This week's Customer Loyalty and Digital Marketing News
From the Editor
Enjoy this roundup of global news in Loyalty Marketing, CRM, and Digital Customer Marketing.
- World Loyalty Giving Day is coming up on December 3, coinciding with Giving Tuesday. The event Is the brainchild of Brian Almeida, Founder of Points for Good and will unify our industry through the support of causes for Good.
- True Religion refreshed its loyalty program with a new brand True Rewards, just ahead of the holiday shopping season.
- Easily missed is the massive theft of loyalty program data from Central Restaurant Group in Thailand. An original incident was reported in 2021 and now, data from over 5 million loyalty accounts has been placed for sale by hackers. Central Group uses The1 Card membership system across every retail and consumer brand under the Central Group. The1 Card describes itself as Thailand’s largest loyalty platform, with over 17 million members, or about 25% of Thailand’s population.
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Global News Roundup
- [Brazil] 47% of Brazilians Use Digital Wallets for Bill Payments
- [EMEA] Emirates Skywards rolls out bonus Miles
- [Global] Pi-xcels raises $2.7m to offer One-Tap NFC digital receipts
- [Thailand] Thai loyalty membership card data of 5 million customers for sale on hacking forum
- [US] Ansa Offers Branded Digital Wallets To Drive Customer Loyalty
- [US] Bain report ranks the most loved Private-Label grocery brands
- [US] Baby Foot Launches Exclusive Loyalty Program to Reward Customers for Foot Care
- [US] Best Buy misses Q3 estimates; lowers full-year comparable sales forecast
- [US] Bojangles taking a fresh approach to Digital Loyalty
- [US] Consumers are more likely to punish than reward a brand for its values
- [US] New CEO’s named at US Retailers Kohl’s and Michaels
- [US] 95% of Restaurants Use AI-Assisted Inventory Management
- [US] Uncertainty clouds holiday shopping season after mixed forecasts from Walmart & Target
World Loyalty Giving Day is coming on December 3
World Loyalty Giving Day is a campaign that has the potential to unify our industry through the support of causes for Good. Building on the vision of Brian Almeida, Founder of Points for Good, World Loyalty Giving Day will take place for the first time on December 3, the same day as Giving Tuesday.
Founding partners include:
If you operate a loyalty program, please let your members know about the opportunity to donate some of their points/miles/stars/anything to the cause of their choice. Please consider linking up with any of the founding partners to make donations.
As an active participant in the Customer Loyalty, Loyalty Marketing, CRM, Digital Marketing industry, please help us raise awareness by posting in your social channels with links to the World Loyalty Giving Day landing page and use the hashtags
- #DonateYourLoyaltyPointsDay
- #DYLPD
At The Wise Marketer, we are ALL IN FOR GOOD. Will you join us?
True Religion Reboots Loyalty Program Ahead of Black Friday
Global lifestyle apparel and accessories brand True Religion announced it has rebooted its loyalty program just in time for the holiday shopping season. Formerly known as True Fam, the brand’s loyalty program has been rebranded as True Rewards and will kick off the Black Friday weekend with exclusive membership perks.
The new program goes beyond offering discounts or promotions by offering members unique access to sports, music, and cultural experiences with True Religion collaborators and Team True content creators. It also offers improved customer experience and is now integrated into the company’s in-store POS system. Full Press Release here.
Atlas Restaurant Group leans on new Mobile App for Growth
Atlas Restaurant Group started in 2010 with a Deli in Baltimore’s Harbor East neighborhood. Today, the group operates over 50 restaurants, bars, and entertainment concepts across the US. As part of its growth strategy, the company launched Atlas Rewards during 2023.
One of the most effective elements of Atlas Rewards to drive engagement and incremental sales is the Mobile App and its promotional capabilities. Atlas uses detailed customer data the program provides to send tailored marketing messages to specific customer segments or even individuals. “With those data points, we’re able to push content to certain customers to get them into spaces that they most likely haven’t been visiting or maybe have been visiting,” said Erin Black, Atlas’ VP of marketing and design.
Complete your entry for the International Loyalty Awards NOW
The 14th Annual International Loyalty Awards are officially underway. This year’s event features an expanded program with fantastic new categories like Global Loyalty Program of the Year, SME Categories, Industry-Specific Categories, and Best Global Strategic Partnership.
