Database

The global Loyalty Management market was valued at USD 9 billion in 2022. It's forecast to grow at a CAGR of 17.02% and be worth USD 25 billion in 2028. .

Australian Telco SpinTel has launched a referral rewards program. NBN referrals deliver a $5 monthly credit and mobile a $1 monthly credit for the period of the referred customer's contract.

Accenture Song has acquired Melbourne-based martech consultancy The Lumery. The acquisition strengthens Accenture's personalisation, CRM and loyalty capabilities.

According to Morningstar, Commonwealth Bank are investing in their app and rewards program and hoping to get depositors to see the brand as more than just banking.

Woolworths Group slashed prices in 2016 to outperform competitor Coles Group. Margins have been boosted by its fast-growing retail media business, its subscription businesses and years of investment in customer loyalty programs. Woolworths’ food sales growth (1.5%) has now dropped below Coles (supermarket sales up 5.8%).

Coles Group says nearly all customers are budgeting their food buying and using loyalty offers to manage their costs. Their research found a growing cohort of customers willing to switch supermarkets in pursuit of value. MYER's matching of last year’s record sales was underpinned by its loyalty program.

Ellipsis & Company's CEO David Parsons on being the world's best loyalty company, Customer Science™, Return On Loyalty™ and Star Alliance's global first gold status-earning credit card. A brief history of the Australian loyalty market from the days of Aimia Inc (with a $5bn market cap), double digit growth to become an Au$ 6 bn market, regulators making it easier for customers to switch, coalitions becoming ecosystems owned by the anchor and Byron Sharp being partly right (if you're Colgate, not when you're Coles).

A Qantas source has advised that Qantas Frequent Flyer will launch a ‘Reward+’ flight reward product soon. The new redemption product sits between the existing Classic Flight Rewards and Points Plus Pay, improving availability.

Hundreds of thousands of Medibank customers have linked their wearables to its Live Better loyalty program. Medibank is able to track activity and provide nudges and incentives for healthy behaviour. They also have prevention programs targeted at specific risk factors or conditions with the vast majority using wearables to track it.

Digital Alchemy has acquired Salesforce consulting shop AFDigital with the new company now called Xenai Digital. They will offer a suite of mid-market Salesforce consulting packages.

Australia's competition watchdog has said shoppers are increasingly reluctant to buy groceries from rival stores because of customer loyalty programs. Thursday's ACCC discussion paper said it would consider the extent to which supermarkets relied on data analytics to make strategic decisions about price and product range.

Start-up accelerator Antler in Australia is backing Deputy Wallet, a customer-owned digital wallet for merchant engagement, offers and discounts on blockchain technology in the payment process. Launched in April last year, Deputy Network now has 10,000 users, growing at 12% weekly with 20,000 transactions completed.

Monique Forbes discusses the strategies (including AI) her team used at Air New Zealand Airpoints to reshape New Zealand loyalty market in 2018. Interviewed by Carly Neubauer on Let's Talk Loyalty, Monique led the new Airpoints for Schools and Airpoints for Business programs, re-platformed the rewards store and introduced a new online store with Airpoints winning the Loyalty Program Of The Year that year. Monique also led the exit of Mercury NZ from Airpoints and the design of its recently launched rewards program (with Ellipsis & Company) and its launch (using Antavo Loyalty Cloud).

Auckland's Cordis hotel (part of the Langham Hospitality Group) will offer the newly launched Brilliant by Langham loyalty program. The program covers 30 30 hotels and 100 restaurants globally.

Residents of Logan (in Brisbane) can now earn Logan Rewards for shopping locally. Members present a barcode at checkout to earn points that can be redeemed for gift cards, products and discounts.

Capillary Technologies expanded its Series D round to $140 million to fund employee share schemes, AI initiatives and to accelerate global expansion. Capillary raised $45 million in June last year. Clients include Tata Group, PUMA Group, Shell and Al-Futtaim. The USA now accounts for more than a third of its revenue following its acquisition there of Persuade, Brierley | Capillary and Tenerity’s Digital Connect.

Jeweller Michael Hill now has 2 million members in its Brilliance loyalty program. Data from the program has found revenue opportunities in the self-purchasing customer segment.

Flybuys membership has grown 9.5% (818,000 new active members).

Optus has joined an Alliance to launch a cross-border rewards program for members travelling to and from Australia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indonesia. Together with Telcos Singtel, AIS, Globe HKT, Taiwan Mobile and Telkomsel, Optus will enable travellers to earn and use rewards and redeem deals.

