Surprises in this year's loyalty award winners
Caesars Entertainment has won Colloquy's 2013 Master of Enterprise Loyalty award - which recognises the company that has most successfully built long-lasting customer loyalty and has become truly customer-centric - becoming the first loyalty innovator to claim the competition's coveted prize for two years in a row.
Among the other award winners were some of the best known names in US and global loyalty, including Citi, Walgreens and Hertz. Two of the global competition's international winners hailed from Australia: Coles and ANZ Banking Group. The other international winners were from the United Arab Emirates (Air Miles) and from Canada (St. John's Transportation Commission).
Among this year's winners were:
- Caesars Entertainment - Master of Enterprise Loyalty Caesars Entertainment, for its Total Rewards programme. Caesars focused for the past year on personalising customer experiences, online and on property, across every touch point. A real-time casino marketing initiative, in which an executive host is notified any time a guest interacts with a Caesars associate, increased customer value up to 30% per visit. In just four months, newly implemented, tier-related bonuses inspired Total Rewards VIPs to achieve elite status 20% faster.
- Citi - Loyalty Innovation in Financial Services (North America) Citi, for its ThankYou Merchandise Rewards Transformation Initiative. Citi ThankYou set out to create a best-in-class retail experience with the ultimate goal of increasing customer engagement and satisfaction with merchandise rewards. A new "shopping" like experience focused on three pillars: curate, showcase and communicate. The enriched online shop enhanced ThankYou's programme value to members and partners. Visitors spent 17% more time on the site, daily orders increased 32% year over year, and merchandise redemptions rose 47%.
- ANZ Banking Group - Loyalty Innovation in Financial Services (International) ANZ Banking Group, Australia, for its Points Expiry Campaign. ANZ set out on a retention and engagement campaign to bolster its ANZ Rewards programme. It applied an innovative surprise and delight approach to reengage inactive members. The campaign achieved an overall 45% response rate, which was 225% above target.
- Walgreens - Innovation in Loyalty Marketing (North America) Walgreens, for its Balance Rewards programme. Walgreens aimed to build a best-in-class loyalty programme founded on ease, value and wellness. The programme, offering members points for health-related activities, also had to be relevant, innovative and enterprise-wide. Launched in September 2012, Balance Rewards counted 72 million members by the end of May 2013. During May, sales increased 4.3% over the same month in 2012 and there was an average basket size increase of 4.7% year over year.
- Air Miles - Innovation in Loyalty Marketing (International) Air Miles, an Aimia company in the United Arab Emirates, for its 'A Rewarding 2013 Experience' campaign. The campaign goal was to inspire consumers to spend more during the UAE's traditionally slow mid-September to mid-October period. Triple miles, a drawing and a radio contest produced a 360% return on investment. Consumer spending at eight participating merchants increased 49% over the previous year.
- Coles - Loyalty Innovation in Retail (Global) Coles, Australia, for its flybuys Relaunch Initiative. Coles committed to revitalising flybuys, once Australia's largest shopping rewards programme. Coles ripped up the rule book by increasing members' earnings to one point for every dollar they spend, eliminating expiration dates for active members and adding new partners, among other enhancements and promotions. Results featured a 12-fold return on investment. Active cardholders increased 47% to 6.9 million, and year-over-year visits to the flybuys website more than doubled.
- St. John's Transportation Commission - Loyalty Innovation in Other Industries (Global) St. John's Transportation Commission, Canada, for its Metrobus-AIR MILES Partnership. Six years after the launch of Canada's first earn-per-ride programme, Metrobus wanted to make inroads to new markets. Metrobus and the AIR MILES Reward programme launched a multi-channel communications strategy featuring an offer of one reward mile for every two taps of a passenger's Metrobus m-card. The campaign succeeded in filling the aisles, recording a 6% gain in 2012 ridership. Online m-card purchases rose 54% from 2011 and m-card use rose 10%. Additionally, 44% of Metrobus riders opted to earn AIR MILES reward miles instead of m-Points in the first year.
- Hertz - Loyalty Innovation in Travel/Hospitality (Global) The Hertz Corporation, for Gold Plus Rewards. Hertz customers were confused about the company's multiple loyalty programmes. So Hertz created a seamless, global customer experience that harnessed the power of a single programme. Gold Plus Rewards, featuring new services and benefits, launched with the support of a multi-faceted, multi-channel global promotional campaign. programme enrollment increased by 99%, with a significant number of members upgrading to the new programme. Members electing to earn points on rental transactions increased 178% within a year.
More Info:
