Yes, brands are dazzling customers with virtual and augmented reality, interactive screens and AI-powered everything, yet this provides an opportunity for brands to differentiate through the emotional value customers gain from their entire purchase experience.

It means brands need to get better at being emotional. Customers want “emotional luxury” derived from feeling recognized, special, and known; yet, only 20% of consumers say they feel special and recognized by a brand representative. This is a massive, untapped opportunity for brands to better engage with consumers.

Almost all currency-based consumer loyalty Program designs inherently house a financial liability, which in many cases has a material impact on a brand’s balance sheet. Generally speaking, a brand incurs liability for a future loyalty Program reward as soon as it issues the Program’s currency (e.g., points, miles, credits, stars, etc.) to a Program Member. From an income statement perspective, there is a reduction in revenue as soon as the currency is issued to a Program Member. As such, the brand cannot account for the full sale, since a percentage will need to be remunerated in the form of a reward (or dividend) back to the Program Member upon redemption. The accounting principles which govern financial liability management are not for the faint of heart, and they more than often create an ongoing level of tension between a brand’s CFO and CMO. CFOs wish to minimize their currency liability and resulting financial exposure, while CMOs wish to issue currency to incent incremental transactional behaviors with the aspiration of maximizing Member redemptions. 

In today’s mobile-driven marketplace, and with the rise of the Millennial “always on” consumer, having an app complement a retailer’s marketing strategy has become table stakes. Apps have evolved from simply being an extension of the digital ecosystem to leading the way for brand innovation, campaign awareness, and deeper loyalty engagement.

Never before has a brand had the opportunity to be part of such a personal customer connection—your customers’ mobile device is more than just a communication channel; it’s their hub to connect to all things, all people, and interact with your brand in more personal ways than ever before. The challenge this brings is for retailers to truly understand how users want to connect with their brand, and to develop features that enable those interactions in innovative, creative, relevant, and simple ways. The opportunity is to retain top-of-mind awareness for your brand, create habit-forming engagements, and obtain a higher reach of brand advocacy, especially when a formal loyalty program exists for your brand. Surprisingly, Bond Brand Loyalty’s 2016 Loyalty Report shows that almost 50% of consumers aren’t even aware if the loyalty program they engage with has an app, which is a lost opportunity for many retailers.

Over the past 15 years, loyalty programs have enjoyed a relatively low level of fraudulent activities. However, in recent months we have seen the level of loyalty program and loyalty card fraud increase. As “Chip & Pin” credit cards continue to become prevalent, specific industries whose business models include transactions where the physical card does not need to be present, have become the target of fraudsters. One of these in particular is the travel booking industry.

Lately, fraudulent activities have propagated to loyalty programs where the travel components of the program are the primary target. However, as there often is with fraud schemes, there’s a twist. The loyalty program is not the actual target of the fraud, but rather a means to facilitate the scheme.

This is a historic week in Pittsburgh. Uber is launching its fleet of Ford Fusions in an autonomous driving pilot. It’s not a big pilot—only four of the vehicles are outfitted with the technology and two people will sit in the front taking notes ready to take over in case something goes wrong. But, this is one of the more public displays of how ride sharing is changing the landscape of the global automotive industry. 

Manufacturers are also jumping on board. Toyota and Uber inked a deal earlier in the year; VW invested $300 million in Gett Inc; GM put $500 million into Lyft and spent just over $1 billion to acquire Cruise Automation; and not to be left out, Apple invested $1 billion into the Chinese company Didi Chuxing. The market for on demand autonomous transportation is growing—and fast.

A few observations: Manufacturers need to go this way since the sharing economy is no longer just a pleasant notion—it’s happening in everything from automobiles to garden implements. As sales are leveling out, especially in developed markets, shareholders are pushing for greater returns and this certainly seems like a reasonable bet. More, there’s the potential of safer roads, at least in the long term. 

I’m a big fan of Formula One—it amazes me that hundreds of sensors are gathering information on the cars' performance in real time, sending it back to Milton Keynes, Maranello, Brackley or wherever, making it possible for crews to make changes on the fly to gain that 2/10s of a second per lap. It's incredible when you think about it.

In the same way, there are numerous sensors in the marketplace that provide input into a brand’s make-up and health. In our context, the understanding and interpretation of information from these sensors allows marketers to build strong, relevant and differentiated brands. 

I had a chance to sit down with Kyle Davies, Director of Marketing Research at Bond, to talk about the recent release of the Automotive Brand Telemetry Report. 

Your dentist has a file on you. One that includes your name, birthdate, address and other personal details. You visit your dentist regularly, and tell your friends about your experiences with him. What if your dentist never used your first name? What if he never referred back to your visit history or dental records?

Apply this concept to a brand’s loyalty Program. When you enroll and participate in a loyalty Program, you’ve likely given up a good amount of personal information—and it’s not always put to good use, or at least not overtly. Consumers have noted this disconnect. The sixth annual survey by Bond Brand Loyalty has found that only 22 percent of loyalty program members are very satisfied with the level of personalization they’re receiving from brands. This highlights a tremendous opportunity for brands as satisfaction is 8X higher when programs are highly personalized. The thing is, personalization does not have to be complicated to yield this kind of payoff in satisfaction. Here are three steps to improve your personalization efforts today:

Make no mistake: Building authentic relationships with consumers is hard work—and getting harder by the day. Consumer expectations continue to rise. The pace of change continues to increase. The need to stay relevant is more important than ever.

Our latest research from the 2016 Bond Loyalty Report, shows that consumers continue to value Loyalty programs—programs that pay dividends back to brands in the form of loyalty, advocacy and increased spend. It’s time for marketers to start paying closer attention.

If you’ve taken a “set it and forget it” approach you’ve likely overlooked what matters most to your program Members. Taking a closer look now might land some relatively quick wins.