Last week I wrote a post about loyalty programmes and how the big opportunity was a mobile phone based loyalty programme.
Today, the Impaq Group launched their fascinating report MOBILE LIFE 1, which among other things, comes to a remarkably similar conclusion. Their opinion is backed by interviews with some 659 UK consumers and 15 key leaders from the retail, technology, marketing sectors as well as from academia. It’s nice to get such high profile vindication!
The research found that:
Mobile phones and 3G are set to challenge the rules of customer loyalty
Existing loyalty programmes only rank 14th among reasons why UK consumers
currently choose their supermarket
Over 50 per cent of UK consumers are fed up with loyalty card clutter
30 per cent of UK consumers have either lost their loyalty cards or leave them at home
54 per cent of loyalty card customers donÌt keep track of their points
Almost 20 per cent of loyalty points collectors never redeem their points
Over 70 per cent of mobile phone users are never without their phone
We believe this latest generation of mobile-enabled applications will breathe new life into todayÌs consumer loyalty programmes, effectively changing the rules and putting consumers back in control. At same time, itÌs clear that operators of loyalty schemes will themselves have a strategic opportunity to gain advantage:
at the top level, major retailers will experiment with and seek to create competitive advantage through mobility-enabled loyalty solutions, we anticipate they will do this with caution and will focus initially on small segments of their customer bases
at the level below, medium-sized retailers will be attracted by the speed, interactivity, personalisation possibilities and potentially low cost of mobile-enabled solutions and will look to shake up their expensive and poorly performing loyalty schemes
small retailers will think about structured loyalty schemes for the first time enticed principally by the low cost of entry and the potentially low cost of ownership
I still think that a winning play in the space will be themed around music based rewards, with participating retailers being those appealing to the youth demographic.
You read it here first.
Image from The Age.com.
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