gone from there.

Charlie: So we’ve got the most amazing brands that we get to work with now.

Charlie: So everybody from Vodafone to BMW, to Mini, to Lidl, TK Maxx, like some really phenomenal brands.

Charlie: And then we get to work with some little brands as well.

Charlie: And all of that kind of thread that runs through it is sort of smart data informed decisions to inform, you know, loyalty, promotions, partnerships and reward solutions.

Charlie: So it’s been awesome.

Charlie: Yeah.

Charlie: And there’s about 30 of us now.

Charlie: And we’ve got this really fancy office in London because we get to sit in the WPP flagship.

Charlie: And yeah, it’s been quite a journey and I love it.

Charlie: I think loyalty is such an awesome area of marketing.

Charlie: You know, you can really measure it.

Charlie: You can see the impact of it.

Charlie: You can build things that people love.

Charlie: You can experiment really quickly and get real results really fast.

Charlie: So yeah, it’s been a real privilege.

Charlie: It’s very cool.

Carly: Fantastic.

Carly: And this is why I always love talking to you, Charlie, because I don’t know that I know any people that are so passionate and genuinely love what they do in the same way.

Charlie: It’s because I’m an escaped actuary, right?

Charlie: I mean, I would have obviously had a yacht and some sort of skyscraper pen has come in New York, which sometimes I question my life choices.

Charlie: But yeah, I’m an escaped actuary.

Charlie: So yeah, I love it.

Carly: I’ll also remember to ask you the brands you haven’t worked with.

Carly: It’ll be much faster than the ones that you do.

Charlie: Yeah.

Carly: With such a great career.

Carly: It’s good.

Charlie: I think that’s the joy of being agency side, you know, and obviously I loved being client side, but I was really happy when I jumped to agency side because it gives you the opportunity.

Charlie: I’m such a naturally curious person and it gives you the opportunity to work on lots of different brands across lots of different sectors.

Charlie: And I think that’s some of the work that James and I and the team do that’s the most interesting.

Charlie: It’s like, actually, what can telecommunications loyalty learn from financial services loyalty and what can coffee shop loyalty learn from media and entertainment loyalty?

Charlie: And it’s that translation, I think, of those insights, because sometimes I think people forget that it’s the same human being.

Charlie: You know, in our British research, we know that the average Brit is a member of six loyalty programs.

Charlie: And I think people who work in loyalty forget that.

Charlie: They look at their competitive set, you know, people in the same sector.

Charlie: But you shouldn’t really.

Charlie: You should be looking at retail and telco and media and all the ones that your audience sports, you know, a really interesting sector that’s been growing, to see where those big innovations are and then how you can apply them.

Charlie: So yeah, that’s the best thing I think about being agency-side.

Charlie: Not to mention having partnerships, because obviously we have a small number of clients, but hundreds and hundreds of brand partners that we work with.

Charlie: We do 500 to 1,000 partnerships a year.

Charlie: So you really get to know lots and lots of different types of brands and sectors really quickly.

Carly: So good.

Carly: And we’re really lucky today.

Carly: I love this.

Carly: I’ve got two strategy experts here.

Carly: And take us through your white paper, because you’re just about to release the Understanding Loyalty in Europe.

Carly: Not your first edition though, is it?

Carly: Third?

Carly: Are we third now?

Charlie: We are third now.

Carly: Yes.

Charlie: We’ve got a teal cover.

Charlie: Yeah, it’s a fabulous piece of research.

Charlie: And we were really privileged, I think, in our partnership with YouGov.

Charlie: So a little bit like the book that James was referring to earlier, we were brave when we started Connect.

Charlie: We did all sorts of cheeky things that I’m not sure I’d be cheeky enough to do now, to be honest.

Charlie: I thought we would directly approach the head of YouGov, with whom we were building an IP property kind of partnership with them, and said, look, we’ll help you with all your loyalty and promotions data points if you’ll help us build ourselves some fame and intellectual property as an agency.

Charlie: And surprisingly, they said yes.

Charlie: So that was the birth of kind of a big series of white papers.

