Loyalty Stories 02: A Seat at the Table – Andrew Noel

Michelle

Hi and welcome to Antavo Loyalty Stories. I’m Michelle Ellicott-Taylor and I head up the Global Partnership Team at Antavo. And we are a technology vendor supporting brands all over the world with their loyalty programs. We’re really excited to be running these Loyalty Stories and speaking with experts in this field. So today’s guest is Andrew Noel and he is from GALE Agency. Andrew, thank you for joining us today.

Andrew

Thank you, Michelle. I appreciate you having me on the show.

Michelle

Well, we’re excited to have you here and it’d be great if you could give everyone a bit of a background on yourself and the agency.

Andrew

Yeah, why don’t I give us just two seconds on myself and then I can talk about GALE. I think the two hang together well. So the first thing I would start with, I’m not necessarily a marketer by trade. I grew up in the technology space, which I think is pretty relevant in marketing today. And also a lot of time in business, business process, management, business process, outsourcing. And so I think later in my career I really wanted to get to the front, to the tip of the spear, which is really customer experience, marketing. 

And I think an interesting perspective to know how you hang technology, business operations together to ultimately build incredible experiences for customers. And we think of GALE, that was really the idea of GALE as a different type of agency. When we started the agency 10 years ago, we said the world doesn’t need just another agency. But we did think that brands were looking for a partner that could work with them to really understand the behaviors of their customers and then be able to deploy marketing type services to connect with those customers. 

And you’ll hear us talk about GALE as a business agency. We are there to help brands grow and build relationships with their customers. And one of the ways we do that, we do a lot of work in that area, is in the loyalty, loyalty strategy and loyalty design. So great to be here today.

Michelle

Yeah and that’s so exciting to learn more about your, I guess experience with loyalty and one of the things I guess is always a good way to start off is asking you what’s your favorite loyalty program and why.

Andrew

Yeah, Michelle, I knew you were gonna start with the easy question first. I was like, we just met each other, you’re like, Andrew, tell me what your favorite movie is, or something like that. Look, I think it’s a tough question because I think it really is situational, right? I think almost like movies, whether you’re in the mood for a comedy or action or what, I think it really depends on the use case, right? I think you’ve definitely got, and the spectrum I always like to think about is you’ve got, you know, things that you use very frequently where you invest a lot of time or money into. Right. 

Then you’ve got probably on the other spectrum, things that are probably less frequent things that you don’t invest as much time and money in. But the two are equally important, right? As, as those you have different relationships with, with different companies. You know, so obviously on the, on the, on the one side, right, you got the big hitters, you would have your, you know, big airline programs, you’d have your big, you know, your big retail programs, things of that nature. 

I think the industry does a good job in saying who the kind of heavyweights are today from your Starbucks to your Deltas, even your amazing subscription models with Apple and with Amazon. I think they do a good job of documenting those pretty well. I think it’s more interesting to think about some of the harder models in between. And since you’re doing this loyalty series, I think you’re gonna get a lot of commentary on some of the big programs which would be more of the obvious ones. 

I always like to think of ones that help provide utility, right? So I think what came first, the fact that there were Starbucks rewards or the fact that everybody wanted to skip a lineup, and therefore they were just using it. Or casinos are a very popular topic for us here at GALE And I think about the frequency at which you actually, the top gamers visit those casinos, and therefore you have a different kind of utility that then you can bolt on an amazing rewards experience too. I think it’s harder when you’re in one of those maybe more infrequent or one of those smaller non-national-type situations. 

So the one I thought I would, I would share with you is a, it’s a, it’s a little, rewards type program, it’s called Ritual. Ritual is, unlike Uber Eats or you know, DoorDash, it really focuses on a pickup experience, but what they did really well is, piggyback on the concept of your work eating experience, specifically for work. 

And they have this functionality, a beautiful app, so the app is embedded in the whole experience. They have a great functionality to piggyback and see what other people in the office are ordering. So in theory, if in the middle of my podcast with Michelle, I see that my buddy Jonathan has ordered from a place that I would like to go, and I, oh, that’s great, I can piggyback on that order, and I can say, hey, Jonathan, you know, can you pick me up a poke bowl? And, it shows up. 

