Past Expos

How do you know when it’s time for a new value proposition for your credit card or loyalty program? What is the process to create a customized value proposition that succeeds in fulfilling your strategic goals as well as delighting customers? Join Synchrony Financial and Sam’s Club as they outline a proven process for creating a winning value proposition. The steps include: gathering customer insights, mapping the customer experience, cost/benefit analysis and omni-channel optimization. Sam’s Club has recently launched a highly successful value proposition for its retail credit card program and will be sharing learning and insights on the process.

Speakers

Hiren Patel, Director of Financial Services, Sam’s Club

Hiren Patel is responsible for launching and managing new financial services products for Sam’s Club members.  He has over 15+ years in Financial Services with expertise in a number of consumer and small business credit and payment product areas including credit cards, prepaid products, auto loans, installment loans and SBA loans.  Hiren has been instrumental in developing, launching and managing two key loyalty product launches at Sam’s Club including their recent Plus member Cash Rewards program and their recent 5-3-1 credit card loyalty rewards program.  His functional expertise spans marketing, new product development and credit risk management.  Hiren has spent to bulk of career at Capital One with an initial stint at AT&T Universal Card Services/Citibank.  

Sue Yasav, Research Insights Leader, Synchrony Financial

Sue Yasav is responsible for developing strategic insights through surveys, social listening and academic studies on topics related to the credit card and retail industries. She authors white papers on retail and card trends and provides thought leadership and strategic insights to retail partners.  Sue has 18 years of experience in the credit card industry, encompassing 10 years at Citi Cards as VP in the Finance and Marketing organizations.  In the past 8 years at GE Capital, Sue has been a Master Black Belt in the Quality organization, a marketing leader for a high-end retail partner in NYC and the leader of Value Proposition Development.

We present a framework through which brands can tie and incorporate customer-centric data at each quantifiable inflection point on the journey map. A scalable ‘data audition’ process allows marketers to sample from all APIs and sources to determine which available fields and attributes have the potential to inform customer-centric marketing efforts. Particular emphasis is placed on the strategies and tactics which leverage these new data points, with case study examples ranging from simple descriptive statistics and trigger campaigns to automated decision support engines informed by adaptive modeling algorithms. Emphasis will be placed on practical examples which detail how retailers have leveraged predictive and prescriptive models to create personalized, profitable interactions at numerous customer-brand inflection points, including web/eCommerce sites; social media; call center/customer service; mobile app, and point of sale interaction. The session is intended for all marketers and strategists – no advanced technical skills are assumed or required. Components covered in the workshop will include:

• Identifying Essential Customer Engagement KPI’s and Developing an Analytics Roadmap
• Incorporating and Leveraging Engagement Data
• Implementing Real-Time Marketing and Enabling the Journey to Prescriptive Analytics

Speakers

Don Smith, SVP and Chief Analytics Officer, Brierley & Partners

Don is the Chief Analytics Officer at Brierley+Partners. He earned his PhD in Political Science from The Florida State University with concentrations in program evaluation, campaign management, and statistics. He also spent 11 years in academia at Rice University, Cornell College, and the University of North Texas teaching statistics and policy evaluation. Prior to joining Brierley+Partners, he was a Research Director for Dallas County, TX, in charge of database modeling, data mining, and program reporting. He has authored several journal articles and a published a book. At Brierley, Don specializes in building econometric models and creating segmentation schemes, with an emphasis on marrying customer engagement data (web analytics, social media, and communications response) to shopping and purchasing patterns. His current client list includes Bridgestone Retail Operations, GameStop, Fresh & Easy Supermarkets, Hertz, Levi’s, MoneyGram, Sonic Drive-In and 7-Eleven. An avid theater aficionado, Don was the 1989 Saax Bradbury/Amos Abrams Fellow to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where he studied classical acting.

Ready to take a deep dive into how your loyalty program is performing? In this working session, we’ll roll up our sleeves and review the processes for selecting the data types that are going to make your communications relevant and monetizeable. We’ll review key program KPIs and discuss the data and tools necessary to make strategic and tactical decisions. You’ll see first-hand the value exchange necessary, why it’s critical to support member expectations and how this yields a positive ROE2.

During this workshop, we’ll review:

• Measuring dashboard KPIs and benchmarking to find solutions
• Segmenting different types of loyalty members ( VIPs vs. Discount Hunters) and the value exchange
• The process of selecting data – sifting through massive amounts of data to find what really moves the needle

Speakers

Diana Lewis, Vice President Strategy & Insights, Retail and Loyalty, Epsilon

As the strategy leader for the Retail Sector and Loyalty at Epsilon, Diana focuses on developing integrated customer experience strategies for clients. She has more than two decades of retail and loyalty experience and is an expert in influencing consumer behavior.  Diana works collaboratively with her client services teams, analytic resources, and agency partners to design, develop, and implement effective customer experience strategies.  She provides thought leadership to clients and taps into the appropriate resources at Epsilon to help clients make the connections that bond people to their brand.

Marc Schulkers, Vice President - Analytic Consulting Group, Epsilon

Marc is the analytics lead for Epsilon’s Agility Loyalty offering. His areas of expertise are in customer segmentation, program design, liability forecasting, and program measurement. During the past 11+ years with Epsilon, Marc has worked with clients in the specialty retail, hospitality, electronics, QSR, fuels, and telecommunications as well as clients in the B2B space. Marc’s focus is on designing customer experiences that improve member engagement for his clients in such a way that yield incremental revenue and improved retention.

One of the biggest challenges facing organizations is the need to maximize customer engagement and increase revenue while minimizing the cost of delivering an outstanding customer experience—across all communication channels. Organizations can create a relevant and differentiated customer experience by closely linking the organization’s brand and customer experience strategy, along with aligning the right people, with the right attitude, in the right environment.

