In this week's Newswire you can enjoy a curated list of the latest customer loyalty, technology, payments, and other relevant marketing news. We include a spectrum of topics, all with the intention of keeping you informed and enabling you to star in your next big meeting.
The Loyalty Newswire makes it simple for busy professionals (e.g. YOU) to quickly digest important industry news and trending topics. Keep reading!
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Stay. Loyal. Always.
- Canadian Tire investment in Triangle loyalty program is paying dividends
- How SA's fuel reward programs compare - with some clear winners, depending on your needs
- Reimagining Retail: Loyalty in the age of economic uncertainty, and the top 4 under-the-radar loyalty programs
- Rip Curl offers a surfer’s dream – points for surfing
- TTC Tour Brands consolidates six brands into one Loyalty Program
- Tim Hortons and Starbucks make big changes to their Canadian Loyalty Programs
- Etihad & EL AL introduce new reciprocal loyalty agreement
- Tamayaz: 764,385 customers enrolled in Union Coop’s loyalty program
- NY based grocer Foodcellar lets shoppers scan and checkout as they shop with Instacart Scan & Pay
- Quick News – The Dangers of Loyalty?
- Quote of the Week
Canadian Tire investment in Triangle loyalty program is paying dividends
During 2022, Canadian Tire Corporation announced a new strategic growth plan that includes investing billions of dollars into its omnichannel operations over the next four years. The biggest line item in the plan is approximately $2.2 billion to be invested into Canadian Tire’s omnichannel customer experience. That includes expanding the Triangle Rewards loyalty program – including the rollout of a new “Triangle Select” paid premium tier – and strengthening its data-led personalized marketing capabilities. The company just released financial results for Q4 2022. Triangle Loyalty member sales were up 8%, continuing to outpace total retail sales, with 11.3 million active members in the program and loyalty penetration of close to 60% in 2022.
How SA's fuel reward programs compare - with some clear winners, depending on your needs
Residents of South Africa are struggling with rolling power outages and an inflationary environment where petrol prices remains stubbornly high. The economy remains vibrant nonetheless which means consumers are diligently seeking out value where they can. There are now at least 12 fuel reward programmes in South Africa, including partnerships among pharmacies, banks, insurance companies, supermarkets, and filling stations. This article contains a summary of the most notable petrol rewards programs.
Reimagining Retail: Loyalty in the age of economic uncertainty, and the top 4 under-the-radar loyalty programs
This interview with eMarketer analysts Sara Lebow, Sky Canaves and Suzy Davidkhanian explores why people don't take advantage of loyalty, how to keep consumers engaged in membership programs, and how to make sure customers have a seamless experience with all the right loyalty touchpoints. There is a focus on subscription loyalty programs and the analysts offer up their top four under-the-radar loyalty programs. The programs cited were new to us, so consider this a must read.
Rip Curl offers a surfer’s dream – points for surfing
Rip Curl was founded in 1969 by surfers and remains true to its pledge, to be about the crew on The Search. The iconic brand launched Club Rip Curl during 2022 and a new case study is available with details of the program’s performance over the past nine months. You can download the full case study here, courtesy of Antavo Enterprise Loyalty Cloud.
TTC Tour Brands consolidates six brands into one Loyalty Program
TTC Tour Brands is merging its six well-known tour brands into a single unified rewards program. That means travelers using the services of Trafalgar, Insight Vacations, Luxury Gold, Costsaver, Brendan Vacations and also Contiki, will all earn status through the same program, Global Tour Rewards. The new, unified rewards program gives agents a new way to market and re-engage past guests as well as to cross-sell brands, TTC said. At the same time, the unified program offers a way to appeal to new travelers by promoting the appeal of touring with any TTC tour brand and automatically becoming a member of the Global Tour Rewards program.
