Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Loyalty Live: Bounteous’ Ellen Green on Partnerships, Gamification, and Emotional Loyalty in 2025
Brands are constantly exploring innovative ways to engage their audiences and stand out in a crowded marketplace. From leveraging partnerships to gamifying experiences, the loyalty strategies shaping 2025 are redefining how brands connect with their customers on a deeper, more meaningful level.
In this edition of Loyalty Live, Loyalty360 speaks with Ellen Green, Vice President of Loyalty Strategy at Bounteous Trends. Ellen shares insights into the industries driving loyalty program innovation, the rise of gamification, and the importance of emotional loyalty in creating lasting connections. She also discusses the challenges brands face in adopting new technologies and how they can ensure a balanced approach that delivers measurable value.
Good afternoon good morning.
Speaker 1:This is Mark Johnson from Loyalty360. I want to welcome you back to another edition of Loyalty Live. In this series, we speak with the leading agencies, technology partners and consultants in customer channel and brand loyalty about the technology trends and best practices that impact a brand's ability to drive unique experiences, enhance engagement but, most importantly, drive customer loyalty. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Ellen Green. She is the Vice President of Loyalty Strategy at Bounteous and we're going to talk about key trends and strategies shaping customer loyalty in 2025. Welcome, ellen. I'm glad you joined us today. How are you?
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, mark, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1:One of the things we saw in the 2024 State of Customer Loyalty Report was that 79% of brands have an interest in updating, enhancing or redoing their customer loyalty offering. Are there specific industries leading the charge in loyalty program innovation? If so, which ones and what are they doing differently?
Speaker 2:So one of the things that we love to do when we're doing loyalty strategy engagements whether that be a new program design or evolving a new existing program is doing a cross-industry inspiration workshop, and we love to pull things from all different industries, because there's a lot of industries that have been doing it a long time, such as like retail and travel. You know some industries that are a little bit newer to the space, like we're seeing a lot of rise in like B2B, but it's interesting to see how different brands approach it. So, even as we're having B2B conversations, we often hear brands such as like Delta Airlines referenced as like that's our North Star vision, like we want to be like Delta Airlines. But in the B2B industry, and whenever we dig deeper, it's really about, like that customer experience that Delta Airlines brings to the table. So, for instance, the seamless way to book, the way that they kind of like reinforce value at the end of the flight, like if they get there early they'll send you like a push notification, like kind of like reinforcing that oh wow, we actually did something great. Or the way that it's really easy to track and participate in the program and see, like, where your status is and how close you are to unlocking different benefits, and so we take a lot of that inspiration from brands that have been doing this much longer, like the Delta Airlines of the world, or even in like the retail space.
Speaker 2:Looking at brands such as, like you know, rei is one of my favorites, you know they really reinforce, like their brand vision of who they are and meet their customer where they are, like they want to be, outdoors.
Speaker 2:And so having, like community events or donating a lot of the profits from the membership that people are paying and actually feeding that back into nature, or having, you know, ways that people can actually trade, merchant like, use, merchandise for new, a lot of those elements like they enable people to have that outdoor experience that they're looking for, and so, like those are the types of things that we look to bring to the table. And then, as far as like some different themes that we're sending, that we're seeing especially within travel and retail, like one of them being partnerships. So you know, we've seen a lot more partnerships come to the table, whether that be, you know, delta and Starbucks or Marriott and Starbucks, and also like gamification is another one that we've seen brought to the table more and more often recently, and so I think those are two that we're going to continue to see flourish in 2025.
Speaker 1:Brand partnerships continue to have an interest for many brands, but they can be challenging to incorporate them within their marketing strategy for a number of reasons. And what are the potential benefits and challenges of such partnerships?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're seeing partnerships be a big trend too. I would say two things that really why brands would enter a partnership are one to acquire new customers, so attract new and basically like especially brands with, like similar target customers pairing together. The other one is to add value to existing members and so looking to add value in new ways beyond what they can do as a standalone brand. And so the ones that I see be work and be really effective are ones where there's kind of some synergies from a consumer perspective as far as what the consumer is looking for. The brands typically have shared brand values and they're also committed to evolving over time. And so I think some of these ones that we're seeing, you know, play out in the industry and be kind of like this constant evolution.
Speaker 2:It's like the Hilton and the Lyft partnership where, essentially, like, they keep adding new features and benefits, like that. Or even when a Delta and Starbucks started out, it was really about earning points whenever you were flying at Starbucks and so kind of like creating those synergies. But now it's expanded in a lot of new ways. So things like, most recently, just in q4, looking at, you know, delta whenever they send out, like their their gift card pushes for the holidays. It's like buy a Delta gift card and get a bonus. Starbucks card or Starbucks have their sweepstakes for life and, like Delta, is one of the prizes in there.
Speaker 2:And so it's like creating a lot of these synergies and continuing to have that commitment to the partnership, I think, is what is making these successful.
Speaker 1:Gamification, as you know, has become a very popular strategy for driving engagement and loyalty programs, and what are some successful examples of gamification in customer loyalty, and how do brands use it to enhance customer experience?