Take part in this interactive workshop and learn:

• Why customer experience excellence and loyalty happen at the intersection of intention and brand.
• How you can benefit from creating a unified strategy between digital and assisted service channels.
• How one organization created a customer experience ecosystem comprised of 15 “listening posts” including social media, NPS survey, text analytics, CSAT survey, and speech analytics to drive strong ROI and customer success.

Speakers

Greg Sherry, Vice President, Marketing, Verint Systems

Greg Sherry serves as Vice President, Marketing at Verint Systems, a global leader in Actionable Intelligence® solutions. Today, more than 10,000 organizations in over 180 countries, including over 80 percent of the Fortune 100, use Verint solutions to improve enterprise performance. Greg’s background includes leading business and customer experience optimization teams at Verizon (GTE Wireless). Over the past year Greg has spoken at various conferences on customer experience, social media and branding topics in North America and abroad. Greg is a graduate of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Loyalty marketers have become too focused on the technical and tactical side of marketing, but the connection between brand and customer is about so much more than serving a consistent experience across mediums and devices. Are you ready for the next level of omnichannel marketing, or will you be left behind?

In this session, Matt Stein will address:

• Why a technically flawless loyalty program is no longer enough
• What today’s customer craves – contextually relevant “moments” delivered at the right time, with the right message, and in the right channel
• How your brand can stand out from the pack by creating impactful moments in the mind of the consumer
• Your creative strategy’s role in delivering an emotionally-charged customer experience
• How to better understand the customer’s view point and use it to craft the perception of your brand

Speakers

Matt Stein, VP, Customer Experience & Agency Services, Kobie Marketing

Matt serves as the head of Kobie Marketing’s Customer Experience & Agency Services capabilities. With over 15 years of marketing experience in senior leadership roles, he drives industry-leading loyalty engagement and marketing solutions that span the online, mobile, social, print and broadcast media channels as well as the full customer journey from digital channels to physical locations. Prior to joining Kobie Marketing, Matt held leadership positions at WPP agencies and Catalina Marketing. He currently leads a global team of 20+ creatives and marketers with expertise in strategy, design, development, user experience, print production, campaign management, project management and quality assurance.

We all know that customer engagement is primarily emotional.  If rewards programs are designed as a rationalmeans for creating customer loyalty, does this mean that these customers are actually engaged? What is the relationship between membership in a rewards program and customer engagement?  

During this session, Cvent will address:

• What the DNA of an engaged customer looks like
• The hypothesis that rewards program customers are engaged customers
• An approach that supports more rigorous analysis of this relationship including:
  • Building a segmentation foundation through customer satisfaction and ad hoc survey research
  • Profiling of engaged customer segments to determine meaningful differences that can be acted upon

• Examples of brands who have yielded positive results when it comes to customer engagement and rewards programs 

Speakers

Meg Stensrud, Regional Sales Director, Cven

Meg Stensrud is a Regional Sales Director for Cvent’s Web Survey team specializing in feedback initiative and strategy work with Fortune 1000 companies. Meg joined Cvent in 2007 and, over the past seven years, has cultivated business relationships with some of the world’s largest organizations, including pharmaceutical companies, financial institutions, nonprofit organizations and associations. An expert on web survey and feedback technology, Meg has presented Cvent’s solution and services to hundreds of organizations and has spoken at dozens of events on feedback strategy. Meg holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

Mike Phillips, Director of Professional Services Group, Cvent

With over 25 years of experience in providing analysis, research and consultation to clients, Mike Phillips is the director of professional services group at Cvent.  In this role, he is responsible for overseeing the division and supporting clients in all phases of Cvent’s customized survey research capabilities, from implementation to reporting.

Prior to joining Cvent, Mike was vice president of research for LRA Worldwide, Inc., a customer experience management consulting firm for the hospitality industry. In addition, Mike has held several senior leadership positions in the research and professional services industry at companies such as comScore and KPMG.

Mike earned a Master of Science degree from George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Georgia State University.

If you are a retailer looking to loyalty to deliver business outcomes, this workshop is for you. Join us for a no-nonsense panel discussion in which you will learn how Hot Topic and Kirkland’s have each launched recent successful omnichannel and PLCC programs.

Join Kirkland’s, Hot Topic and Aimia as they share:

• How their programs were conceived and designed
• Implementation challenges encountered - and how they were overcome
• Highlights of their programs in action and program benefits
• Their vision for the future of retail loyalty

Speakers

Jon Kosoff, Vice President of eCommerce & CRM, Hot Topic

Jon is the Vice President of e-Commerce and CRM at Hot Topic. Jon is a strategic, solution-oriented thinker, experienced in digital platforms focused on e-Commerce, Social Media, Mobile, and CRM delivering over 12 years of successful measurable growth and return on investment for top retail companies. 

Matthew Saylor, Customer Data Coordinator, Kirkland’s

Matthew is the Customer Data Coordinator at Kirkland’s, Inc.. His analytical thinking on trends, challenges and best practices have helped marketing departments create strategies and tactics that deliver value to their customers. His analysis on how brands should develop content and experiences customers will desire – and even seek out – ultimately build closer relationships with customers that drive preference, advocacy and loyalty.

Phil Sugar, VP SAAS Business Unit, Aimia

Phil is Vice President of Aimia’s SaaS Business Unit. Phil has a wealth of experience in loyalty marketing and rewards technology and helped lead the development of Smart Button, one of the most powerful, scalable and reliable systems available today.

Loyalty Marketing as a discipline is centered upon the pursuit of improving customer satisfaction and behavioral loyalty, an end goal that requires deep insights into the customer, and an ability to create experiences that influence customer thinking. Leading companies who accomplish this goal to great effect, however, are not doing so by building capabilities within the Loyalty Marketing team alone—they are embedding a deep understanding of loyalty across the enterprise, and building operating models and skills that allow them to break out of organizational silos.