It also happens to have a really good reinvestment rate tied to it. I’m actually genuinely not sure how they support the reinvestment rate that they do, but, between the utility of it, right, which is, is really specific, and I think great programs do that. Well, they’re really specific to what their audience or user wants with the brand, and they really build a rewards experience around that and a great reinvestment rate, right? Those are kind of the two things that make any great loyalty program. A strong experience built into the actual product or service that has loyalty at the core and a matching reinvestment rate. Those are the two things that you always need to make a great, a great program.

Michelle

And it’s great to get some insight on a brand that maybe people wouldn’t think of straight away, like you’re saying there. It’s always nice to share something new. So it’s great to get that intel from our partners. So, yeah, thanks for sharing that. And I guess, yeah, that’s obviously something that you’ve looked at from, I guess, as an outsider, as a user or your colleague as a user. But for you as an agency, as a brand that you’ve actually worked on, what would you say is one of the standout programs there as far as loyalty is concerned?

Andrew

Yeah, it’s a great question, Michelle. So at GALE, we do a lot, as I said, in the loyalty space. We do a lot focused on almost every industry. We have touched B2B2C loyalty. We have touched direct-to-consumer loyalty. We have touched one of our first projects, was with Zynga, the mobile gaming company.

Helping figure out their first social casino rewards experience and playing with avatars even before badges were a thing. And so I think we’ve covered a lot. I think we’ve done a lot of really interesting programs. We did an incredible construct with a brand called Garage Dynamite, which is a retail brand and I think it was genuinely at the time, seven years ago, one of the first badge experience behavioral based programs of its kind.

It had like in aisle, rewards and challenges for folks. Cause that was the demographic they were going off and it was very interesting. So I think as a company, we have done some amazing, innovative reward constructs that have really moved the business. I think, I think I would, I would hang on that too, is that, you know, a great loyalty program needs to be beneficial to the customer, but it also needs to drive the business forward for the brand. 

And I think sometimes, you know, the fuel of all loyalty programs in reinvestment and dollars into the program, we have to be making sure we’re doing both of those things. And something we obsess about here at GALE. Me personally, I will say my favorite one, at GALE we have a bit more of a business consulting type model where, you know, we have senior partners assigned to our different clients.

Me personally, my favorite program I’ve had an opportunity to be a part of is with Hard Rock. And, you know, Hard Rock is just, first of all, a super exciting brand. While many might equate it to 250 cafes across the globe or potentially a casino in Las Vegas, it is a truly global brand that is on the rise. They operate a number of integrated casinos within Florida itself, probably the most, well, for sure the most expensive casino network, multi-billion dollar brand that is just really exciting. 

But it does present from a loyalty perspective a big challenge because you have, as I talked about at the beginning, frequency in dollars, which are key driving to what type of program. For Hard Rock, we have a situation where you could have someone who is a daily or weekly gamer in Florida or in Ottawa or in Atlantic city at one of their amazing properties, high frequency, high spend. On the other end, I could have a twice a year cafe customer. We love both of those customers. We love both of those customers. 

And how do you design a program that is interesting to both of those. And I think that’s one thing that I can say we’re really proud about from that program is something that is exciting to bring yourself into the Hard Brock brand, to visit a cafe, try the delicious messy burger, and yet you’re into the system and we can educate you on one of our beautiful, you know, integrated casino hotel resort properties.

And bring you into that experience and reward you for that at the same time. All the way through to our online gaming, through to buy a beautiful hoodie at a rock shop. And I think that was the magical thing that we were able to do there is bring together a set of mechanics that would allow for that to work. It was super complicated, a lot of math went into it, but it’s a fantastic program and I’m very excited about that.

Michelle

Yeah, that’s a great example of thinking about a brand like that where not everyone is the same. Like you say, they’re not all the high frequency daily gamers. Some of them are once twice a year or visiting resorts that aren’t on their doorstep. So being able to manage programs that have all those different touch points and customer journeys within them is really interesting.

Andrew

Absolutely. Yeah, it was a treat to work on. Yeah.