Speaker 2:So I love gamification in the loyalty space and I feel like because there's this whole notion of a human psychology behind it and trying to create these dopamine rushes with customers that keeps them coming back again and again. So I think some of the brands that are doing it really well so Duolingo, their whole experience is gamified from end to end, and so everything that you're doing is creating streaks and achievements and every single bit of progress that you make you feel like this sense of accomplishment. And then there's other brands out there, like Ulta, for example. So they launched like Glam Explorer, and that was just for their very top tier of customers to make them feel special, help them engage with the brand in new ways and keep them coming back again and again and again, whether that be in store or also just coming to that experience and engaging with the brand. And so I think there's different ways that brands can activate it. And so I think there's different ways that brands can activate it.
Speaker 2:Whenever we're looking at gamification strategies, we have a workshop that we do that kind of looks across like nine different facets of gamification.
Speaker 2:It can be everything from like what's driving emotional loyalty, or different things that motivate customer behavior or get them excited or have this sense of accomplishment. And so even like a simple, simple activation that brands can do is really just around, like some data capture opportunities where essentially they're putting a question out there and then they're responding to the customer in real time and kind of marrying those two things together and helping them feel like a sense of accomplishment. And so that's like kind of one of the key threads that we look at of accomplishment. And so that's like kind of one of the key threads that we look at. But essentially, long story short, like there's a lot of different ways to activate it, like some super simple and some more advanced work throughout your entire experience. And so just finding that balance and what's the brand right way to do it and what's going to be. You know the customers feel like it's very attainable and that they've accomplished something.
Speaker 1:In a crowded marketplace where many loyalty programs offer similar rewards, how can brands differentiate themselves by fostering emotional loyalty to build stronger, more meaningful relationships with their customers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so whenever we're doing consumer research with customers, one of the things that we look at is the emotional loyalty component, and we actually have a scoring mechanism that puts customers into groups, whether they be like economic, functional or more emotional, and we can actually slice and dice the data to look at like what benefits are resonating with emotional customers and then what, in turn, might motivate some of the customers that are in some of those lower bands to move to emotional, and so a lot of things that we see in the marketplace are things that drive, like exclusivity or access or something that you can't get anywhere else, and so we try to infuse those types of things into the program in order to create that differentiation.
Speaker 1:There's a big push, as you know, for non-transactional rewards in loyalty programs to keep the customer engaged between transactions. So when you look at non-transactional rewards and loyalty programs that keep the customer engaged between transactions, so when you look at non-transactional awards such as exclusive experiences or benefits, how can they be incorporated effectively into loyalty strategies to strengthen the customer engagement and differentiate their programs?
Speaker 2:So I'm a huge fan of non-transactional rewards. I think there's a lot of different ways that brands can activate it and it really comes down to like what your customers value most, and so I think for some brands it can be things like one of a lifetime experiences, where you're doing it from like a sweepstakes standpoint, or we're seeing more brands do like a buy versus bid on points from the experiences standpoint, or even creating things like exclusive merchandise. One of the actually my favorite loyalty reward of 2024 was this Hard to see it, but essentially this was from PetSmart and it was something that they sent me as being a member of the program. But now, every single morning, I drink coffee and I get to look at my dogs on this coffee mug and I'm like, wow, I really love PetSmart. So it's like those unique things that come to the table that really feed into the brand and it makes me have a more emotional connection with PetSmart than I ever did before.
Speaker 1:One of the challenges brands have right now is there's a surfeit of new technologies that promise great benefits with regard to customer loyalty, but there's a challenge in valuating them and understanding exactly what that technology can do. You know, how can brands invest in new technologies while ensuring these innovations deliver the measurable value to the customer experience, especially those that CFO might want?
Speaker 2:So, being technology agnostic, we have a lot of brands come to us in different states of their maturity and looking for different types of technology.
Speaker 2:So, even going beyond core loyalty technology platforms, we help with a lot of clients with things like looking at like CDPs or marketing automation tools and things like that and trying to figure out what's in their stack.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they come to us and they say this is what we think we need and the way that we approach it is really from a use case driven perspective, and so we essentially help them create use cases and we have like a library of a couple thousand use cases that have like value tied to them to figure out and ensure that whatever they're investing in is going to get a return.
Speaker 2:And so we kind of look at it from both a short term and a long term approach, where sometimes the answer is you know they need a CDP, or sometimes they need a marketing automation tool, or sometimes they need both and, depending on their level of investment and where they are in their maturity and where they're trying to accelerate, we recommend but essentially we put together a short-term plan and a long-term roadmap that has ROI-driven piece to it and that way brands can ensure that they're not just adding technology to their stack for the sake of adding technology. It's really for the purpose of, you know, creating a better customer experience and, you know, driving making the business more efficient along the way.
Speaker 1:What are the biggest challenges you see in current customer loyalty offerings. You know how should brands be addressing these challenges, especially if they have limited resources.