ILA has added over 25 new judges to the panel, adding even more depth, expertise, and diversity to the process. The Wise Marketer is a media partner with ILA and both Bill Hanifin and Aaron Dauphinee will be serving as judges. You can find full details on categories and entry criteria here.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Rules to Closely Supervise Wallet Apps
Digital payment apps have become a cornerstone of daily commerce, rivaling traditional payment methods like credit cards and debit cards for both online and in-store purchases. Some of these apps are owned by the world’s largest technology conglomerates. The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has finalized a rule to supervise the largest nonbank companies offering digital funds transfer and payment wallet apps.
“Digital payments have gone from novelty to necessity and our oversight must reflect this reality,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “The rule will help to protect consumer privacy, guard against fraud, and prevent illegal account closures.”
BetMGM Rewards Points Now Combined into Single, Digital Wallet
BetMGM, a leading iGaming and sports betting operator, announced a major enhancement to its customer experience by consolidating BetMGM Reward Points (BRPs) into a single account. In addition to users' cash balance, this feature enables BetMGM Rewards Points to travel with them across jurisdictions.
Streamlining BetMGM Rewards Points into a single account is the next phase of BetMGM's single, digital wallet. With single account, users have one set of login credentials and account settings, along with a single cash balance accessible in all states where BetMGM is available.
Learning from the CEO: Interview with Chuck Maggelet, retiring CEO Maverik Stores
In the mold of other bold CEO’s who prescribe a non-traditional path, Chuck Maggelet, CEO of Maverik Convenience Stores for seven-plus years, applied his belief that having fun together building the “coolest convenience experience on the planet” while keeping to Maverik’s mission to be a great place to work, brought the company great success during his tenure.
Maggelet was honored with the 2024 Convenience Store News Retailer Executive of the Year award and this interview with the retired CEO is worth a few minutes. WMG CEO Bill Hanifin has worked with Chuck directly and can attest that this is one CEO you would pay money to sit with over a hot coffee.
Seth Godin on Pricing
In this article, Seth Godin presents a clever view on how prices for goods and services are established. He posits that the money we exchange for a service or item isn’t based on how much it cost to make, how hard it was to produce or how much the producer likes it. Instead, the price asked is based on the purchaser’s worldview and situation and the price paid will always be less than the value it creates for the purchaser.
The two key takeaways from his analysis are that the empathy we bring to imagining what our customers need, want and dream of is always part of our work and that mastery of a craft does not guarantee its commercial viability. It’s a story easily translated into customer strategy development. No matter how good we think our value proposition is, what matters is how it is perceived by our customers. Read the entire article here.
Iterable Drives 337% Conversion Increase and 4x Order Boost with Mobile-First Engagement
Iterable, the AI-powered customer communication platform, has unveiled exceptional performance data from brands leveraging its platform to deliver personalized mobile-first experiences, including a 337% surge in customer conversation rates and a 4x growth in orders. "In today's noisy world, consumers are crystal clear about what they want: not more messages, but more valuable communication from brands that meet them where they are," said Adriana Gil Miner, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Iterable.
"This is why our customers are increasingly adopting mobile channels, with SMS message growth up 23% this year alone. When brands thoughtfully integrate mobile channels like SMS, Embedded Messaging, WhatsApp, and in-app messaging into their strategies, marketing shifts from impersonal broadcasts to meaningful conversations. The remarkable results from this approach are undeniable proving that mobile is a channel brands can’t afford to ignore."
WaBa Grills Adopts Bikky CDP to Enhance Guest Analytics
Bikky, a customer data platform built exclusively for multi-unit restaurants, announced a partnership with WaBa Grill, a leading fast-casual chain known for its freshly charbroiled protein bowls, plates, and tacos served at grab-and-go speed.
With Bikky, WaBa Grill has unlocked the ability to track and analyze the behavior of more than 10 million guests they’ve served since 2020—a 12x increase over the number of guests strictly viewable through their first-party ordering platforms. The brand came into the partnership focused on marketing but have since put Bikky’s data to work optimizing everything from their product to operations.
CMO COUNCIL Enters into Strategic Partnership with Wise Marketer Group
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council announced a strategic partnership with The Wise Marketer Group that will provide members and audiences with many exciting benefits, including access to expanded content, education programs, and exclusive cost-saving opportunities. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, established in 2001, is a peer-powered network of more than 16,000 chief marketing executives in 10,000 companies across 120 countries.
CMO Council founder and CEO, Donovan Neale May, says that the partnership with Wise Marketer, given the alignment of both organizations, is going to benefit both members and content consumers alike. “The CMO Council is constantly looking to share, extend and build upon its unmatched marketing intellectual capital and resources and this collaborative partnership will open a wide new expanse of opportunities for marketers looking to level-up. We are very excited about the new benefits our community will have access to from our expanded partnership.”
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