Schneider Electric has launched a System Integrator program in Australia and New Zealand that includes rewards points as well as rebates, access to marketing development funds and discounts. The program is to be rolled out globally.

The Kogan.com First loyalty program grew 109.7% (and advertising income grew 75.7% with the August launch of a new advertising platform).

60% of Kogan.com's sales come from their 466,000 Kogan FIRST loyalty members. Kogan has 3 million customers. Kogan FIRST subscribers have grown 15% and generated Au$22.7 million in revenue (double last year's number). FIRST members get free and express shipping, credits, prizes, 2% cashback on Kogan brands and double Qantas points. The cost of a FIRST membership will rise from $99 to $129 on April 8th.

Lorna Jane have deployed Talon.One's promotions engine.

Burger chain Grill'd has launched a new app.

SkyCity Entertainment Group's loyalty points could be converted to gaming credits used for further gambling and have been ruled as gambling revenue. SkyCity argued the value of rewards points should not be counted as part of the revenue on which the casino is taxed.

Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) are in Gartner's Trough Of Disillusionment. “Marketers are seeing their CDPs as more the plumbing of the tech stacks, not a place where their work gets done.” Gartner predicts offerings will consolidate to a stable number of mega-vendors. CDPs are also beng challenged by cloud data infrastructure providers like Snowflake, Google and AWS.

Woolworths Group's head of loyalty and e-commerce, Amanda Bardwell, will become its CEO in September. Woolworths together with Coles Group control 65% of Australia's $133 billion grocery market. WaveStone Capital said her appointment showed Woolworths was focused on becoming a data-driven company.

Au $10 million of rewards have been redeemed by Medibank's Live Better rewards program members in the first half of the financial year.

New research shows the Asia Pacific loyalty market grew at a CAGR of 12.6% between 2019 and 2023. The region is expected to grow by 11.0% on an annual basis to reach US$52.05 billion in 2024.

Rebel Sport's first-half result includes the impact of a $5 million provision for deferred revenue as a result of loyalty credits issued to customers. The provision is expected to be approximately $8 million in total for the full year. The new loyalty program had a 70 basis points adverse impact on their first-half PBT margin.

Salesforce has been named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms.

In the last 10 years, AIA Australia's Vitality Group Inc. rewards program members have taken 420 billion steps, completed 100,000 health checks and visited partner gyms 3.9 million times.

Air New Zealand Airpoints added 400,000 new members in the past year pushing membership up 4.4 million (New Zealand's population is 5.3 million). Despite a profit dip Air New Zealand will continue to focus on improvements in it's services and loyalty program.

Qantas Loyalty racked up Au$ 270 million profit for the half year (and is aiming for full-year profit of Au$ 800 million to Au$ 1 billion in 2030). 2 million reward seats were redeemed in the last 6 months. Booking premium seats on international flights using points is still challenging and a new product will be launched in the coming weeks to address this. It's likely to be part of a Au $ 230 million investment in customer initiatives of which Au $90 million has already been invested.

Woolworths Supermarkets' Everyday Extra subscription launched in 2022 (as part of its Everyday Rewards loyalty program) had 250,000 subscribers by the first quarter of 2023. Members pay Au$ 7 monthly or Au$ 70 annually and receive points bonuses and a10% on one transaction monthly.

For banks, the app is the loyalty strategy. Small bank Macquarie Group (Au$134 billion in lending and deposits of Au$136 billion) and market leader Commonwealth Bank (Au$814 billion in lending and $863 billion in deposits) are both vying to deliver Australia's best banking app. Both are investing in data-driven, digital personalisation to capture new customers. CBA will open up its banking app's Benefits Finder to all Australians this year. Westpac's app was recently rated Australia's best by Forrester (a title CBA's had traditionally held).

Roughly half of Commonwealth Bank's active app users (~8 million) have engaged with the newly launched bank-wide Yello loyalty program through the Yello hub, offers or a next best conversation. There are 100,000 daily visits to the Yello hub. Daily app logins are up 28%. Their Main Financial Institution (MFI) share leads the market at 35% with 97% of home loans linked to a transaction account.

Accent Group Limited has selected Amperity as its Customer Data Platform. The group's brands include The Athletes Foot, Platypus Shoes, Hype DC, Skechers, Hoka and Dr Martens. Accent recently joined the Qantas Frequent Flyer program offering both earning and burning of Qantas points.

Qantas Frequent Flyer is researching a pay-as-you-go Qantas Club monthly subscription. Qantas Club memberships are currently 1,2 or 4-year packages sold for between $600 and $2,000 with a one-time $99 joining fee.