Tim Hortons and Starbucks make big changes to their Canadian Loyalty Programs
Canada is full of fresh air and wonderful people, but the country is not immune to inflation and economic pressure. Coffee and tea prices were up 13.2 percent year over year in December, according to the latest inflation report by Statistics Canada released last month. Why then would both Starbucks and Tim Hortons choose this time to make changes to their respective loyalty programs that some say are making it more challenging to earn rewards? The changes come as decades-high inflation has surged everyday expenses for Canadians, with grocery bills through the roof.
Tim Hortons is shifting its rewards program from a visit-based system to a spending-based one, effective Feb 21. Our quick calculations show that the loyalty rebate percentage is between 7 – 11 percent depending on the item redeemed. We’re not sure what all the complaining is about, but we’ll wait to hear from our Canadian friends to see what we have missed.
Etihad & EL AL introduce new reciprocal loyalty agreement
The UAE’s national carrier Etihad Airways and EL AL Israel Airlines have announced a new reciprocal loyalty agreement, expanding on the existing codeshare relationship between the two airlines. Members of the Etihad Guest programme and EL AL’s Matmid Frequent Flyer Club can now earn and redeem miles on flights across both carriers’ networks. Etihad Guest members can redeem their miles for travel with EL AL starting from 6,000 miles for Economy Class and 10,000 miles for Business Class, while EL AL Matmid members can redeem their points on the Etihad network including Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi for 800 points in Economy and 1500 points in Business.
Tamayaz: 764,385 customers enrolled in Union Coop’s loyalty program
Dubai based Union Coop is the largest consumer cooperative in the UAE region. It owns five shopping centers: Al Warqa City Mall, Etihad Mall, Al Barsha Mall, Al Barsha South Mall and Nad Al Hamar Center. Union Coop reported the number of customers enrolled in its loyalty program "Tamayaz" in the year 2022 reached 764,385, who made up 80% of the total sales for the year. “Tamayaz” card enables customers to earn loyalty points while making purchases at Union Coop, in addition to benefiting from the promotional offers with instant discounts that Union Coop constantly launches. Consumers earn 1 point per purchase worth AED 1 and upon accumulating 3,000 points, gold Tamayaz cardholders are eligible for immediate redemption of AED 50 – equivalent to 1.7 percent rebate.
NY based grocer Foodcellar lets shoppers scan and checkout as they shop with Instacart Scan & Pay
Long Island City, NY based Foodcellar is a food market with organic product, hot & cold prepared foods, a salad bar and an eat-in café. The trendy grocer just announced that customers can use Instacart’s new Scan & Pay technology to scan while they shop and check out using their mobile phones. Instacart is the leading grocery technology company in North America, working with grocers and retailers to transform how people shop. The company partners with more than 1,000 national, regional, and local retail banners to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from more than 75,000 stores across North America on the Instacart Marketplace.
Quick News – The Dangers of Loyalty?
The next time you are happily making your way into a 7-Eleven to redeem some of your 7Rewards points for a free drink or food, make sure you keep this in mind: In 2017, a man was waiting for a ride outside a 7-Eleven in Bensenville, Illinois, when a driver attempting to park hit the gas instead of the brakes, pinning him against the storefront. The man’s injuries were so severe, he lost both legs. Now, 7-Eleven will pay him a $91m settlement.
Power Rogers LLC, the law firm that represented the man, found that over a ~15-year period, 6,253 drivers crashed into 7-Eleven storefronts in the US. That’s ~1 per day. This isn’t strictly a 7-Eleven problem. The Storefront Safety Council, a group of volunteers who raise awareness about vehicle-in-building crashes, maintains a database of these crashes and found that each day 100+ drivers crash into storefronts nationwide and 16k people are injured and 2.6k are killed each year.
Quote of the Week
Responding to the question “What are the main purposes for a brand or a retailer for having a loyalty program?”, eMarketer analyst Sky Canaves said “I think first you want to drive repeat purchasing by rewarding that purchase behavior and creating some incentives for people to come back and purchase if they're banking rewards or points for example. Another big one for retailers now and brands is data collection. As it becomes harder to track consumers across apps and online, we're going to see more emphasis on collecting first party and zero party data from consumers.”