Join Lenati’s customer loyalty experts to learn more from their work with leading brands like Nordstrom, Starbucks, and T-Mobile—brands who have focused on holistic, enterprise approaches to managing customer experience end-to-end to generate loyalty.

Participants should expect to leave with a clear understanding of:

• The concept and importance of an enterprise approach to customer loyalty
• An approach to developing an Enterprise Loyalty Strategy for your business
• Methods, Tools, and Tips for success
• Examples of brands who execute enterprise loyalty well

Speakers

Clay Walton-House, Leader of Lenati’s Customer Retention & Loyalty Practice, Lenati

As the leader of Lenati’s Customer Retention & Loyalty Team, Clay Walton-House helps Fortune 500 companies create and implement new and interesting customer engagement strategies that accelerate growth and build loyalty. His expertise lies in understanding consumer behavior and translating it into actionable customer insights. Clay has a proven track record of successful program design & optimization and CRM operations, helping uncover ways to build retention and loyalty strategies into a company’s broader business model. Clay has worked with clients across both B2B and consumer industries including telecom, high-tech, retail, financial services, travel, and entertainment. Past clients include Microsoft, Expedia, T-Mobile and Adobe Systems.  Clay holds a BA in Business Management from the Albers School of Business & Economics at Seattle University.

Marc Steiner, Leader of Customer & Product Strategy Practice, Lenati

Marc Steiner, a Principal with Lenati, has a passion for combining his 20 years of management consulting expertise with insights from fields as diverse as demography, anthropology, military strategy, and religious studies to help rethink fundamental approaches to product and customer strategy. Marc has worked helped companies including Starbucks, T-Mobile, Microsoft, and Adobe accelerate customer acquisition and improve retention and loyalty. He received his MBA from the Theseus International Management Institute (now EDHEC) in Sophia Antipolis, France, and BAs in Biology & Political Science from Brown University. 

Speakers

Mark Johnson, CEO & CMO, Loyalty360

As CEO & CMO of Loyalty360, Mark is committed to bringing loyalty to the forefront as a critical marketing strategy. To further this goal, he has created an unbiased, market-driven clearinghouse and think tank through which users and loyalty providers can interact and collaborate with. His finger on the pulse of what’s happening in loyalty, Mark is driven to give members the expert insight and guidance they need to develop strategies and implement programs that effectively engage their customers and employees and build stronger relationships with them. Mark has his undergraduate degree in mass communications (media management) from Miami University, an M.B.A from the University of Cincinnati, and is currently pursuing an M.B.A. in Business Information - Statistics from Xavier University.  A recognized thought leader in loyalty marketing, Mark shares his expert insights with media worldwide. He is a regular contributor to Hotel Executive and 21st Century Business and has been featured in FoxBusiness, NBC News, ABC News, New York Times, Washington Post, 1to1 Magazine, MarketingSherpa, CRM Magazine and The PrePaid Press.

MAACO desperately needed a makeover when Jose R. Costa became president of the company nearly two years ago. The Charlotte, N.C.-based retailer was a strong player in the industry, but very dormant in many aspects.
During his brief tenure, Costa has helped transform the MAACO brand from a focus on negative life events to highlighting the potential that a fresh coat of paint can give any car.
At Loyalty360’s 8th annual Loyalty Expo, Costa will detail MAACO’s amazing MAACO-ver that has transformed the brand from the 1970s to a major contemporary player. The topics Costa will discuss in this fascinating session include:
A deep focus on the customer through rebranding
How MAACO uses its rich data to better understand their loyalty drivers
The transformation of the brand and the overall customer experience
The building of the “sales offices”–and how they elevated the customer experience
Launch of first-ever MAACO concierge service in high traffic retail spaces, delivering hassle-free end-to-end customer care, generating $300K annual incremental sales per center
Training curriculum program that focuses on e-learning, on-site training, and hands-on, real-time customer training in a model shop in Charlotte
Revamping marketing approach from brand positioning to the way the company engages with customers
Since Costa came aboard, MAACO has received a “makeover” and grown to be the No. 1 franchise in its category. MAACO is North America’s Bodyshop, with close to 500 body shop locations across the continent. MAACO provides auto paint and auto body repair services for more than 12,000 vehicles a week, 600,000 a year−more than any other company in North America. MAACO has repaired more than 20 million cars since 1972.

Speakers

Jose Costa, President, MAACO

Jose R. Costa has a background steeped in franchising, marketing, unit growth, enhancing customer experience and franchisee profitability amongst some of the most recognized brands in the world. He currently serves as President of Maaco where he leads the system on the bold objective of doubling the size of the company in less than five years. Jose has extensive experience in restructuring portfolio companies for private equity firms like 3G Capital and Harvest Partners. Previously to joining Maaco, Jose was Vice President of Marketing and R&D at BURGER KING® where he grew Latin America's EBITDA from $50 Million to $80 Million in 26 months. Prior to that Jose was President of COSTA IMC, a branding and interactive marketing firm with focus on the U.S. Hispanic and Latin American segments. Mr. Costa has over 20 years of experience both on the client and agency side, working for brands like Young & Rubicam, Bank of America, PepsiCo, and YUM Brands. Jose has a Master's degree in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern University and a MBA from University of Chicago.

Speakers

Mark Johnson, CEO & CMO, Loyalty360

As CEO & CMO of Loyalty360, Mark is committed to bringing loyalty to the forefront as a critical marketing strategy. To further this goal, he has created an unbiased, market-driven clearinghouse and think tank through which users and loyalty providers can interact and collaborate with. His finger on the pulse of what’s happening in loyalty, Mark is driven to give members the expert insight and guidance they need to develop strategies and implement programs that effectively engage their customers and employees and build stronger relationships with them. Mark has his undergraduate degree in mass communications (media management) from Miami University, an M.B.A from the University of Cincinnati, and is currently pursuing an M.B.A. in Business Information - Statistics from Xavier University.  A recognized thought leader in loyalty marketing, Mark shares his expert insights with media worldwide. He is a regular contributor to Hotel Executive and 21st Century Business and has been featured in FoxBusiness, NBC News, ABC News, New York Times, Washington Post, 1to1 Magazine, MarketingSherpa, CRM Magazine and The PrePaid Press.