SAP's Emarsys and Annex Cloud now have a native integration.

A Commonwealth Bank customer in the Yello loyalty program is one of the 100 monthly winners of a $1,200 prize draw.

There are now 9.4 m million active members in Flybuys, 3.7 million (of a total of 8.6 million) in Priceline's Sister Club loyalty program and 1.1 million Bunnings PowerPass members. Active members have activity in the last 12 months. Wesfarmers OneDigital's OnePass has added Officeworks and InstantScripts as partners and launched 5 X Flybuys points, express click and collect and a 365-day change of mind returns policy.

Over half (55%) of adults worldwide say that offering points or reward systems is the top way to keep them coming back (research from Marigold).

Forrester's research on Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) in Asia Pacific shows rapid growth off a low base with average revenue for CDPs doubling in the last two years. Regional vendors are adding CDPs including Australia-based Lexer (a pivot from social media monitoring) and Singapore-based Capillary Technologies adding a CDP to its loyalty offering. Global vendors increasing their presence in APAC. Global and established CDP vendors such as SAS, Treasure Data and Twilio are growing while CDP-newcomers Adobe and Salesforce are growing through cross-selling.

Burger chain Grill'd's loyalty program, Relish Rewards, relaunched their app recently. They changed the birthday offer from a free birthday drink to free chips for the month of the member's birthday and saw a 56% increase in the reward's redemption. Since the loyalty program's launch in 2019, its charity redemption option has donated 159,000 burgers to charity. Interview on Let's Talk Loyalty.

The new Woolworths Supermarkets Everyday Rewards program will deliver "a multi-million dollar" increase in rewards over the prior Countdown Supermarkets Onecard loyalty program.

IncentiaPay (owners of Entertainment Group and Entertainment Book) half-year results include sales of Au$8.7 million (down from Au$9.4 million) and a loss of Au$ 3.2 million (compared to Au$16.7 million a year ago).

Big 4 bank NAB's latest research shows customers are increasingly loyal to their favourite brands and prioritise purchasing trusted products. The number of consumers trying both new websites and new retailers has fallen 7%.

Viva Energy Australia's Shell card (which earns business owners Flybuys loyalty points) can now be connected to MYOB and Xero accounting platforms. The card last year won Canstar's Most Satisfied Customers for the loyalty program.

G'day Group now has 230,000 paid members of its G’day Rewards loyalty program. The Group has 280 holiday parks across Australia and the loyalty program carries a $50 fee every 2 years.

Woolworths Supermarkets (which was Countdown Supermarkets) new Everyday Rewards program terms note the supermarket can record licence plates, capture video and audio of customers and link them to membership numbers. Video footage and audio recordings are used for security, theft prevention and safety purposes.

Three fintech are helping banks retain home loan customers, lower costs and increase loyalty. Craggle creates weekly groups of borrowers looking to move banks and sells that list back to the banks. Stay or Go helps customers get a better deal from their incumbent home loan provider or switches them to a competitor. Elula works with banks to find their customers most likely to leave and decide the financial benefit of making them a better offer (and claims a 60% improvement in retention).

Insights from Super Retail Group's Aaron Fuller (interviewed by Paula Thomas) on the group's loyalty programs include; - Epsilon is their loyalty platform - There was no behaviour difference between customers who joined the paid ($5) Supercheap Auto program and those who joined after the fee was dropped - Best Price Credits redemption rates are high (higher than birthday credits) driving visitation

MECCA Brands is using owned media (retail media) to build brand awareness and build long-term loyalty. David Jones is using it to talk to qualified customers interested in a particular category.

Singapore Airlines Kris+ app (with 100,000 downloads in Australia) has about 100 businesses in Sydney and Melbourne offering users up to three miles for every dollar spent. Members can also redeem miles at participating bars and restaurants, at a rate of 150 miles for $1 off their bill. Australia has the second biggest base of KrisFlyer members outside of its home market Singapore.

Department store MYER has 56 stores, sales of Au$ 3.36 billion and 7 million members in its MYER one loyalty program.

An unfair business practices report from former ACCC chair Allan Fels calls out loyalty programs as one of 8 tactics big businesses use to price gouge concluding they're designed to lessen competition and lock in customers. “The purpose of loyalty schemes is to lock in or at least bias consumer choices to products already chosen.”

Liquor retailer Dan Murphy's loyalty program members account for 80% of transactions and 90% of their sales.