Michelle

Yeah, I love Hard Rock, it’s great. I actually had my first trip to Las Vegas this year as well, so it was great to get that experience with all the casinos. But yeah, that’s a great example, so thanks for sharing that. And then I guess with all of the brands that you’ve worked with, it’s interesting to get an idea from your perspective as an agency. What are the sort of main changes that you’ve seen in the loyalty industry in recent years?

Andrew

The first big change that I think is pretty obvious to every consumer is just loyalty like everywhere. Every small, medium, large-sized company that may or may not have had a rewards or loyalty type program, raced to build a program certainly over the last two and a half years. I think the pandemic helped accelerate that as people were questing to understand frankly behaviors about their customers.

I think some of them are pretty obvious that it was a bolt on and we just need a program so we want to capture data. But I think I would start there and I say that is certainly it. I think it’s definitely led to potential loyalty fatigue by a lot of folks and programs that were built that are not being fueled properly. And so they’re there, they become in some ways a contingent liability on someone’s balance sheet and they’re not really, you know, core to what the experience is. 

And I think that is not only a trend and a change, but I think it’s something that a lot of brands are grappling with right now. We get a lot of organizations that have called and said, we have this program. It’s not really performing. How do we uptool it? What do we do? And I find we do get a lot of interest in brands looking for that. 

The other big things I think you’ve seen, obviously, is you definitely are shift, you know, from points being the core to obviously much more experiential programs with challenges and rewards and badge type offerings. I think that is, that is definitely a big thing. And I think we’ll continue to see that I think at the end of the day, you’re definitely also seeing, you know, marketers, which we pay a lot of attention to, and it’s our primary client would be marketers wanting to be a lot more, I’ll use the word surgical, in how they present these offers to their customers. So the ability for marketers to use technology to slice and dice different groups based on their visitation pattern, based on what they prefer, based on the behavior that they are trying to instill with that group of customers is where I see the biggest energy being put by brands.

Michelle

Yeah.

Andrew

A ton of energy being put through that. And the last thing I would say is a lot of interesting partnerships. And I think this is really an emerging kind of theme is I recognize that Michelle is one of my customers, what are the adjacent brands that Michelle frequents or is fans of and how do we look for opportunities to, you know, put two together, two, three sometimes is better than one, to strengthen that bond, is I think a really interesting space. And I think you’re finding some interesting cross industry or tie-ups that are starting to happen.

Michelle

Yeah, that’s interesting, that point because part of the survey with people are feeding back to us about the partnerships and collaborations they’re working on, sponsorships, things like that, like working together where they can bring all that data together on how that individual is responding in different ways. So yeah, that’s really interesting to hear you mention that. And then I guess that always like looking at what’s happened with changes in the industry, it leads nicely into what you see coming with some of the things you’ve touched on there. 

So if you were to I guess think about maybe two key trends in loyalty that you see that will be emerging over the next couple of years, are there two that you would highlight? 

Andrew

So Michelle, one of the biggest trends I’m seeing, I’m gonna focus specifically here on small and medium-sized brands in the loyalty space. It’s a really challenging space for them. They are up against heavyweight, large brands in similar categories that are able to invest and scale their programs, deliver rich mobile experiences, deliver very interesting personalized experiences.

And I think these small and medium brands, have the same challenge from their customers who are all wanting those great experiences. And what we’re hearing a lot of them look for is a managed solution for them. Someone to be able to be up to date on the latest and greatest in loyalty innovation, on different programs, different styles of programs, also someone who’s able to provide the technology on which these programs rest. 

And frankly, take the whole thing off their plate and operate for them. It is just too big of a burden trying to find great loyalty talent, great technology talent. And it’s one of the areas we’re really seeing a lot of demand. In fact, it’s one of the areas that led to our managed service with Antavo. 

Our managed service in which GALE provides the loyalty strategy, mechanics, design, branding in a package and it’s delivered on world class leading flexible, headless, Antavo loyalty platform. And that solution, the demand we’re seeing for that solution in the marketplace is really high right now.

Michelle

Yeah, I think what you were saying there as well, it kind of ties in with personalisation as well, which is always something that people are, you know, connecting with their Lordy program, so, you know, making sure it’s not a generic reward, but how’s it? I said it first. We’ll have to edit that for now, won’t we?