Speakers

Debora Haskel, Vice President-Marketing, IWCO Direct

Debora has been an integral member of the IWCO Direct leadership team since February 2000.  As Vice President of Marketing, she is an expert in marketing and creative strategies that increase response, conversion, and engagement rates, direct marketing technologies, and helping clients increase their return on marketing investment (ROMI). She is a frequent contributor to direct marketing publications and presents at numerous events and conferences including the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), New England Direct Marketing Association, (NEDMA), National Postal Forum, PODi AppForum, and MAILCOM.  Prior to IWCO Direct, Debora spent nine years with Banta Corporation where she served as a key contributor in the direct marketing segment. Debora is a graduate of Syracuse University.

Tammy Lucas, Managing Director, Marketing & Advertising, Best Western

Tammy Lucas is Managing Director, Marketing and Advertising for Best Western International. She has substantial marketing, sales and operations experience with a passion for inspiring teams to surpass goals both professionally and personally. In her current role, Tammy leads the Marketing and Advertising teams by setting the strategy and direction for key deliverables on brand advertising, digital marketing, partnerships, direct marketing and search. Under her leadership, Best Western Rewards, the chain’s loyalty program, doubled the program’s membership and revenue to member properties in less than five years, and gift card sales increased more than 50 percent. She also managed the complete overhaul and rebranding of Best Western Rewards in 2009.

How do you gain market traction and stay top-of-mind with your customers in the fiercely competitive consumer electronics market?  How do you create memorable experiences and unbreakable bonds when you are the manufacturer one step away from direct consumer interaction?  For SOL REPUBLIC, the answer is its customer loyalty program SOLdiers of Sound. 
What makes SOLdiers of Sound successful?  It is authentic to SOL REPUBLIC‘s philosophy and lifestyle brand: We are committed to incredible music experiences for everyone, and we are the saviors of sound ready to rid the world of hollow sounding headphones and speakers.  SOLdiers of Sound is a thriving community with active engagement and collaboration.  It attracts and inspires advocates.
The case study presentation will:
Describe the branding approach for SOLdiers of Sound and the importance to link the community to the company’s brand values and appeal to its target audience. 
Demonstrate the engagement aspects of the solution, including challenges, surveys, product feedback and even contests to improve displays at retail locations.
Share learnings on how to prevent gaming of the program, and the value of a flexible solution to support inclusion and exclusion of criteria such as locations and segments.
Discuss the importance of building a strong network of brand advocates, and the value SOL REPUBLIC has received from its Savior of Sounds program.
Lessons learned to support an internal build solution and the benefits of a cloud, big data loyalty solution that will grow with the company and its community.

Speakers

Kevin Lee, Co-Founder & CEO, SOL REPUBLIC

A musician and music fan, Kevin Lee mixed his love of music with the family business as the second-in-command, or The Little Monster, at Monster Cable.  During his more than two-decade tenure, he served a stint with the Apple retail management team to learn the other side of retail and propelled Monster beyond their core cable and power accessory footprint when he created Monster Music.  Later, Lee launched the most talked about, written about and prolific headphones to date – Beats by Dre.  Looking to branch out, Kevin connected with longtime industry friends to form an audio company rooted in music lifestyle.  In less than three years, SOL REPUBLIC has grown to a top-10 audio company with plans to expand even further in record time.

Kevin Nix, President & CEO, Stellar Loyalty

Kevin Nix is a seasoned executive and recognized expert in enterprise software and mobility.  He has spent 20+ years in Customer Relationship Management (CRM).  As a member of the Siebel Founder’s Circle, Kevin helped grow the Siebel Call Center business from $0-$1B in revenue and ran Siebel’s Industry Verticals (including Loyalty).  More recently, Kevin successfully built up and sold two companies: SkyData acquired by SAP, and Causata acquired by NICE Systems.

Speakers

David Hess, Head of Analytics, emnos

As Head of Analytics at emnos, David Hess is responsible for the delivery of actionable insights and solutions to emnos clients.  During his tenure at emnos, David has helped retail clients implement frameworks for customer centric decision making in marketing, merchandizing, and promotions that drive growth through increased customer loyalty. David has a Ph.D. in Cognitive/Experimental Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. His knowledge and experience with insights analysis and measurement has been acquired through his time at Sears Holding, Experian Marketing Services and SPSS (now IBM).

Lisa Zhao, Sr. Manager of Loyalty and Vendor Collaboration, Walgreens

Lisa joined Walgreens in 2014 and is responsible for the ongoing strategy, execution and evolution of Balance Rewards best customer personalized marketing program. Prior to joining Walgreens, Lisa spent 3 years as a Manager at Deloitte in their Strategy Practice. From her time at Deloitte, Lisa is an experienced consulting manager in developing and implementing strategic recommendations and operational initiatives at clients from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. Lisa has an M.B.A. in Strategy & Finance from University of Michigan – Stephen M Ross School of Business.

Mindy Heintskill, Senior Director of Loyalty and Vendor Collaboration, Walgreens

Ms. Heintskill joined Walgreens in 2011 and is responsible for the ongoing strategy, execution and evolution of Walgreens Balance Rewards loyalty program. As part of her role, Ms. Heintskill leads insights, sharing and collaboration with Walgreens’ vendors, including the Balance Rewards best customer personalized marketing program. In her roles at Walgreens, Kimberly-Clark and dunnhumby, Ms. Heintskill has over 15 years of experience working with retailers and CPGs to leverage customer level data for insights and decision making in the areas of Personalized Marketing, Merchandising and Vendor Collaboration.

