Antavo Customer Benefit Cosmetics’ Rachel Mercer Won Rising Star of the Year at the 2026 Loyalty Leaders Awards
April 24, 2026
Antavo congratulates Rachel Mercer of Benefit Cosmetics on winning Rising Star of the Year at the 2026 Loyalty Leaders Awards, celebrating her outstanding work on the Benefit Loves loyalty program.
The Loyalty Leaders Awards celebrate the people, brands, and teams shaping the future of customer loyalty. Judged by a panel of industry leaders and academic experts, the awards recognize standout work in building stronger customer relationships, driving engagement, and moving the loyalty industry forward.
The Rising Loyalty Star is a category spotlighting emerging loyalty talent making a meaningful impact through fresh thinking, creativity, and customer-first execution.
“Rachel is the operational architect of “Benefit Loves,” a program that redefined beauty loyalty by blending service bookings (like brow bars) with traditional retail rewards. The “Star” Factor: Her approach prioritizes Emotional Loyalty. By focusing on “CX-first” initiatives, she successfully bridged the gap between physical retail experiences and digital engagement, making the app a “beauty best friend” for Gen Z and Millennial consumers.” – Statement of Nomination for the Loyalty Leaders Award.
Benefit Loves is Benefit Cosmetics UK’s free, app-led loyalty program, powered by Antavo AI Loyalty Cloud. It was created to give customers more reasons to engage with the brand, not only when they shop, but whenever they interact with Benefit.
Through the loyalty app, members can collect “hearts” for online purchases, boutique shopping, referrals, app download, product reviews, challenges, and beauty service bookings, making the experience feel more personal, playful, and rewarding.
The program also brings Benefit’s in-store and digital experiences closer together. With Antavo’s technology, Benefit can personalize content, run gamified experiences like badges and prize wheels, manage rewards and referrals, and support in-store reward redemption. Members can redeem their hearts for rewards made available in the app, with current examples including product bundles, branded merchandise, and member-only offers.
Results of the Benefit Loves loyalty program:
- 20.3k+ members have enrolled in the loyalty app in the first 9 months,
- 80% of engagement comes from members between 20 and 30 years old,
- 16.17% of members have transacted twice or more,
- 50.17% of members participated in the Bene-BFFs challenge,
- 30k rewards were claimed in total, with the Welcome Reward constituting 53.98% of the total claimed rewards,
- Benefit Loves won Mobile Innovation of the Year at the 2024 Retail Systems Awards.
“I just want to say thank you to everyone who believed I was worthy of this award, I am the most passionate about customer experience so winning for this is particularly special, I am honoured and humbled by this recognition, but I am not the only one that should be recognised for this programme it is a team effort and I’m grateful to everyone who works on this with me and works towards making our Benefit Loves app as best as possible for our members. There are many that are involved in this powerhouse but to name a few; Antavo, Mobikats, Bloomreach and Carla Raven” – Rachel Mercer, Loyalty Operations Manager at Benefit Cosmetics (LVMH)
“Congratulations to Rachel on this very well-deserved recognition. Benefit Loves is a great example of how loyalty can feel joyful, personal, and genuinely useful for customers. We’re proud to work with the Benefit Cosmetics team and to see the program continue to bring emotional loyalty to life in such a memorable way.” – Zsuzsa Kecsmar, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Antavo AI Loyalty Cloud
About Antavo
Antavo is an AI-powered loyalty platform that helps brands grow customer lifetime value through loyalty programs, promotions & personalization. By enabling engagement-led execution, Antavo helps brands increase retention, purchase frequency, and long-term revenue.
Antavo’s Operating System combines a flexible, API-first technology platform that guides teams through the full loyalty lifecycle: from planning to launch and continuous optimization.
The platform includes the Loyalty Planner, which accelerates implementation by making program planning up to 10 times faster; a flexible Loyalty Engine with an intuitive, no-code Workflows editor, promotions feature, and gamification capabilities; and the Optimizer, which transforms loyalty data into clear, actionable insights. At the core of all products is Timi AI, an agentic AI co-pilot intelligence that enhances and supports teams at every step.
Recognized by leading industry analysts such as Forrester, Gartner, and IDC, and trusted by global brands including KFC, Skims, C&A, Paul Smith, Flying Tiger, Hyatt, Scandic Hotels, Kathmandu, and Benefit Cosmetics, Antavo empowers businesses across fashion, retail, beauty, health, hospitality, and QSR to build long-term customer relationships that drive measurable commercial impact.
Experience the future of customer loyalty with Antavo. Visit antavo.com to learn more.
Media Contacts
Antavo
Eva Bacsi, Global Head of Marketing
[email protected]