Andrew

Michelle, I promise I would never say personalization on your podcast. If I did say it once and stuff, but I would not say personalization or omnichannel ever in your podcast. If you do, you can, you can kick me out of it. Cannot do that, I would not do that to you.

Michelle

I mean, that’s great to get those kinds of examples. And like you say, with the different, you know, little touch points, it was some of the smaller brands are doing versus what some of the larger brands are doing. And something you mentioned there as well, I thought was interesting with the fandom side of things, because, you know, for instance, looking at soccer teams or football teams, you know, people are fans, whether you’ve got the silverware or not. They have that emotional loyalty there. So you’ve got to be making sure you’re working with the right types of programmes and rewards and things to support that emotional loyalty there.

Andrew

Absolutely.

Michelle

Yeah, yeah, right. Okay. So I’ve got some more questions for you. We were looking at, you know, trends and how things are evolving in this market. But I wanted to talk to you a bit more around the actual platform itself. So when you’re thinking about the loyalty provider for the great concepts that your teams are coming together with, what are the kinds of things that you’re seeing or that you’re hearing the customers are looking for that are the must haves? Like, is it omnichannel, is it gamification, which isn’t a simple spin the wheel, it can be a whole host of things. But yeah, are there some key elements? It could be things like integrations, it could be ease of implementation. Do you see a couple of key areas there that the platform must be really supporting?

Andrew

I think about the tech requirements from a use case and user stakeholder perspective, right? So for us most near and dear, we work with all the time and I’ll just represent the pain that we are often from are the marketers themselves. The marketers are the ones that are challenged every day by frankly their stakeholders and different people in the business to say, how is our loyalty program? What did we receive from those offers?

Michelle

Yeah.

Andrew

You know, how did that perform? So I think platforms that are in touch first of all, with what modern marketers face, right. Which is varying demands from different client groups, right? So the ability to have a lot of different types of rewards, you could be the, I know I mentioned earlier that points are, are starting to, you know, be challenged in many brands, of course, but you know, are you the infrequent visitor, are you the behavioral person who really wants to engage and can’t wait to, you know, earn that next challenge in avatar, they absolutely work. 

All of those things work for different types of users. And so when you are the marketer, first of all, am I able to offer that breadth of experiences or reward experiences to my customers is a big thing from platforms. And we hear a lot of the time, oh, that platform is great for this, it doesn’t do this well. So I would say, I hear that. The other thing I would say is, the speed and efficiency at which you can create and test and report on offers is another huge one that we would hear from the front end of marketers. 

So again, it is how do they make sure they serve up great experiences, as a technology that can support all sorts of different ideas, challenges, all sorts of things, right? And then I think it is on the operation side, how can they prove and test offers strategies, all sorts of different loyalty tricks on the system. 

Michelle

Yeah.

Andrew

The last one I would say from a technology standpoint that is pretty obvious, I think is the combination of the entire customer experience. I will not say customer journey, but the customer experience insofar as loyalty needs to be connected to CRM, right? What one does to pull someone into your brand through a war construct, you need to be able to carry on conversations through CRM. 

Michelle

Yeah.

Andrew

The data needs to be connected, all those, obviously making sure different channels, what happens in a content, I mean, how many people of us have had a negative experience with a brand and then get a loyalty offer the next day? These are just like very basic things, it happens all the time. And I think there’s just a lot still there as we start to connect not only channels, but I think loyalty with CRM, with customer service.

I think those are really the magic. So to answer your question, Michelle, those integrations are where folks are definitely from a technology perspective, looking for health and looking to make those connections so that as marketers or on, you know, customer service, we are aware of what’s happening with our entire customer base.

Michelle

Excellent, okay well thanks for that yeah insight on that. And I want to ask you I guess with the again back to your experience as being an international company, you’ve had the experience to work with brands who aren’t just in one region so do you as a business see that there are differences in how different regions respond to loyalty programs or do you see commonalities across different regions?