Charlie: So we do the Understanding British Loyalty and Understanding British Promotions series that we’ve now been running for about six or seven years, I think.

Charlie: And then three years ago, we were lucky enough, YouGov launched their Global Profiles tool, which is a fantastic panel that they run across multiple markets.

Charlie: And 24 of those markets are across Europe.

Charlie: And so we got cheeky again, and we said, we’d love to develop a white paper with you, looking for the first time ever at Loyalty Membership Appeal and Impact across 24 European markets.

Charlie: And it was driven purely out of irritation, which was lots and lots of global programs that we work on treating Europe as a homogenous bunch of markets and going, well, you know, we’ve got a North America strategy, a South America strategy, and then Europe will just kind of lump all together.

Charlie: We might stick a few kind of Asian markets in there, all the same.

Charlie: And I was like, they’re not, they’re so different.

Charlie: Like, you know, it’s going to look so different when we do it.

Charlie: And YouGov were fantastic.

Charlie: They said, yes, absolutely.

Charlie: They helped us build all the data sets.

Charlie: And then we kind of sat back and recognized that we really needed some help.

Charlie: You know, we obviously understand the British market inside out.

Charlie: We understand, you know, the homogenous European market as part of our global work that we do.

Charlie: But we didn’t know the detail of what loyalty looks like in the Czech Republic or what loyalty really looks like in Germany at a granular level.

Charlie: So we’ve built over time a community of fantastic European loyalty experts who work on the paper with us.

Charlie: And so we effectively create the master data upfront and the master story and show how it works.

Charlie: We then bring the British insight.

Charlie: And then we’ve got a big community of experts who help us bring all the detail and depth into each of those markets, looking at trends, case studies, interrogating the data, you know, why is membership so high in some markets and others?

Charlie: And it’s phenomenal to be part of a team, actually.

Charlie: And it’s been such an interesting part of the journey.

Charlie: I know I should say the data is the most interesting part of the study for me.

Charlie: But actually, it’s the case studies and the context and the experts that I’ve loved.

Charlie: And they’re all featured in the white paper.

Charlie: So for any of our listeners today who are interested in a particular market, go to the white paper, contact the experts on LinkedIn.

Charlie: They are all available to kind of help and help you with that granular market in understanding, which shows you why loyalty looks so different in Britain to Denmark.

Carly: Absolutely.

Carly: James, in your view, do you have any particular important key takeaways, any big call outs that you saw during this?

Paula: This show is brought to you by Phaedon and the Tally platform, the power behind the world’s biggest and most beloved loyalty programs.

Paula: Formerly known as ICFnext, Phaedon works with many of the world’s leading brands to create standout customer experiences that drive emotional loyalty and lead to true bottom line impact.

Paula: Trust Phaedon to help you forge unbreakable bonds with your customers and future-proof your brand.

Paula: Phaedon, driving brand love is what they do.

Paula: To learn more, visit www.wearephaedon.com And to help with the spelling, you can find a direct link in the show notes for this episode.

James: Yeah, I mean, so we, as Charlie says, we’ve been running this series, this is the third iteration.

James: So it’s now that we can really start to see some of those trends.

James: And actually how asking the same data points around loyalty, membership, loyalty appeal and loyalty impact, and how those things are changing over the years.

James: And it’s been quite an interesting few years globally anyway.

James: So actually, we’re starting to see some of these trends come in with the cost of living crisis, all of that kind of thing, having an impact on how people are really using loyalty programs and what they’re valuing within them.

James: So yeah, there is a ton of data in the white paper and I definitely urge everyone to go and read it for themselves.

James: But I think there’s probably three key takeaways that we saw this year.

James: Firstly, around that kind of Nehemship point, we’re seeing 64% of Europeans saying they are members of a loyalty program.

James: So the majority, really, you can see it’s a really, really kind of ubiquitous tool that people are using throughout Europe at the moment.

James: And whilst there are variations across the countries, you can see the kind of highs of Finland where I think it’s 89% of Finnish people, so they are members of at least one program, right down to 27% in Turkey.

