How Generation Y will reshape customer loyalty

Generation Y are skeptical of the location-based offers that pop up on smartphones but (not unsurprisingly in the era of over-sharing on Facebook) will reveal personal details for fast, free and easy rewards.

Gen Y (or Millennials) are a fair portion of the global population today at 1.7billion strong (there’s more of them than there are Baby Boomers and three time as many of them as Gen X).  We’ve completed a proprietary study in the USA, UK and Canada (with possibly markets closer to home to follow) on this important market segment.

In all markets we’ve found that Millennials are active in loyalty programmes (75% participate and they’re more willing than their parents to do so) and 75% of them will prefer a brand that gives offers a programme over one that doesn’t. In unprompted responses, Millennials rate loyalty rewards as the top incentive they look for in exchange for sharing personal information with marketers.

Millennials are willing to promote brands or products through social media in exchange for rewards.  This doesn’t extend to them wanting to receive location based offers on a smart phone (only 10% have responded to these offers).  They do however (25% of them) want their smart phones to be a replacement for a plastic loyalty programme card and for the loyalty programme to deliver coupons or gift cards through the smart phone.  Only 10% though want the smart phone to replace their credit or debit card.

The first part of the study covering the USA is available for download from Aimia.com.

Rick Ferguson, Aimia's VP Knowledge Development lead the research and presented it in Sydney this week at The Customer And Loyalty Show.  

Rick Ferguson - Aimia's VP Knowledge Development -  presents the Millennial Research in Sydney this week.

"Millennials are even more willing to participate in loyalty and reward programs than their parents, but they expect reward programs to be free, easy and fast," said Rick. "This generation also relies heavily on outside information to make purchase decisions—information that is often out of the realm of control for marketers. The winners in building sustainable brand loyalty with Millennials will be those who break through the information overload to deliver value at the level of the individual customer."

We have re-branded as Aimia - Inspiring Loyalty

On Thursday the 6th October 2011 Carlson Marketing changed it's named globally to Aimia.

Carlson Marketing has been operating in New Zealand for over 30 years and we're trusted by some of the country's largest companies and brands to manage their customer, staff or channel loyalty programmes.  There are 1.5 million Kiwis in the the loyalty programmes we manage in New Zealand.

In 2009 we were acquired globally by Canadian based Groupe Aeroplan (GA) - a global loyalty programme powerhouse.  GA had already acquired the equivalents of New Zealand's Fly Buys coalition programme in Nectar (UK), Air Miles (Middle East) and Aeroplan (Canada).  They also owned one of the UK's leading loyalty and retail analytics companies in Loyalty Management Group.

We've spent the last 2 years integrating with our sister companies in the GA fold.  GA have expanded further around the globe with Nectar launching in Chile and Italy and investments in Club Premier (Aeroxexico's Frequent Flyer Programme) and Cardlytics (the USA's leading card transaction based marketing company).  They have also won the leading Australian supermarket Coles as a customer for loyalty analytics services.

Today we are Aimia.  Our new name cements the integration of our businesses into a global loyalty marketing leader.  Aimia is modern and distinctive and resonates in many languages.

• There is dialogue and movement within the name itself. The creation of Aimia was inspired by palindromes – words that read the same backwards and forwards, as they give the sense of two way conversation, a clear reflection of our approach to delivering value to our customers and consumers.
• It alludes to pinpoint precision – where two aims cross over. Whether it’s the sweet spot where the needs of clients and the wants of consumers overlap or the insight garnered from two different vantage points.
• It is inspired from the word ‘aim’: highlighting focus and precision, describing our expertise in targeting the right consumers with the right messages.  It is also from the French words ‘aimer’ or ‘ami’ emphasizing the importance of partnership and relationships and denoting a friendly tone and approach.
• The symmetry of Aimia mirrors the balance and partnership that sits at its core. A crosshair of aims, a meeting of minds. We see relationships differently.

We have over 3,700 Aimia colleagues in 20 countries around the world of which approximately:

• 1,885 are in Canada
• 850 are in the US
• 650 are in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region as well as in South America
• 475 are in the Asia-Pacific region

In New Zealand we are the same team with the some commitment to our client's success.  We will be transitioning over to Aimia during the remainder of this year.