Andrew

I think when you take a national view of loyalty, and then even mostly an international view, I think that what makes a great rewards program doesn’t necessarily differ. I mean, what has worked for Sephora in one region has worked for Sephora in another region. I think that doesn’t necessarily change. 

I think the number one thing as you change from region and international is can the mechanics of the program still work? Does the reinvestment rate that works in America work in Finland, right? Or does, you know, a program that is based and led out of India work in the Philippines? 

And I think that becomes a bit of the challenge which is really the core of great loyalty programs mechanics. If the mechanics don’t work, if the reinvestment rates, if the dollars in that unlock certain benefits do not work and you start to add currency exchanges and different liabilities and then you have different data sharing, I just think it is all the nuances of operating an international company. 

And I think data also starts to become a big challenge in these areas. The ability you know, if you offer this experience, this loyalty experience in North America, but you aren’t unable in Europe to store the type of data that would allow you to support those types of experiences, you start to run into legitimate operational challenges. And they’re all manageable. You just have to, I think, have a good eye on the scope of where this rewards program is gonna go and factor in those different currencies, exchanges, data provisions. But it does get tricky, obviously, the more geographies you have to.

Michelle

Yeah, I think that’s really important that you mentioned there that obviously you’ve got to bear in mind with the data side of things, how you’re actually allowed to use that data in those regions. So something that might work in one region doesn’t necessarily have the same ability to work in another. But yeah, it’s always interesting to look at the different ways that different countries are responding to loyalty. And then from an actual, I guess, sort of personnel involved with loyalty.

So when you’re working on these great projects, from an assignment perspective. Are you seeing that it’s very much the CMO who’s involved with this? Is it a head of loyalty or are you seeing that there’s more like the CTO, CFO, other people getting involved now with these decisions on the loyalty programs?

Andrew

Typically, we would find the loyalty design strategy program would reside with someone that has a title in the range of head of loyalty, CRM, head of customer experience, you might find that type of title. I think the more important question, Michelle though, is who’s at the table for that?

A super red flag for me is if you have, for example, a loyalty department or a loyalty group making decisions about a loyalty program. Gone is a day where I could just construct a program in a vacuum and you can tell with brands who have done this, I think, that someone has come up with a loyalty concept and then from an implementation perspective. it’s a rough go on the consumer. 

I mean, today, especially in the world where you’re offering operational benefits on the easy spectrum free parking, on something complicated, ensuring that the car that you rented, the exact car because you’re a super loyalty member of this car rental program is there waiting for you. Well, the operational challenge of having that car waiting for you, that exact car is beyond complicated. It is beyond complicated. because someone maybe didn’t return that car because it got in an accident and that car can’t be there. 

Like all of those things. And so I think what I can tell you is that the best programs will make sure that there is a leader likely from a loyalty CRM type role, but the CMO, the CTO and often the CEO and CFO from a reinvestment rate are at the table. It is any like, any big enterprise program or initiative. I think you need those stakeholders aligned and bought into something as critical as loyalty.

Michelle

Yeah, and I think to that point, you know, loyalty has become a much bigger beast in the last few years, and therefore there are more eyes on it because companies are investing more in it. So they’ve got to make sure, you know, like you say, right people are at the table to be involved with the overall decisions on that.

Andrew

I totally agree. I totally agree, Michelle. I think 10 years ago, you might’ve had a head of loyalty that would come up with the idea when it was fairly simple things that were fairly spend, make points, something like that. But I think today with experiences of putting loyalty at the center, right? 

So you have like the Ritual example that I gave, the app itself is a loyalty construct, right? I think examples where that is at the core, you think of our Hard Rock example with their Unity program, that is at the core of the experience and you cannot do that without bringing together all of those departments, at least not, you cannot do it well.

Michelle

Yeah, exactly. You can try it, I guess, on your own, but actually to succeed with it, you really need all those other people involved with that decision. So, great. Okay. And then I’ve got a couple more questions for you. I did want to ask you, thinking about someone who’s just say entering into loyalty, like they’re coming in as a junior loyalty manager, and they’re looking to, you know, excel in that career, progress to director level, what kind of advice would you be giving to somebody who’s working in loyalty now and wants to continue that career path?