A group of 50 friends created multiple Woolworths Supermarkets Everyday Rewards burner accounts and between them racked up $375 in vouchers to buy alcohol for a party. Woolworths has closed the capability temporarily.

The new Woolworths Supermarkets (currently rebranding from Countdown Supermarkets) Everyday Rewards loyalty program helps customers earn rewards twice as fast as the previous Onecard program with Boosts. In Australia, the same Everyday Rewards loyalty program drove a 42% year-on-year increase in Everyday Rewards App users.

Both Visa and Mastercard have launched Web3-powered rewards capabilities. Visa's solution (built with SmartMedia Technologies) is offered by brands and uses a digital wallet for program members to collect rewards. Mastercard is running a Web3-powered trivia competition under the Priceless banner for the UEFA Champions League for customers in parts of Europe, USA and South America.

Copenhagen-based card-linking provider Loyal Solutions has signed Cathay Pacific and launched a loyalty platform for Visa. They've delivered 65% year-on-year revenue growth and doubled gross margin.

Woolworths Supermarkets in-store price ticketing is now platform-driven across 1,000 stores and 16 million tickets a week. It's foundational to delivering member pricing (better prices for loyalty program members) in their Everyday Rewards loyalty program. The ticketing is driving "a massive uptick" in loyalty program membership.

Afterpay shut down its Pulse Rewards program at the end of January. It was initially launched in 2020. They've announced a new rewards program will replace it this year.

Transurban's recently launched loyalty program, offering discounts and promotions, now has 800,000 members.

MYER believes that despite consumers remaining cautious, it's well positioned with the strength of its loyalty program.

Woolworths Supermarkets' newly launched Everyday Rewards loyalty program has had a few customers gaming the points gifting capability. They now have measures in place to prevent any further fraud.

Palantir Technologies is up over 30% since this announcement 5 days ago. Coles' stated that the focus is on operational efficiency and workforce planning. Surely it's only a matter of time before this capability is also turned towards #loyaltymarketing and #dataanalytics ? Don't be 5 days behind the news, follow Loyalty Central | Australia and get all the latest in your LinkedIn feed before you'll see it anywhere else for everything #loyalty #platforms #paymentsolutions #paymentinnovation #dataanalytics

Mercury NZ' s rewards program last year issued 544 million points, 238,000 rewards and 214,000 free power days. Members logged 4 billion steps in the Mercury app.

Lexus Australia's new entry level SUV's price point (~$50K) is intended to establish loyalty sooner.

Coles Group will use Palantir Technologies to improve its workforce efficiencies, supply chains and standing with customers. Coles and Woolworths Group are the target of an ACCC inquiry that will review their competition, supply chains, loyalty programs and technological changes.

MYER's loyalty program Myer One now has more than 7 million members.

ASX listed loyalty provider Gratifii Limited has partnered with social travel start-up Joyned. Gratifii’s customers, together with friends and family, will be able to book trips together through a micro social network. Gratifii expects a conversion rate five times higher than standard.

Online liquor retailer Hairydog has merged with whiskey specialist Barrel and Batch and will launch loyalty program.

The MyDriveHero app now has 62,000 users. Users log their driving (1 million trips to date) in app and earn points which can be redeemed for retail discounts.

Countdown Supermarkets Onecard switches to the successful Woolworths Group Everyday Rewards program from Australia. bp and ASB Bank join as partners. The 20-year-old Onecard and the previous coalition that all three partners belonged to, AA Smartfuel, both shut down yesterday. Vineonline also joins as a partner with more to come.

Juggle Rewards is a new, independent, merchant-funded, card-linked rewards offering in New Zealand launched this week.

ASB Bank's True Rewards credit card loyalty program customers can elect to earn Woolworths Supermarkets new Everyday Rewards points instead of True Rewards from today. They're running a switching campaign offering 2,500 bonus Everyday Rewards for customers who switch from True Rewards to Everyday Rewards.

The New Zealand loyalty program finalists in the inaugural Asia Pacific Loyalty Awards from the Australian Loyalty Association are; 🔹Genesis Power Shout with Simplicity Loyalty (3 nominations) 🔹The Warehouse Group's MarketClub with Eagle Eye 🔹Nando's Australia & New Zealand PERi-Perks with Braze 🔹Adairs Retail Group Linen Lovers Winners to be announced on 14th March.

Goldman Sachs believe Woolworths Group has improving margins because it can personalise offers to customers and income from its media and loyalty businesses.