James: So the uptake is very varied across the different countries.

James: But when you kind of average it all out, you can see actually the majority of people are members of a loyalty program.

James: The second point, I think, is around that appeal.

James: And again, we’re just seeing that kind of trending out.

James: People are really valuing loyalty programs and what they can do, whether that’s helping out with their company shopping, whatever that is.

James: We can see across those three data points that we ask, which are whether they feel that loyalty programs are a great way to reward customers, whether they think all brands should offer them, and then finally, when they get offered the chance to join a loyalty program, do customers do it?

James: And actually, we’re seeing that kind of data just trend upwards across all three data points there.

James: It’s now 59% of people saying they think loyalty programs are a great way to reward the customers.

James: That’s up from 55% in 2024.

James: 49% say they think every brand should offer them.

James: Again, that’s up from 42% last year.

James: And then finally, 42% say they join loyalty programs every time they’re given the chance, which again is up from 35% last year.

James: So those kind of appeal data points are really tracking upwards.

James: But I think that probably the biggest and potentially most interesting for loyalty marketers really is just the impact data points that we’re seeing, especially around people saying that they are spending more as a result of being a loyalty program member.

James: We look at four different data points in this kind of category.

James: It’s whether they feel more loyal as a member, whether they say they’re more likely to recommend friends to a brand if they’re a member of a loyalty program, whether they feel more emotionally connected to a brand when they’re a member of the loyalty program, and then finally whether they actually spend more.

James: And those kind of impact metrics are trending up again.

James: But the big one we’re seeing is actually 36 percent of people are now saying they spend more when they’re a member of the program.

James: That’s up from 29 percent last year.

James: So I think it’s a really, really welcomed stats that hopefully will be music to everyone’s ears at the moment where everyone is really, really trying to prove their value and make every kind of petty work for them.

James: So yeah, it’s a great one.

James: I think it’s a really encouraging sign for us.

Carly: Yes.

Carly: Anyone from the loyalty industry would be very happy to hear that’s got an upward trend, I imagine, of course.

Charlie: You mentioned totally awesome infographics on that page as well.

Charlie: I’m just going to shout out because inspired by knowledge is beautiful and all the great stuff on the Internet.

Charlie: We did really ramped up the visual presentation of the data this year.

Charlie: And yeah, I think that’s something James and the team should be really proud of.

Carly: Awesome.

Carly: We need some good pictures along with it, all the stats as well.

Carly: What are your takes and what are your thoughts on why the big difference between Turkey and Finland?

Carly: Tell us a bit more about that one.

Carly: There’s such polar opposites in the numbers.

Carly: Obviously, we’ve got a 64% mean, great.

Carly: Why such a difference between the two in your opinion?

James: I think there’s a number of factors which impact how people interact with loyalty programs.

James: You’ve got technology, you’ve got how long they’ve been around in different countries, and also where the investment is as well.

James: There’s a number of different things which can impact how people feel about loyalty, whether they’re engaging in them.

James: We’re just starting to see the variations across different markets now.

James: One of the great things that we’ve got in the program is our loyalty gauge, which really looks at all of those data points we’ve spoken about, and ranks the country by country based on their net loyalty score.

James: So you can see just how membership changes, how the appeal changes, how the impact changes, and the Laws of Marx is a great way just to understand it a little bit more, especially if they’re thinking of going to different territories or thinking about how they should adjust their offering for each country.

James: It’s a very useful tool to be able to go and see actually what the impact, what the membership and what the appeal is before we go and do that.

Carly: That’s awesome.

Carly: Charlie, now I know you dodged saying a favorite loyalty program that you may have included in this white paper, but now’s the time to call out some of the case studies.

Carly: There’s some really good case studies here, so now we can call out some of those brands.

Charlie: I think the case studies are the best bit, actually, and I think that is one of the most interesting things.

Charlie: As James is talking about there in the loyalty gauge, people often ask me, well, how do I use the data?

Charlie: I think that for me is how you use the data.