Speakers

Luc Garneau, VP of Strategic Consulting Services at DataCandy

Luc Garneau is a seasoned loyalty industry strategist with an outstanding track record for implementing loyalty best practices and proven methodologies to help retailers achieve a profitable outcome for customer retention investments.  As the Vice President of Strategic Consulting Services at DataCandy, Garneau coaches retailers throughout every stage of the loyalty process. He has successfully helped companies build loyalty programs from the ground up, optimize existing processes, establish KPIs and analyze critical insights. In the past year alone, Garneau has been featured as a thought leader and speaker by leading industry publications such as Loyalty360 and Retail Touch Points on a variety of key topics:   - Key Forces Shaping Loyalty - Put Your Data to Work: Using Loyalty Program Intelligence to Make Profitable Business Decisions - 5-Step Guide to Successful Loyalty Programs - The Secret to Creating Loyalty Programs That Actually Work   As the Associate Director of Loyalty Strategy at LoyaltyOne, Garneau was responsible for leveraging the AIR MILES reward program for the Jean Coutu account by implementing a comprehensive strategy based upon customer behavior.     In his role as Vice President of Retail Quebec at dunnhumby Canada, Garneau was one of the key actors of the metro&moi loyalty scheme implementation. During his three year tenure, Garneau developed business strategies using a customer centric approach and utilized his learnings from data driven marketing initiatives to identify sustainable sales growth opportunities for clients.   Garneau launched his career at Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. and served in various company roles across a 15 year timespan. As Strategic Account Manager, he successfully negotiated a national agreement with the most important chain of convenience stores in Canada, which enabled the company to sustain consistent market share growth in a declining market. During his tenure with the tobacco product manufacturer, Garneau is credited for creating strategic models to better capitalize on business opportunities, improve operational efficiencies and, for the first time, incorporate a performance component which led to a positive ROI.

This session will provide an insight into how mobile, data, receipt processing and social media are creating new opportunities for consumer goods companies to reward both purchase and non-purchase behavior, while at the same time collecting data to understand a consumers shopping behavior like never before.

Attendees to this session can expect to take away the following:

• An understanding of how mobile optimized receipt processing can be used to validate purchase, removing the cost and inflexibility of on-pack codes
• An appreciation of how brands can tap into and reward consumers online actions in social media
• Ideas of how a brand can use freely available tools to reward consumers for achieving lifestyle goals through devices such as the Fitbit activity tracker.

Speakers

David Hargreaves, Chief Client Officer, Snipp

David joined Snipp as Chief Client Officer in November 2014 with over 20 years experience in the marketing services industry working for blue chip brands such as Virgin, Apple, Google and Facebook. As Chief Client Officer, David has responsibility for overall client satisfaction and developing client solutions for both brands and agencies across existing and new market segments. Prior to joining Snipp, David was CEO and co-founded Beyond (http://www.bynd.com), a digital brand engagement agency owned by UK firm Next Fifteen Communications Group Plc. Most recently, David was a partner at BrandGarage, based in Silicon Valley, working for blue chip brands helping them drive marketingand loyalty innovation by connecting them with the latest technology innovation. David has an MA from Oxford University.

Frank Sweeney, MD Ireland and Head of Loyalty Products, Snipp

Frank joined SNIPP in Feb 2015 as Managing Director for Ireland. Frank brings over 20 years of experience in the loyalty and payments industry leading implementation solutions across a diverse range of clients including large banks, national utilities and major retailers around Europe. Prior to joining Snipp, Frank was founder and  IT Director of 20-20insights a leading company in the field of Loyalty, Payments and Business Intelligence which was purchased by Swisspost in 2011. More recently Frank was CTO for Swisspost Solutions Loyalty Division. Frank holds a BSc (Hons) in Software engineering from Cork Institute Technology.

The loyalty industry is presently in the midst of a major transformation. The traditional model of earning points to be redeemed within your catalog is rapidly being replaced with programs offering their members greater flexibility in their reward options. The pinnacle of this migration is a portable, ubiquitous reward currency that can be used virtually everywhere. 

Attendees to this session can expect to take away the following:

• Why now’s the time to adopt a more flexible model and bring your customers what they want, where they want it.
• Timing is everything. The unique opportunity that exists for loyalty programs to differentiate.
• How and why merchants are embracing integrated loyalty program models and why this is a win – win for your program.
• How segmentation strategies can transform a new reward category into a powerful marketing tool.

Speakers

Anthony Fioto Jr., VP of Sales, North America, Loylogic

Anthony Fioto Jr is Loylogic’s VP of Sales, North America.  He is an accomplished, veteran sales and sales management executive with over 25 years of professional experience, including the last 15 in the loyalty industry.  Anthony will be leading Loylogic’s expansion in North America, building and managing his sales team as well driving the company’s business development efforts.  He has spent the bulk of his career serving clients in the financial services and travel / hospitality industries.  

Speakers

Brent Drake, Head of Platform Licensing, Under Armour

Brent Drake leads the Platform Licensing and Integration team at Under Armour Connected Fitness, a business unit of Under Armour Inc. He helps companies empower and reward their customers through verified activity tracking functionality. Brent’s experience spans technology hardware, software, services, mobile, video, and Saas. Prior to joining UA, Brent served in senior leadership roles Dell Inc, LifeSize Communications and BestFit Mobile LLC. He is an avid triathlete, outdoorsman and holds an MBA from the McCombs Business School at UT Austin. 