Countdown Supermarkets (currently rebranding as Woolworths) says pre-tax earnings will be down about 42% to $71 million for the 6 months to December. Sales are up in rebranded stores and there's been progress on pricing and revamping its loyalty scheme which converts from Onecard to Everyday Rewards on 1 February.

NAB's customer brain project is focused on driving customer loyalty and stopping leakage to rivals. The project is powered by 200 machine-learning models with 36 billion data points that include transactions and the way customers use the NAB banking app. It's goal is to deliver the precise products to the right customers while sorting out day-to-day banking problems before they arise.

The ACCC will conduct a 12-month inquiry into the supermarket industry to include how loyalty programs and technology changes are impacting competition. It will also set up a FuelWatch-like website to compare the prices of thousands of supermarket items.

Kogan.com now has 466,000 members (up 15%) in its Kogan First loyalty program.

Kathmandu's loyalty program - Out There Rewards - has added a free trial of AllTrails's hiking app as a benefit for its premium members. Level 1 members will get a three-month trial with Level 2 receiving six months and Level 3 twelve months. Kathmandu's loyalty members account for 70% of sales.

New Zealand's leading Open Banking fintech Akahu has joined Mastercard's Start Path global accelerator program. Open Banking infrastructure has been foundational to loyalty advances in both the UK and Australia. Westpac New Zealand's venture capital arm Red Bird Ventures invested $900,000 in Akahu last October and $2m in 2020. Westpac is the only major New Zealand bank issuing MasterCard payment cards (ANZ, ASB Bank, Bank of New Zealand and Kiwibank all issue Visa).

Kathmandu's loyalty program - Out There Rewards - has added a free trial of AllTrails's hiking app as a benefit for its premium members. Level 1 members will get a three-month trial with Level 2 receiving six months and Level 3 twelve months. Kathmandu's loyalty members account for 70% of sales.

Home services marketplace platform NexDo is Air New Zealand Airpoints latest partner launched yesterday (24th January 2024). NexDo provides cleaning, lawn mowing and mobile car wash services.

The status boosts and support Air New Zealand Airpoints provided to Silver, Gold and Elite members during Covid comes to an end on 1 February. They'd received either status points top-ups or bonuses.

Mighty Ape's Primate loyalty program now has 24,000 members (up 50% year on year).

A small number of oneworld Alliance airlines (Qantas is a member) will offer cross-alliance upgrades to premium economy, business and first class starting later this year. It's been a long time coming (Qantas surveyed its members on this in 2019) and rival Star Alliance has had this for some time.

A USA study found that self-service checkouts erode customer loyalty especially when 15 or more items were purchased. Customer feedback at Woolworths Supermarkets shows self-serve checkouts are popular for their convenience while two-thirds of Coles Group customers (and growing) use self-checkout.

Qantas top-tier frequent flyer members (Qantas Platinum and Qantas One) are being targeted with a status-match offer from Turkish Airlines (a Star Alliance member) which will start flying to Australia in March.

A survey from Banked NZ finds that 81% of New Zealanders think credit card rewards offerings are good value despite their devaluation in November 2022. Younger people are more likely to appreciate credit card rewards (91% for Gen Z and 89% for Millennials compared to 51% of Baby Boomers).

Qantas Loyalty will announce improvements in coming months after the recent expansion into hotels and holiday packages as well as adding more partner airlines.

AA Smartfuel has confirmed the loyalty program will close at the end of January. The final date to earn and redeem AA Smartfuel discounts is 31 January. Anchor partners Countdown Supermarkets (which is rebranding as Woolworths) is launching the Everyday Rewards loyalty program (powered by Eagle Eye) on 1 February and will be joined by fellow AA Smartfuel anchor bp. https://lnkd.in/gZ_RBcMu

Applejack Hospitality have a new app for their 3 year old loyalty program running across their 11 Sydney venues. Their 18,000 app users are being encouraged to redeem their points before a scheduled points clean and reset on Friday 1 March.

Qantas have appointed the head of the Qantas Business Rewards program, Andrew Glance, to succeed Olivia Wirth and lead Qantas Loyalty. He's a 22 year veteran of the airline. Qantas Business Rewards has 450,000 business rewards program members (1 in 5 Australian SMEs). The Loyalty division delivered record earnings of Au $457 million last year (and $1 billion in free cash flow).

Qantas Points required for a one business class trip to Europe have increased 10-fold from 139,000 in 2019 to 1.2 million points today.

Tower Insurance, after 6 years as an Air New Zealand Airpoints partner, will leave Airpoints on the 15th March.