Andrew

It’s a great question. I think the first thing I would tell anyone looking to get into loyalty is you’re going to have a good run. It’s not going anywhere. Loyalty started, I think, when I did some research for one of my clients a handful of months ago. The first stamps-based program was basically at the start of modern retail. It’s not going away. The concept of building bonds with your best customers is not going away. 

So I think the good news is there will be a director ship. There might be a VP ship. And I think you will have a decent run in the space. The second thing I’d say, like everything, watch what the kids are doing and what the platforms are doing. 

And I would say the biggest advice and potentially the biggest trend that I would see today is the concept of longer term gratification and loyalty, is a real challenge for most industries. The idea that keep transacting, keep transacting, and then at the end, there’s something that happens, I think, is a challenge for the new generation. 

I think in the faster mobile first, you know, kind of folks growing up on you know, likes and rewards and everything kind of happens instantaneously. I think as a brand, you need to think about those micro interactions and those micro loyalty moments that you can offer some type of ongoing engagement or, you know, deeper relationship through all those different little micro interactions. I genuinely think that’s the big thing. And so, you know, I think that would be, yeah.

Michelle

Yeah, I think it’s interesting from looking at the younger, I say the junior people in these roles, that they’ve actually got to believe in their own, you know, knowledge on loyalty as well, because they’re experiencing it as part of that generation. So they can look at what was happening and working for, I don’t know, 20 years, but also they’ve got new things to bring to the table as well.

Andrew

I think that’s right, Michelle. I think that’s right.

Michelle

Yeah, believing in themselves with their own experience. Excellent, okay. And then I guess just to wrap up with this, I would like to ask you, you’ve mentioned some of the great brands that you’ve been impressed by, including brands like Ritual, and also some of the airlines, but I wanted to find out, I guess, and also touching on the changes and trends that you’ve seen. 

What would you say is something that has really surprised you in this space?

But has there been anything that has surprised you in the loyalty space in recent years?

Andrew

The thing that’s probably surprised me the most in the last two years was actually two things. So first of all, would be watching programs that were geared for the pandemic, which rewarded a totally different set of behaviors to programs that have been engineered post pandemic, which entertain and consider behaviors much more akin to the world before the pandemic. 

And I think as many brands had to grapple with that, how do you immediately shift to rewarding online behavior that is now back in the restaurant. Or I think it was amazing to see folks scramble and try and push all of their systems and infrastructure to support that change overnight and then try and bring it back again. So I think that is interesting. 

The only other thing that I find in the last two years, I’m not gonna mention any specific brand here, but when brands make significant changes to a loyalty construct, like any big change, the manner in which they manage that change.

Often it comes in the form of taking away things from customers. And this is a cautionary tale for those building new loyalty programs is something that may not be working for your brand economically, most of the time being the issue, reinvestment rate was too rich. We built up this massive contingent liability on the balance sheet. 

You are really going to offend and disappoint some of your most loyal fans. And so the cautionary tale on that is like any change to think about your different cohorts and different groups of customers and how do you manage anyone through that communication. And to me, over the last two years, just watching some of these large programs make very big changes and the impact it’s had on their customer base is something that I would like to see people get better at managing those big changes for their customer base. 

Because I think it can be done. I think the combination of using smart CRM, I think advising people before these changes happen and working with them through that, often your most loyal customers or your heaviest user of your loyalty program, when you make changes, they know and they are also your most vocal.

Michelle

Yes, exactly. Yes. If you don’t get it right, they’ll be the ones putting something out there on social media. Yeah, yeah.So you’ve got to be careful with. So, excellent. Okay, well look, thanks so much for everything you’ve shared today. It’s been a real pleasure to talk with you and, yeah, for you to, you know, share those insights with us. They really appreciate it.

Andrew

Michelle, thank you for having me and Gail on the podcast. I wish you all the best.

Michelle

Well, thanks so much and everyone who’s listened or watched this, thank you so much. If you want to find out any more about support for your loyalty programs, please don’t hesitate to contact us at antavo.com and also reach out to GALE if you’ve got some ideas and need some support around your concepts and what you’d like to do in the loyalty space. But thanks so much for joining us again and look forward to sharing more stories with you soon.