David Hargreaves, Chief Client Officer, Snipp

David joined Snipp as Chief Client Officer in November 2014 with over 20 years experience in the marketing services industry working for blue chip brands such as Virgin, Apple, Google and Facebook. As Chief Client Officer, David has responsibility for overall client satisfaction and developing client solutions for both brands and agencies across existing and new market segments. Prior to joining Snipp, David was CEO and co-founded Beyond (http://www.bynd.com), a digital brand engagement agency owned by UK firm Next Fifteen Communications Group Plc. Most recently, David was a partner at BrandGarage, based in Silicon Valley, working for blue chip brands helping them drive marketingand loyalty innovation by connecting them with the latest technology innovation. David has an MA from Oxford University. 

Steve Caldwell, Co-founder and CEO, Strap

Steve Caldwell is co-founder and CEO of Strap, Wearable Intelligence Software for marketers and advertisers. His thoughts on wearables have been published in Fast Company, Wired, TechCrunch and more and he has spoken at the Pebble Developer Retreat, CES, and Launch Festival. Steve has been building web, mobile and big data streaming applications in some way, shape or form for over 15 years, with a recent emphasis on wearables, big data, and sensor applications. He’s a successful entrepreneur and sold his first company, crosstek, in 2014.

This session will focus on one of the key the challenges faced by every brand – how to expand a customer’s lifetime value beyond a select set of core products.

Specifically, this session will highlight the challenges of Harley-Davidson, America’s leading manufacturer of premier motorcycles. Harley-Davidson must both strengthen their relationships with and deeply understand their customers in order to extend their lifetime value. For many Harley-Davidson customers, their bike purchase is a once in a lifetime event. This is particularly challenging for Harley-Davidson franchises that benefit from the incredible strength of the Harley brand, but also have to differentiate their own franchise brand against fierce 800-location dealer network.

The session will review an array of Consumer Management technology advancements focused on understanding consumer behaviors, building customer relationships and extending lifetime value including:

Data Centralization: With an array of consumer engagement channels, it’s becoming increasingly critical for businesses to deconstruct data silos to centralize their data in order to synthesize this information into a holistic view of the customer. Consumer Management technology integrates all data sources into a synthesized, central point.

Customer Intelligence: Gaining deep customer understanding through centralized, synthesized cross-channel data to develop a holistic view of customers along with their actions, interests and path-to-purchase. Beyond this, the insight can help identify a brand’s Most Valuable Customers (MVCs) in order to effectively develop their evangelism and construct a profile to replicate with other consumers.

Personalized Engagement: Largely achieved through the development of strategic customer segments and profiles, this allows brands to engage customers on a personalized one-to-one level in order to deliver relevancy to match their expectations and extend their engagement with a brand and its offerings.

Optimization: As consumers evolve, so must the understanding and engagement of a brand also adjust to match the needs of consumers. This requires real-time cross-channel data visibility to see the shift in trends within the market.

Speakers

Brad Marg, Chief Operating Officer, Clutch

As Chief Operating Officer, Brad Marg is responsible for the company’s daily operations, all marketing initiatives and the financial planning of the company.  Brad manages teams responsible for customer service, account management, marketing, corporate accounting and human resources.  Brad leads with strong knowledge and experience in the retail, foodservice, SMB and luxury goods sectors.  Prior to joining Clutch, Brad managed retail initiatives, drove innovation and managed cross-channel operational support at ARAMARK.  Additionally, Brad has broad range of expertise in finance, strategic development, operations and management.  Brad is a graduate of Villanova University and holds a BS in Business Administration.  Brad has also received his Masters Degree from Temple University in Marketing.  He and his family live in Philadelphia.

Shonna Smith, Customer Experience Specialist, Blue Spring Harley - Davidson

Shonna Smith’s extensive experience in the motorcycle and motorsports industries span over 15 years with a focus on marketing, customer experience and operations. Currently she serves as Customer Experience Specialist for Blue Springs Harley-Davidson, a premier Harley dealership in the Midwest. In her role she oversees experience, satisfaction and marketing for the entire customer base. Shonna's customer experience initiatives earned the Harley-Davidson Bronze Circle of Recognition Award in 2014.

Today, the True Value Rewards program is a key driver of success, delivering value to customers that compliments great in-store service and advice.  The program drives quantifiable customer engagement and allows True Value to differentiate itself from competitors.  But, it was not always this way.  A leader of Loyalty, CRM and Mobile Strategy, Sue Smolenski has worked to transform True Value Rewards by gaining a deep understanding (through data collection & analysis) of True Value retailers and customers, and building the infrastructure and retailer support to execute on those insights.  Big data, disciplined analytics and measurement now inform and drive the True Value Rewards strategies and their bold enterprise customer focused vision. 

In this session, we will share the True Value loyalty journey including:

• The early days of True Value customer loyalty marketing; what worked and what didn’t
• Overcoming the challenges of distributed retail model (and data) - Engaging retailers and other constituents
• How we refined our customer strategy using customer and retailer analytics including store and customer segmentation
• How we approach program evaluation with Campaign and Program ROI analyses
• How we taking action on our data insights from predictive and contact strategy models
• How we are now moving to enterprise customer focused strategies to win with our retailers and executives company-wide at True Value

Speakers

Barb Olson, Senior Vice President, Loyalty & 1:1 Solutions, Cogensia

Barbara Olson is a seasoned marketing executive and loyalty marketing leader with over 20 years of experience driving company sales and profitability through effective, measurable, data-driven marketing initiatives that acquire, retain, and build relationships with profitable customers. Prior to joining Cogensia, Barb worked for Best Buy leading and revamping their loyalty program, and spent 10 years with Carlson Marketing managing 10 client brands including: Visa USA, Hallmark, AMC Theatres, Carlson Hotels Worldwide, TGI Friday’s restaurants, and Radisson Seven Seas Cruises.

