Peppers & Rogers Group, which used to be a Carlson Marketing group company, introduced the marketing strategy of 1to1 10 years ago with their book "The One to One Future".
The Sydney Morning Herald reports on "Supermarket Sleuth" Peppers, who helped Coles competitor Woolworths with their new Qantas loyalty program partnership in Australia. Peppers readily admits that he is biased.
As we've discussed before - Peppers likens the supermarket and loyalty program battle that FlyBuys finds itself in to the experience of the UK market. Sainsbury's, who use a scheme similar to FlyBuys called Nectar, was overtaken as the leading supermarket chain in Britain by Tesco less than three years after Tesco launched its Clubcard scheme in the mid '90s.
Peppers said Coles should ditch FlyBuys and find a program that gives it control over customer purchasing data, otherwise it risks losing more market share to Woolworths.
''FlyBuys isn't the right program as they [Coles and teh other partners in FlyBuys] don't own the data,'' said Mr Peppers. ''It's just a trinkets and trash program. We pay you for loyalty and you know what, we don't pay you too much.''
The Sydney Morning Herald also reports [which we've discussed here] that Coles dumped the frequent flyer mechanism of FlyBuys this year so shoppers could accrue points and get discounts on their shopping.
Peppers has been on the payroll of comeptitor Woolworths - so would you expect him to say any different?
ReplyDeleteI don't get the bit about Coles "dumping the frequent flyer mechanism" of FlyBuys. It's never been a frequent flyer program - and nothing has changed, you can still get flights.
From Don Peppers: Just to clarify, what I said was that Coles (or any other retailer) should use a loyalty program primarily to bujild and maintain ongoing, one-to-one relationships with individual customers. Data is indispensable for this. Coles could continue with FlyBuys, but only IF the supplier were to make available to Coles all of the shopper data - and this is something I've been told either isn't possible or wouldn't be considered.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I was hired by Woolworths for a series of appearances this week and last. But I gave them the exact same advice more than two years ago. Whether my advice was influential or not, the fact is that they have now implemented a very good program. - @DonPeppers
Gosh, the article read to me like a full-on bash at FlyBuys and Coles, sponsored by Woolworths. As opposed to general loyalty program advice for “Coles or any other retailer”. Interesting that Woolworths stated in the SMH article (not reproduced here) that Peppers "did not have an ongoing relationship" with them - a fairly ingenuous comment given it appears they paid for his visit.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to know who told Peppers that making the FlyBuys data available to Coles was something which "either isn't possible or wouldn't be considered". My observation from the Coles FlyBuys offers I've received over the years is that they are in fact highly targeted, down to basket level. But I guess Mr Peppers isn’t a FlyBuys member and wouldn’t be able to make that observation. When I get my Coles docket, and it lists all the products and my FlyBuys number, wouldn't Coles be making use of that data and have FlyBuys make me offers?
Regardless of where the data is, has any shopper actually found the FlyBuys programme to be worth while? I've flown a number of free flights using FF miles, so I know getting a mile on Qantas is something I can use.
ReplyDelete