Highlights from the Loyalty Summit CXM

Industry leaders explored how businesses can build deeper, more meaningful relationships with customers in these times of unprecedented change. While loyalty marketing has always adapted to the times, the current pace of transformation is faster than ever before.

I was delighted to co-host this year’s conference, alongside Iain Pringle of New World Loyalty and Kristin Møllerplass of Oculos.

We were passionate about developing a conference packed with inspiration and actionable insight for our audience, so we created 7 Tracks:

• TRACK 1 – Loyalty Latest – Stay ahead of the curve by exploring the booming world of Retail Media and the latest loyalty launches from Scandinavia and Europe. Discover how leading brands are redefining loyalty in an ever-evolving landscape.
• TRACK 2 – Loyalty Works – In a time of squeezed margins and fierce competition, loyalty managers are under pressure to prove ROI. This track provides evidence-backed strategies to demonstrate the value of loyalty programmes to finance teams and the C-Suite, ensuring continued investment.
• TRACK 3 – Market Update – What is the state of loyalty in Europe and Scandinavia? Learn how customer expectations are changing and explore new loyalty models emerging across these dynamic markets.
• TRACK 4 – Brilliant Basics – The loyalty manager’s role is one of the toughest in retail—spanning marketing, insights, product, finance, operations, and customer service. This track offers practical advice and tools to help streamline your work and make a challenging job easier.
• TRACK 5 – Customer Engagement – Engaging customers is the cornerstone of every successful loyalty programme. Learn how to stand out in a crowded marketplace by optimising partnerships, promotions, and personalisation to achieve impactful engagement and results.
• TRACK 6 – Technology and Innovation – AI, Web3 and dynamic messaging are no longer a future concept – they are here, and they are transforming the loyalty industry. Discover practical steps to integrate these game-changing technologies into your programs and make your work more efficient, effective, and future-ready.
• TRACK 7 – Currency and Payment – Over the past two decades, loyalty has been built on generous frequent flyer programs, large retail coalitions and points-based banking models. But these foundations are shifting fast. Where will we be by 2025? Who are the emerging players, and how will these changes redefine how customers interact with loyalty programmes?

Each track featured a keynote, a panel or interview and a fireside track – with leading brands and loyalty experts from multiple loyalty sectors – from retail, to fuel, to travel, to fashion, to beauty, to automotive and more. All with the ambition to share insight and inspiration.

It would be impossible to cover the whole conference, but here are 5 of my top take-outs from the conference:

There were several keynotes that really inspired me to think beyond the traditional way we would approach developing and evolving a loyalty programme. Steve Gray of SG-Retail and Liz Guiney of Nectar360 opened the first Track in an inspiring presentation about the power of retail media and its symbiotic relationship with loyalty marketing. Did you know that 76% of UK Ad Spend is now on digital and direct and the 3 biggest players are Google, Meta and Amazon?

What was fascinating was how Amazon Prime has driven Amazon’s success in this space. It was also interesting to see how other big loyalty players are creating specialist media networks and leveraging the power of their loyalty data to drive significant revenue – in the four key areas of instore, onsite, offsite and loyalty/CRM itself. It made me think how the programmes that we work on could do the same…

The other keynote which really stood out in this space was from Mark Ross of Konsort Social.

He talked extensively about the power of social commerce to drive loyalty in new ways through initiatives such as Tik Tok Shop which has driven $33.2bn in gross merchandise volume in 2024 (up 113% yoy, eMarketer). This inspired me to think about how loyalty programmes could help their members drive revenue – if this is a new area to you check out the Goli Nutrition approach – some great top tips, case studies and examples on there to inspire you to experiment in this space.

The smart use of brand partnerships has been a hot topic at many a loyalty conference for the last couple of years and this year it was even more popular. This topic was headlined with a brilliant keynote from James Johnstone and Jakub Krzakala of Shell Go+ who talked about how Shell has leveraged the power of multiple motorsports partnerships to drive true and meaningful member and customer engagement for 75 years.

The scale of the brand is immense – more than 47,000 Shell sites operate across more than 70 markets, serving 33 million customers a day. The innovation partnership with Scuderia Ferrari HP started in 1950 and has gone from strength to strength since then with multiple activations – from the race track (over 720 race starts, 186 victories and 10 Formula One^TM Constructors’ Championships) to the Convenience Retail Outlet and Loyalty programme – creating promotions, activations, mobile games, products, experiences, competitions and once in a lifetime moments for Shell customers globally.