Speaker 2:So I think a lot of what we see is very basic offerings that don't really drive to your customer loyalty, and so oftentimes we'll see you know a point solution, but there's not really anything else to it, or they're not actually leveraging the customer data that they're getting from the program and activating that in really smart ways, and so I think those are some of the things that brands need to overcome to make sure they have that differentiated approach, they're listening to their customers and have a constant evolution for what they're doing, how they're approaching loyalty to really build more of an emotional connection, rather than just a transactional one, with customers.
Speaker 1:Real-time personalization is something that's very relevant to our audience today. Being able to do it in a way that adds value to the brand and the customer is very important. There are some obstacles in achieving real-time personalization. How can brands overcome these obstacles and how can brands ensure their personalization efforts feel authentic and not invasive to customers?
Speaker 2:So we work with a lot of different brands at different stages of their personalization journey and we kind of see this across like five different levels, brands that are really trying to get to that level five. There's like this secret recipe and essentially, like, these four major components need to be true in order for brands to be successful. So they need to have executive championship, like the leadership needs to be bought in, bought into, you know, as personalization as an objective, and they need to see the value in it. There needs to be a notion of like operational capacity and also investment in the technology piece, the ability to have, like creative versioning and be able to scale that. And then a notion of like being able to have AI driven testing mechanisms too, to continually optimize it over time.
Speaker 2:And so a lot of the brands that are trying to get to this notion of this heightened personalization, like that's their core objective. Now, not every single brand is trying to get there. This notion of this heightened personalization, like that's their core objective. Now, not every single brand is trying to get there. So you know, for instance, maybe a pizza brand, maybe it doesn't matter if there's pepperoni and sausage on a pizza or just pepperoni, when you're looking at the communication and so it's figuring out like what the right level is for that brand and where they're trying to go based on the level of investment. I think one of the easy ways to do it if you're not looking to, you know, boil the ocean and have this huge commitment is using like zero party data capture and using that as a strategy and then essentially having that activation. So like Noodles and Company is a great example where they do a lot with member voting and things like that, where members get to vote for the next benefit or essentially like they'll talk about like what's your new year's goals and then essentially like tailor content based on that. But essentially having ways to like activate based on what the customer just told you in real time is an easy way to bring that to life without committing to full-scale personalization, because there's definitely a right size based on the brand.
Speaker 1:Last question, Ellen how do you think customer expectations will evolve in 2025 and how should brands prepare to meet them?
Speaker 2:So consumer spending has been, you know, a big challenge and I think that's going to continue for a bit, and so I think still finding that right balance of meeting customers where they are from a value perspective is really important. I think some of the other trends that we're going to see obviously we're going to see AI pick up and the adoption of that. I think the area to be aware of is, like the data privacy piece of it, and I think that's also going to rise as well data privacy piece of it, and I think that's also going to rise as well. And so having that right balance to make sure that, as AI is activated, the data is protected too, and then I think we'll continue to see, you know, especially like younger generations gravitate towards things like experiential more than transactional, and so a lot of those trends I see continuing in 2025.
Speaker 1:And now we have our quickfire question round. We like to keep these to a one word or short phrase answer, so the final video stays under 60 seconds. What's your favorite word?
Speaker 2:Serendipity.
Speaker 1:What is your least favorite word?
Speaker 2:Squirm.
Speaker 1:What excites you?
Speaker 2:When my fantasy football team wins, which unfortunately they didn't yesterday.
Speaker 1:What do you find?
Speaker 2:tiresome Road trips. They're completely exhausting. I'd much rather fly any day of the week.
Speaker 1:Is there a book that you've read that you'd like to recommend to colleagues?
Speaker 2:Purpose Driven Life.
Speaker 1:What profession, other than the one that you're currently in, would you potentially like to try?
Speaker 2:Always wanted to own my own dance studio.
Speaker 1:What do you enjoy doing that you often don't get the time to do?
Speaker 2:Going to the beach.
Speaker 1:Who inspired you to become the person that you are today?
Speaker 2:My grandparents. They're definitely the closest family member. That really inspires me. And then, like one of my all time favorite heroes, who I'd love to meet someday is Dolly Parton. I just think she's an incredible human.
Speaker 1:What do you typically think about at the end of the day?
Speaker 2:Just chilling with my dogs.
Speaker 1:And how do you want to be remembered by your friends and family?
Speaker 2:I'd like to be remembered as sharing joy with others. I feel like that's so important, and I think it's one of the reasons why I love loyalty so much too. I think is because it can enable the sharing of joy if it's done right, and so hopefully, people will remember me in that sense.
Speaker 1:Thank, sharing of joy if it's done right, and so hopefully people will remember me in that sense. Thank you, ellen, for taking the time to talk with us today. It was great getting your perspective on customer loyalty and also to seeing some of the trends and understanding some of the trends that you think are going to be impactful for those in the customer loyalty industry in 2025.
Speaker 2:Great Thanks for having me, Mark.
Speaker 1:I also wanted to thank everyone else for taking the time to listen today. Make sure you join us back every Wednesday for our next edition of Loyalty Live. Until then, have a wonderful day and look forward to having you back soon. Thank you.