Our reporters share their experiences from “Loyalty’s friendliest meet up.”

The BIG Handshake Loyalty is dubbed ”Loyalty’s friendliest meet up, that brands and retailers love to attend.” Our staff that was on hand to participate in the event agree in full. Held in the Novotel Amsterdam City on 15-16 October 2024, the two-day conference filled all available space with a strong assortment of retailers, brands, and service providers from across Europe.

Powered by The Gift Club and supported by the European Loyalty Association (ELA), this was the second edition of an event that is positioned to become the centerpiece of European marketer’s calendars in coming years. Attendees enjoyed some competition during the Loyalty IQ Showdown and “shake and win” games during breaks (NeoDay), while some experienced Loyalty Bingo the night before the formal kickoff.

Wise Marketer Group CMO Aaron Dauphinee and CEO Bill Hanifin were on hand throughout the conference, and each came away with positive impressions of the two-day agenda.

Conference Themes

The big themes that carried across both days focused on achieving greater recognition and support of customer marketing initiatives from the C-Suite, using data in more efficient manners to achieve bigger goals, and connecting more strongly with customers through emotional loyalty and gamification.

For example, the event kicked off with executives from Holland & Barrett, Ecco Shoes and Prezzee talking about “Harnessing Emotional Loyalty: Creating Deep connections that Drive Long-Term Customer Engagement.” Moderated by John Tsaousidis from Marigold, there was detailed discussion of what it takes to truly make emotional connections with customers. More precise and selective use of available data and clear and transparent comms were two elements the panelists cited as key to unlocking the potential of emotional loyalty.

Guy Rozenhoiz, CEO Nayax CoinBridge and Helen Carter, Global head of payments and loyalty, Vivo Energy presented a path to emotional loyalty through payments. Guy portrayed the loyalty industry as a “red ocean” saying that brands are searching for a tiebreaker and the pair discussed three pillars to close gaps based on Customer Engagement, New Data Sources and Business Opportunities / Partnerships. Giving greater choice to customers and the freedom to redeem points anywhere through POS redemption technology has resulted in 15% average lift in transaction size for consumers who use points as a payment method, according to Rozenhoiz.

A third talk from Cognitive Scientist Alastair Goode “Attention. Memory. Consciousness: Cracking the Code of Consumer Behaviour” applied a scientific approach to human behavior to understand how people make purchase decisions. Alastair said that people respond positively to messages described as FOMO, Herding and “less effort” and that consumers do respond to benevolence from personal brand relationships. Making the brand a “habit” is the goal of viewing loyalty through the lens of behavioral pysch and the good news is that almost all consumers are programmed to have relationships and being part of “special social groups”.

Approaching the C-Suite

The Loyalty Academy presented an educational session on each day of the event. Bill and Aaron collaborated in each session and all who attended earned one credit towards earning their CLMP™ designation. We met so many CLMP’s at the event and it was encouraging to gain feedback on the Loyalty Academy training programs and to meet many of our virtual students in person.

Bill and Aaron presented an updated viewpoint on Loyalty Economics on Day One. New approaches to loyalty financial planning were introduced and an emphasis placed on building models to assign value to revenue streams that go beyond traditional models focused solely on gross profit from incremental transactions. Framing the financial planning process in language that the C-Suite speaks was outlined and the group had a lively discussion throughout.

Wrapping up the first day was a panel composed of Nike, Samkaup, Direct Line Group and Rob Daniel, Bond Brand Loyalty as they addressed “An Audience with – The C Suite – Why do they sign off on a loyalty initiative?” These sessions expressed agreement in many elements of how to approach the C-Suite with customer loyalty initiatives and painted a picture for how the industry can elevate the business to earn a higher level of recognition at the enterprise level in the future.

More Highlights

A few more highlights that stood out included:

• Two excellent training sessions from Camilla Cramner, CEO and Founder LoyaltyFactory “Customer Centric Value segmentation to identify high value customers” and “Maximizing value and customer experience through micro segmentation and personalization.”
• A comprehensive overview of the Antavo Loyalty Program Trends report delivered by the “Loyalty Personality of the Year 2024” Zsuzsa Kecsmar. During the talk, Zsuzsa announced a rebranding of the company to include an AI focus.
• A grocery centric panel including execs from Central Co-op, Samkaup, and Carrefour Italia talking about mastering data for higher engagement and loyalty “Crunching Numbers, Winning Hearts”
• A second Loyalty Academy training event “Mastering deep engagement for program refreshment” delivered on Day Two by Aaron and Bill

Education, networking, fun and games combined to make this year’s BIG Handshake Loyalty an event worth attending.