The keynote was followed by a panel discussion, hosted by Jo Ashdown, Mando-Connect’s Managing Director, with brands from a range of sectors including:

• James Johnstone and Jakub Krzakala of Shell Go+
• Camilo Courtenay of Avolta Club
• Isobel Finlayson of VeryMe Rewards from Vodafone

The panel covered how brands leverage partnerships to achieve more for less, to acquire new members in cost effective ways, to connect to their customers true passions to drive meaningful loyalty and shared some great case studies about how partnerships have helped them achieve specific programme goals.

I think that behavioural science is one of the most exciting areas in current marketing thinking and its application in loyalty marketing provides programme leads with huge opportunity to turbo charge results and member impact.

It was first introduced to the Loyalty Summit CXM in 2023 by Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy, and this year we were delighted to welcome Jordan Buck of Ogilvy Consulting and Polly Jones of ODEON to share the latest developments and case studies of behavioural science in action!

They covered 9 behavioural science principles including:

• Variable Reinforcement
• Commitment Device
• Status & Membership
• Priming
• IKEA Effect
• Salient Feedback
• Scarcity
• Ego
• Goal Gradient

But my favourite part of the keynote was looking at those principles in action – Jordan, Polly and the team had conducted experiments using different principles to drive desired behaviours and shared the results at the conference. It turns out that Timely Prompts + Endowed Progress was the most effective principle in action to drive non-registered guests to sign up the MyODEON programme. It turns out that Loss Aversion was the most effective principle to get members to use their loyalty points before they expired. It was a fascinating presentation which boldly ended with a call to the audience to “Dare to be Trivial” – highlighting that small changes can make big differences!

Through-out the keynotes, the panels and the networking the importance of getting real world implementation right was a constant theme. We heard from Kirsty Chalk of IKEA Family all about the programme and its evolution from a transactional discount programme to:

• “a genuine rewarding relationship that feels personal”
• “to being part of every member’s journey for dreaming, planning and bringing their home ideas to life”

But she also shared how the team work globally – how they share ideas, manage stakeholders and create powerful test markets and launches across multiple channels – giving the markets freedom with a centrally led approach – and how important that is to the programme’s success.

We also heard from Isobel Finlayson of VeryMe Rewards from Vodafone – she was interviewed by David Feldman and they covered everything from the programme ambitions, to its successes and challenges to plans for the future. Fascinating to hear about everything that made the programme the winner of the Best Loyalty Programme in Western Europe at the International Loyalty Awards!

We also heard from Joe & The Juice who shared their journey for how they’d built the programme, its role to the business and the operational complexity that it involved behind the scenes.

It was wonderful to hear real world stories of what’s it’s really like on the front line of building and running a programme. Thank-you so much for everyone’s authenticity and honesty!

Sam Panzer of Talon One then shared a keynote which explored the role and opportunities for promotions within loyalty programmes “By examining loyalty & promotions holistically, businesses can create significant value.” He shared some great case studies of promotions in action but one of my favourite pieces was the Promotions Design Framework – all the things that need to be considered, optimised and implemented to make your promotion successful – thanks Sam!

Nicola Späni, the Chief Commercial Officer & Co-Founder, Brame also gave a great presentation on gamification – closely linked to the world of promotions and activation! I thought his explanation of the role of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards in driving impactful interactive experiences was particularly insightful – and a great tool for convincing internal stakeholders on the added value that gamification brings to a traditional mechanic.

It would be impossible to cover the whole conference and, in addition to those 5 key take-outs above we also heard brilliant presentations from some fantastic platform providers including Loyalty Juggernaut, some awesome insights on loyalty currency and payments, brilliant case studies of Scandinavian loyalty and, of course, a superb keynote from Iain Pringle on what AI will not tell you about loyalty marketing!

And, of course, we also launched our latest white paper at the event “Understanding Loyalty in Europe 3.0” with YouGov – it went down a treat and got a huge amount of engagement. It’s available to download here so please check it out – to learn more about loyalty across 24 European markets.

Thank-you to everyone who sponsored, presented, organised and attended with such enthusiasm. I look forward to the next event!

If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you with partnerships, loyalty, reward or promotions solutions then please get in touch straight away!