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American Express shook up the loyalty landscape last month when it announced the launch of Plenti, a coalition loyalty program that allows members to earn and redeem points with various brands—including Macy’s, Rite Aid, Nationwide, and AT&T.

This is significant because the US has traditionally been unfriendly territory when it comes to coalition loyalty. Let’s examine some of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of coalition loyalty and why it hasn’t taken off in the US.

This past Wednesday, American Express made an historic U.S. customer loyalty announcement revealing that it is launching a coalition loyalty program called Plenti in the U.S. this coming May. Why was this announcement so historic? Well for one thing, coalition loyalty has thrived for decades in other parts of the world, including Germany, the UK, the Middle East, New Zealand, and just north of the U.S. boarder in Canada. Strangely enough, it has never really caught on here in the U.S.

Why the best forms of loyalty don’t look anything like loyalty.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who blindly recite their contact information when retailers ask them for their email or phone number, and those who refuse to give up the goods.

On a recent trip to Lululemon, I was amused when my wife was asked for her contact info at the checkout. “Why do you need that?” she asked the eager yogi behind the counter. She was told it makes it easier for her to return or exchange her purchase—even if she lost the receipt. Well, she declined without batting an eye, leaving me to wonder why a brand that makes and sells its own apparel would choose such a bland and inflexible benefit to get customers to self-identify.

But I digress.

How your smart home thermostat controls more than just the temperature.

Think loyalty programs are confined to the plastic cards in your purse or wallet? Or that loyalty is less about the love you have for a brand and more about the point or perk attached to an airline or credit card?

Those points and rewards have been carefully designed to coerce you to choose to shop at specific retailers, increase your basket size, and make you feel like you need to do it all more frequently, consistently, and…automatically. 

I recently participated in a focus group that was centered around how dating apps – match, eHarmony, Tinder, that sort of thing – could evolve; how more features or fewer, additional controls or less stringent, search options, endorsements, buttons, clicks, options and tassels might help sort through the proverbial haystack to find the needle. Deciding I did not need a needle that desperately (and wondering when the last time I saw a haystack was, or why it wasn't tied tight with twine like any decent farmer would do, that it would force one on hands and knees to fanatically search for some irreplaceable needle), a gentleman on the panel made a fascinating inquiry – far more interesting than any profile I had seen in a moon's time. He asked if perhaps we were articulating that we might prefer to take dating offline. 

Take dating offline.

There is no debate. Retail has largely been an anonymous and aggregate game. The public sale is pervasive and perpetual, and the arms race to deeper discounts was in full swing during the holidays. But, some of this past season’s sales results suggest there may be fatigue in this model. Our recent Holiday Study suggests that good old brand loyalty may play a more important role in holiday shopping than previously believed. With over 40% of a retailer’s sales happening during the holidays, it’s a critical time to attract new customers, but also key is to focus on retaining existing customers who often account for 55-70% of sales.

It’s a truth that retailers have lived by for decades: To have a successful year, you have to have a successful holiday shopping season. And sales figures tend to bear this out. While it can vary widely by category, across the board a retailer can expect 20 percent of annual sales to come from the holiday shopping season.

As featured in Quirks Marketing Research Media.

Relationships between companies and their customers are forged and secured when a bond of trust has been established. Some of the strongest of these relationships are created when both sides speak to each other face to face. 

It all begins with a common goal — your brand promise. This promise could be to have the best customer service, or to offer customers the best value for their dollar. The important thing is to remember that no one organization can do everything well. You have to pick and choose. Frances Frei put it best when she said that to be the best in class at something, in order to be great — you have to be bad. And that the well-intentioned desire to be great at everything is exactly what leads to “exhausted mediocrity.” To differentiate yourself, your brand promise must be enterprise-wide, sustainable and measurable. Once the promise is identified, it needs to permeate from the top down and employee engagement is how you do that.

This is important because a recent Gallup report found ”an alarming 70% of American employees aren't working to their full potential.” Of those 70%, 52% are not engaged and another 18% are actively not engaged, which can lead to their lack of productivity, more likelihood that they will drive customers away and disloyalty to their employers.

Scott Robinson leads our loyalty consulting and solutions discipline, and is our thought leader for consumer loyalty strategy engagements. His focus is enabling clients with the best possible solutions for their specific objectives and environments, and ensuring Bond Brand Loyalty maintains market leadership in terms of loyalty and CRM innovation, technique and approach.

Q: What is it about brand love vs. program love that is important to CMOs?