ANA’s LoyaltyCon (Virtual Only)

OPENING COMMENTS: LOYALTY MARKETING – THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

While there is clear "good" in loyalty programs, there are also "bad" and "ugly" characteristics.

• The Good: Loyalty programs offer multiple benefits, including increased customer lifetime value, the ability to collect data and insights for improving products, services, and the overall customer experience, and serving as a gateway to personalization.
• The Bad: Challenges persist in loyalty marketing. Differentiating a loyalty program from competitors and determining the appropriate frequency of communication with members remain significant obstacles for marketers.
• The Ugly: Fraud poses a major threat to loyalty programs, such as exploitation by professional hackers and customers taking advantage of loopholes or errors in program rules.

This opening session will highlight findings from ANA research on loyalty marketing and set the foundation for the day.

Bill Duggan

Group EVP ANA

MANAGING ONE OF THE BIGGEST LOYALTY PROGRAMS IN THE WORLD

United Airlines' MileagePlus frequent flyer program is one of the biggest loyalty programs in the world. It’s now over 40 years old and has 100+ million members. More than 50 percent of United’s flight revenue is from MileagePlus members. United continues to work hard to differentiate its program. It has an extensive network of partners to redeem points with and is the first and only major U.S. airline to allow multiple family members to share and redeem miles in one linked account. The company has also increased security to help prevent fraud.

Luc Bondar

COO & President United Airlines MileagePlus

CRAVER NATION FACILITATES BRAND ENGAGEMENT

The QSR business is very competitive, and brands are fighting for share on every occasion, from breakfast to late night. White Castle’s Craver Nation rewards program allows the brand to connect with customers with personalized messaging to facilitate their engagement with the brand. To differentiate the program, White Castle provides experiences that go beyond being simply transactional. For example, they offer branded merchandise and might invite Craver Nation members to a private tasting with a chef to try new products. Measurement compares reward members versus non-members and the brand has been able to quantify that Craver Nation members do come more frequently than non-members and that the loyalty program generates a positive return.

Lynn Blashford

CMO White Castle

LEGAL RISKS AND REWARDS OF LOYALTY PROGRAMS

Loyalty programs are notoriously heavily regulated, but their popularity with consumers often makes them an important part of a seller’s marketing plan. Companies running such programs must stay up to date on regulatory, legislative, and litigation developments affecting these promotional mechanisms and there has been a particularly high volume of such developments recently. This session will provide a lively discussion of the laws regulating loyalty programs and the risks and “rewards” of offering them.

Melissa Landau Steinman

Partner Venable LLP

SAFEGUARDING AGAINST FRAUD IN LOYALTY PROGRAMS

Fraud can be an issue in loyalty programs and must be actively managed. Fraud can come from professional hackers, consumers, and even employees. Safeguarding loyalty marketing programs requires a holistic and dispassionate approach. Every step, from ad creative and targeting through app download to account creation and points redemption, has the capacity to be manipulated or exploited by fraudsters. This session will offer guidance on what steps organizations can take to protect these valuable programs from threat actors at every stage.

Sarah Acker

VP, Corporate Marketing HUMAN

LOYALTY PROGRAMS ARE FOR B-TO-B TOO

While loyalty marketing programs are most commonly associated with B-to-C marketers, they are used by some B-to-B marketers as well. For Andersen Corporation, the average homeowner orders a window and door package 0.8 times in their life, so it doesn’t make sense to have a consumer loyalty program. Instead, Andersen focuses on their professional customers. They’ve designed the Certified Contractor Program for home improvement contractors and the Select Builder Program for custom residential builders. Loyalty programs are for B-to-B too!

Kendra Dare

Director, Customer Marketing Andersen Corporation

7-ELEVEN’S COMMITMENT TO LOYALTY

7-Eleven, Inc. is the premier name in the U.S. convenience-retailing industry. 7-Eleven operates, franchises and/or licenses more than 13,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada. Details on this session to come. 

Mario Mijares

VP, Insights, Loyalty, Marketing and Monetization Platforms 7-Eleven, Inc.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN CULTURE AND LOYALTY

There’s no force more influential on human behavior than culture. If you want to get people to move, you must first understand cultural forces that make them tick. When we fully understand what culture is and the underlying physics of how it works, then we can leverage its sway to get people to take action. If a product, idea, behavior, or institution is adopted into a community’s cultural practice, not only will people take action, but they will also share it with people who are like themselves. And those people will tell other people, and eventually, that product, idea, behavior, or institution will be adopted into their cultural practice. In this session, the connection between culture and loyalty will be discussed. 

Marcus Collins

Best-Selling Author, For The Culture Clinical Professors, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

CLOSING COMMENTS