Sue Smolenski, Director Loyalty, CRM and Mobile Strategy, True Value

Sue leads True Value’s customer engagement strategy which includes all facets of loyalty marketing, mobile and campaign management. Sue has 20 years of experience in marketing, product development and sales in the retail and travel industries. Prior to True Value, Sue was Director of Loyalty Marketing at Sears Holdings, where she helped create and launch Shop Your Way Rewards an enterprise wide customer engagement initiative that won the 2011 Master of Enterprise Loyalty Award from Colloquy.  Sue spent over 10 years at United Airlines in leadership roles for Mileage Plus partnerships and program operations, ecommerce business development, and passenger sales. She is a graduate of Michigan State University and resides in the Chicago area.

Reinvented travel loyalty programs are the disruptors of 2015. With the landscape constantly evolving and more competitive than ever, RLHC recognized the loyalty game has forever changed.  Guest recognition is the new loyalty.  Modeled after successful retail programs,  RLHC eliminated its points based recognition with published tiers and consumer entitlements to a guest recognition program that continually rewards members with delightful surprises.  Hello Rewards knowingly recognizes guests as individuals and fuels their passions throughout their travel journey.

Key Takeaways:

• Loyalty programs don’t have to be costly.  Hello Rewards, on average, is one-third the cost of other hotel loyalty programs.
• Published tiers stratify guests and the majority of them don’t like it:  How to make every member of the program feel special.
• Relationship marketing goes beyond building a rapport with members by also incorporating partner marketing that accentuates brand positioning.

Speakers

Bill Linehan, Chief Marketing Officer, RLHC

Bill Linehan joined Red Lion in February 2014 as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. He has more than 25 years of hospitality experience, most recently as Chief Marketing Officer and Managing Director at Richfield Hospitality and Sceptre Hospitality Resources, where he led the sales, marketing and resource management activities surrounding the company's portfolio of hotels and resorts. At Sceptre, Linehan repositioned the company to become a global leader of hotel revenue technologies. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Global Marketing for InterContinental Hotels Group where he established the marketing to re-launch seven IHG brands to the development community. Linehan also previously served as Global Vice President of Marketing, Brand Alignment and Partnerships for Starwood Hotels and Resorts and held sales and marketing positions with both Hyatt and Sheraton.

Speakers

Jerel Titus, Director of Agile Business Operations, Mutual of Enumclaw

  

Seth Marlowe, Head of Customer Success, SundaySky

  

No matter your industry, whether it’s consumer products, hospitality, financial services, or publishing, how you transact and reward your consumers should depend on the person and not just the device that they carry. As specialists in crafting human-responsive technology, we’ll be discussing how simplified “transaction” solutions drive consumer participation, enrollments, purchases, and ultimately consumer loyalty.

During this session we’ll take a look at what organizations are doing right and wrong when it comes to crafting a unique consumer experience. We’ll also identify what Amazon, with all of its complexity, does better than any other online retailer, as well as review the results of a new case study from Reader’s Digest about the success of their multi-channel advertiser program.

Speakers

Bob Gold, CEO, Gold Group Enterprises

Bob is a rare combination of business entrepreneur, strategic visionary and outstanding communicator. Bob’s successful track record in creating and developing growth companies combined with his specialty focus in sales, marketing and technology, has enabled him to help companies convert their Intellectual Properties’ into  thriving businesses throughout his career. As CEO of Gold Mobile, Bob has built an emerging growth  business focused on remote patient management and  lifestyle engagement, transactions, and rewards; extending enterprise CRM, Loyalty, and Commerce programs for Healthcare enterprises and Fortune 1000 companies engaging today’s mobile patient and consumer. 

When Simonetta founded Paybay in 2007 he was thinking to create a new ecosystem where the Digital would have been the core of the relationship among customer, merchant and brand, in order to customize the best Loyalty experience ever. It is the approach that we used in Paybay to launch in 2011 Sconti BancoPosta, the merchant funded cashback loyalty program designed and developed for Poste Italiane, the biggest Italian Issuer (more than 20 MLN Payment Cards Issued). After four years, the program provided more than 50 million euro cashback to Poste Italiane cardholders, involving over 30 thousand merchants.

At the 8th Loyalty Expo, Simonetta will focus on:

• How Paybay has evolved payment card into a multiservice loyalty card, leveraging a Merchant network discounts
• How did the idea of improving “Sconti BancoPosta” loyalty program using the Paybay Multi-channel couponing-based marketing platform
• Boosting shopping on a dedicated loyalty circuit, delivering a Mobile Customer experience
• Introducing virtual currency, the perfect reward for coalition loyalty programs
• Leverage the integration among multi-channel and cloud, to provide the customer's access to his services anywhere.

Customer care and relationship to enhance the overall experience through multi-channel interaction with the brand, is what Paybay has ensured to its business customers, designing programs for a broad brands portfolio in different industries: Banking, Retail, Telco, Fashion and more, by choosing mobile technologies as a core component of a brand’s omnichannel marketing and loyalty strategy.

Speakers

Pierluigi Simonetta, CEO, Paybay

Strong business background in managing payment and value added services, combined with over twenty years work experience in defining complex payment architectures.

Successful track record in E-Payment Systems environment, both Issuing and Acquiring, creating new business models and bringing innovation in the world of payment systems through best practices recognized by the market.

Promoter into several companies leader in the e-Payments industry to build projects in Italy and Europe in different areas like card issuing and acceptance, Digital Commerce, M-Payments, Loyalty, Couponing and Digital Payment Advisor.

He realized, in January 1998, the first italian payment transaction on Internet using Visa Payment Gateway.

In 2011 he founded Paybay, digital Company with a complete expertise in Experience Loyalty, Digital Money, Couponing e Smart city.

Today the company combines technological supply and business consulting, to serve the needs of companies customers, including Telecom Italia, Poste Italiane, Enel, in order to activate strategies to expand business through multi-channel Loyalty and Promotion systems.

Strongly supported by Simonetta, the Paybay's technology offer also includes Gamified systems to activate engagement strategies, associated to multi-channel promotion systems.