Charlie: If you’re in a market that’s struggling with appeal or you’re a program that’s struggling with appeal, then actually you should be looking to the markets with a nailing appeal and looking at the exemplar programs in that sector and go, oh, what can I borrow?

Charlie: What can I use?

Charlie: What inspires me?

Charlie: And that’s how I think people should really be using the data rather than just sort of, I think it’s quite easy to copy and paste a chart and stick it in a presentation for a board team and go, oh, you know, people will spend more.

Charlie: But hopefully, I’m really hoping that people will really get into this in year three and go, actually, that inspires me.

Charlie: And this is what we should be doing differently.

Charlie: And one of the programs that we really admire, we launched the paper at the Loyalty Summit CXM in Stockholm.

Charlie: So we were obviously gonna try and get IKEA Family in the paper and we did.

Charlie: And IKEA Family, I think, is one of those programs where they’ve had a huge amount of innovation in the last kind of two to three years.

Charlie: I think two to three years ago, we looked at it and gone, well, we love IKEA, but do we really love IKEA Family?

Charlie: Whereas now with the launch of initiatives like rewards and some really kind of cool benefits that they’re doing, actually, there’s some stuff to be really inspired by an IKEA family.

Charlie: And we worked with Kirsty Chalk and she actually came out to the summit and presented and actually she put a great case study in.

Charlie: And one of the things that IKEA does is they talk about stealing with pride.

Charlie: So they pilot things in one market and then they ask the other markets to steal it with pride.

Charlie: And I thought that’s actually a really great theme for the paper.

Charlie: And I wish I’d known about that before we write the paper because I’m going to put it in the intro as actually what can you steal with pride.

Charlie: And so one of my favorite case studies in the paper is IKEA family and what they’re doing.

Charlie: And I really recommend that people check that out.

Charlie: I did sort of flag the Club of Ulcer program that we worked on with Camillo Courtney.

Charlie: It’s a really interesting program yet so complex.

Charlie: So many different retail models across so many different markets in an environment largely of duty free and service stations where people are trying to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Charlie: So they’ve got to do some really cool stuff to capture people’s attention and they really are.

Charlie: So those are our two deep dive case studies that are in the paper and we featured our experts and their contact details as well should anybody want to get in touch.

Charlie: And then what we asked each of our experts to do was to call out within their own market, three interesting programs.

Charlie: Now we didn’t ask for the biggest programs.

Charlie: We didn’t ask for the ones that everybody knows about.

Charlie: We asked them to choose a blend of the most interesting and biggest programs.

Charlie: So you’ll have seen Little Plus feature a lot.

Charlie: A couple of the experts pulled that out.

Charlie: And then some really interesting ones.

Charlie: In the British market, snapshot that I wrote, I called out Pets at Home VIP, which I still think is one of the best programs out there.

Charlie: In terms of personalization, bringing your pets alive, the Puppy Club, they’re doing some really great stuff.

Charlie: The Pizza Express Club, the way they really baked their brand DNA into the program, and they brought tiering in to effectively an IEO sector program, which is really interesting with some really great top tier benefits.

Charlie: And then Benefit Loves, which is a really lovely program that’s actually trying to bring that joy of the brand into the loyalty experience through treats and experiences.

Charlie: So those were three of my favorites that I called out.

Charlie: But James, obviously you got to work with all the experts on all of them.

Charlie: Which other ones would you call out from the paper that are worth checking out?

James: Yeah, I love the variation that we get from asking that question from our experts.

James: And we’ve got those kind of 12 deep dives in the paper where they not only look at the case studies, but also the kind of the key trends that they’re seeing within that particular market.

James: So you see, you definitely see that a lot of the same markets have the same problems and it’s just interesting to see how they are contacting some of those kind of same issues with the programs.

James: I think my favorite case study from the paper and one which I’ve never heard of, I had never heard of the program before reading it, but Pristin from Norway, our Norwegian expert, spoke about the SAPS Loyalty program, and SAPS is a kind of gym chain out there.

James: But I just thought it was a really, really simple program whereby it’s tiered, and it aims to reward gym goers for consistent attendance.

James: So the more you go, the more you work out, the more rewards and perks you get, and it’s all aimed around trying to encourage your community and just reward those kind of positive behaviors as well.

James: So I just thought it was a very, very simple way of doing both of those things in a really nice kind of format, which actually helps those customers achieve their goal of getting fitter and being rewarded for that.

Carly: So I do want to ask you the question that’s not always easy to answer, but I know as the listeners, loyalty professionals are going to want to hear because we all have the bad days and we’re all working in an industry.

Carly: You just mentioned, James, they’re facing some similar problems.

Carly: What kind of problems were they calling out?

Carly: What were they seeing in these programs that I’m sure a lot of people listening would share?

James: I think for loyalty marketers, especially at the moment, it’s keeping people engaged and retained with the fact that we have such high uptake of loyalty programs across Europe and in each country.

James: There is so much choice.

James: I mean, Charlie mentioned that data point in the UK, looking at the fact that actually the UK, the average loyalty program membership for a British person is six different programs.

James: It’s a challenge that I think everyone is seeing is actually, how do you stand out?

James: How do you become the program that you go to first?

James: Well, there’s so much choice.

James: So I think there is certainly a need to differentiate yourself.

James: And I think that’s something which came up a few times.

James: And also just responding to economic climate, we can see actually people have been using programs to help support themselves when things have been a little bit tight.

James: And it’s something that programs are definitely trying to help their customers with.

James: And yeah, there’s plenty of the same challenges popping up in the different case studies and deep dives that we saw.

Charlie: And I think another one that comes out when we spoke to the experts and the kind of the community calls is about budget.

Charlie: So a constant challenge here.

Charlie: So as James is talking, usage is higher than ever.

Charlie: So it’s really hard to give valuable, meaningful rewards when rates are so high.

Charlie: But what we’re also seeing is a real squeeze on marketing budgets kind of across the board.

Charlie: And obviously loyalty is one of the areas where there is a sort of direct attribution of how am I rewarding people.

Charlie: So the number of briefs that we have in at the moment which are, how can I create a more meaningful connection with my consumer but half the budget?

Charlie: I think it is a real challenge for loyalty marketers everywhere as it is for all marketing disciplines and actually kind of everyone at the moment I think.

Charlie: So I think that’s another big challenge that’s coming through.

Charlie: But that real kind of drive to create that emotional connection, but not perhaps having the same level of budget that we would have seen three to four years ago to be able to do it for everyone.

Carly: If you were gambling people and you were running Understanding Loyalty Europe 4.0, because we’re doing 3.0 right now, what are your predictions?

Carly: What do you think we’re going to see next round?

Carly: And I know you’re just releasing right now, but what would you predict for next year?

Charlie: What do you reckon?

Charlie: I reckon we are going to see a continued increase in membership because of the explosion of loyalty programs.

Charlie: I think the drive of first-party data and zero-party data across the board in Europe at the moment means that pretty much everyone who hasn’t got a loyalty program is trying to get a version of it.

Charlie: We’ve seen this a lot and I think it’s very rare that a loyalty program of some version is not a good solution for that.

Charlie: So I think we’re going to see a continued increase in membership.

Charlie: I think Peel is going to flatline because I think of this tension that we have between budget and desire for rewards.

Charlie: So I think they’re going to go, yeah, these programs are great, but what we’ve seen in the last three years has been quite a meteoric rise in appeal of program.

Charlie: We’ve seen some big differentiation, some big rises, you know, loyalty is one of the big trends that people talk about.

Charlie: You know, the programs are getting so much better because of gamification.

Charlie: They’re really understanding, but I think we’re going to see a flatline.

Charlie: And then I’m hoping the impact will increase because the analytics is getting so much smarter and programs are being able to target the right kind of behaviors.

Charlie: Like we’re seeing some really lovely specific segmented, micro-segmented, personalized kind of approaches to actually get the right people to do the right kind of more valuable behavior rather than that one size fits all that perhaps we would have been hamstrung by the technology.

Charlie: So that would be my hope.

Charlie: What about you James?

Charlie: What do you reckon?

Charlie: Did you agree or do you reckon that’s going to?

James: Yeah, I agree.

James: I think membership is a really interesting one.

James: We’ve had, especially in the UK market, we’ve had things like member pricing kind of come in recently, which has just really, really aggressively increased that kind of membership, especially in the grocery industry.

James: So really intrigued to see what comes next and what impact that has.

James: I don’t know if we’re going to see quite as big a jump as we will do in membership next time around.

James: But who knows, there’s certainly a lot of exciting technology coming in within multi-programs at the moment.

James: So we’re waiting to find out.

Carly: And what are you working on next?

Carly: Am I just predicting the 4.0 version or have you got something else up your sleeve that you’re going to start to release?

Carly: What’s going on next?

Charlie: Well, as we said, we do the two series of white papers.

Charlie: So we do the Understanding Loyalty in Europe series, which is really great.

Charlie: And every year we’re trying to build that community of experts.

Charlie: It’s getting bigger and bigger every year, actually.

Charlie: So we’ve only printed digital copies this year because of sustainability concerns.

Charlie: The few paper copies kicking around, but not many.

Charlie: So there are perhaps 12 markets now in detail.

Charlie: And obviously there’s 24.

Charlie: So my ambition is to get all 24 done.

Charlie: So if you’re listening to this and you’re an expert in a loyalty market, one of the 24 that we have featured, please get in touch.

Charlie: We’d love to feature you in the next papers.

Charlie: And I promise it’s a really interesting and really fun sort of process that we put together.

Charlie: And then what we also do in the British market is we alternate between a promotion specialism paper and a loyalty specialism paper, particularly in the British market.

Charlie: So, this year we are focusing on understanding what the British people really love about loyalty and actually, sorry, promotions, and actually what’s going to really inspire them.

Charlie: We’ve got some brilliant experts that we’re pulling in.

Charlie: We’re working with the IPM, the Institute of Promotional Marketing.

Charlie: So that’s going to be our focus in 2025.

Charlie: And then we’ll do the British loyalty paper in 2026 again.

Charlie: So a kind of ongoing series that enables us to really build that big industry view.

Charlie: And then we might do some other stuff as well, actually.

Charlie: Who knows?

Charlie: We’ll wait and see.

Carly: Oh, well, knowing you, you probably will.

Carly: There’ll be something we don’t expect, but it’ll be awesome.

Charlie: Try and do something new every year.

Carly: Well, back to James’ point and his favourite book.

Carly: That’s the theme, right?

Carly: Yeah.

Carly: How can listeners access this paper?

Carly: How do we get a hold of it when it’s available?

James: I think hopefully we’ll share the link within the description.

James: You can also download those.

James: You can copy it at mando.co.uk.

James: You can have, if you click on there, you can also see all of our other recent lost papers.

James: The British one, which Charlie mentioned in some of the previous versions of the promo paper as well.

James: So they’re all available at the website there.

James: So just download from that.

Carly: Awesome.

Carly: And Charlie, you did mention as well, people can reach out if they’ve got further questions or want to get involved, definitely reach out as well.

Charlie: Yeah, do.

Charlie: I mean, James and I are very easy to find on LinkedIn or on the Mando website.

Charlie: Yeah, please get in touch.

Charlie: We’d love to love to answer your questions, love to share the paper, love to build the case studies, and love to hear any new ideas you’ve got.

Carly: Well, thank you both so much.

Carly: Very exciting.

Carly: I’m super glad that I got a pre-read.

Carly: So thank you for the privilege and looking forward to seeing what happens over the next 12 months.

Charlie: Thank you for having me.

James: Thanks very much.

Paula: This show is sponsored by Wise Marketer Group, publisher of The Wise Marketer, the premier digital customer loyalty marketing resource for industry relevant news, insights and research.

Paula: Wise Marketer Group also offers loyalty education and training globally through its Loyalty Academy, which has certified nearly 900 marketeers and executives in 49 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.

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