In this fast-moving session, Cogensia will share 10 ideas in 20 minutes on how to make your loyalty program targeted, personalized, and relevant. Learn how to use data to engage your customers, drive more relevant offers, and ultimately, differentiate your brand.

Who is Cogensia? We are analytic, data and technology experts who uncover actionable insights about your customers to enable more profitable relationships through loyalty & 1:1 marketing. We bring a solid and experienced foundation of consumer research methodologies, data analysis, and modeling into our marketing planning process. We utilize the insights we gather and our 1:1 marketing experience to improve current programs or design new pilot marketing initiatives.

Speakers

Brad Rukstales, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cogensia

With over 25 years of delivering data-driven insight and strategies for leading brands across North America, Brad brings the perfect mix of experience, leadership and vision to Cogensia. Prior to founding Cogensia in 2001, Brad was the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Infoworks, the analytic division of Rapp Collins Worldwide.

Brad is an industry veteran with over 25 years of experience delivering data-driven insights and strategies to clients.  His experience is deep and includes Morton's The Steakhouse, Research in Motion, Ford Motor Company, Goodyear, JCPenney, Qwest Communications, Sears, Roebuck & Co., and US Bancorp, among others.

Recognized throughout the industry for his insights and knowledge, Brad has been Vice Chairman of the Direct Marketing Association's Analytic Council. In addition, he is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has authored many articles in both technical and non-technical publications.

Traditionally, loyalty has fit in a nice little box. It’s a program that you join, with steps you take to earn rewards, and then rewards you can redeem.  In recent years, that box has gotten a little larger, with a few new bows on the outside. And the role that relationship marketing plays makes strategy the goal and a program the vehicle.

Come learn more about this shifting dynamic and hear from Phil Rubin (CEO at rDialogue) and friends from leading national brands as we discuss this exciting evolution. Our roundtable will be discussing how we believe that loyalty will evolve beyond the box - to blur the line between loyalty vs. relationship marketing, and acquisition vs. customer marketing to simply become customer strategy and customer centricity.  Our panelist will provide relevant examples on how the line has blurred and become even more critical in getting marketing right.

Speakers

Julie Adams, Loyalty Manager, Cancer Treatment Centers of America

     

Phil Rubin, CEO, rDialogue

Phil has nearly 20 years of strategic marketing experience with an emphasis on loyalty and relationship marketing, integrated communications, partnership development, promotions and program development. He founded rDialogue in 2006, with consistent growth across a wide spectrum of industries and marketing models in the last seven years.

Phil leads rDialogue’s efforts to develop strategic loyalty visions for our clients, focused on the each brand’s unique relationship with its customers.  Within the loyalty and relationship marketing world, he is increasingly sought after as a thought leader, publisher and speaker.

Phil’s earlier work includes Loyaltyworks, The Lacek Group (Ogilvy) and other agencies, where Phil developed and managed loyalty and relationship marketing programs focused on consumers and intermediaries as a client both at Midway Airlines and at GTE Wireless (now Verizon). He began his career going through Macy’s Executive Training Program.

In addition, Phil is involved in non-profit leadership, serving on the boards and executive committees for the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership and the Anti-Defamation League and on the boards of The Weber School and the American Israel Chamber of Commerce.

Phil has an M.B.A. with a concentration in marketing and strategy from the A. B. Freeman School at Tulane University and a B.S. in Finance from L.S.U.

The AngieCash loyalty program incents Angie’s List’s members to perform valuable activities, such as writing a review, referring a friend, buying a product or service, renewing or upgrading a membership, etc. Launched in 2013, the program is delivering a measurable increase in these high-value customer behaviors, at less cost than Business-as-Usual marketing activities.

In this session Jon Buck, the Director of Member Engagement at Angie’s List, will talk about how individualized incentives can be used to motivate customers to perform profitable new behaviors. He will share key learnings  from the launch of the program including:

• How to pilot a program and get quick results to help build the business case internally
• How to truly measure ROI from a customer engagement program and compare it to other marketing initiatives
• Tips on how to succeed with the rollout or improvement of a customer engagement program on a site that is undergoing constant change and updates

Speakers

Jon Buck, Head of the AngieCash Program, Angie’s List

As Director of Member Engagement and Retention at Angie’s List, Jon is the head of the AngieCash program and is responsible for driving membership engagement, retention  and profitability.  He represents the program at the senior leadership level, working across departmental silos, including marketing, technology, customer service, QA and product management to ensure that AngieCash is seamlessly and effectively integrated into the Angie’s List offering in all channels.

Jon has been with Angie’s List since 2009, holding progressively senior positions in the areas of Marketing, Operations and Quality Assurance. Prior to joining Angie’s List, Jon was a Technology Analyst at Consona Corporation (now Aptean Corporation), a software company that sells Enterprise Resource Planning software. Jon holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Information Systems from Franklin College and an MBA from Indiana Wesleyan University.

Robert Jewell, Chief Revenue Officer, Exchange Solutions

Bob, a 32 year veteran of the IT industry, is responsible for spearheading the Exchange Solutions growth trajectory and field sales strategies, driving our business development efforts through the acquisition of new client relationships and expansion of our market share.

In his long history of meeting and exceeding sales targets, Bob brings a wealth of experience establishing various infrastructure, systems, processes and channel partnerships, as well as building, managing and leading sales teams in bottom line growth for SMBs as well as enterprise organizations.

Prior to joining Exchange Solutions, Bob held a wide variety of executive leadership and business development roles including Chairman and CEO of Altio; VP of Global Sales, Services and Business Development for Bowstreet; and not least of all Director of Global Business Development for Watson Solutions at IBM, where Bob led the team responsible for commercializing the Watson technology famously featured on Jeopardy! Bob holds a BA Degree in Business Administration from Westminster College.

In this panel discussion, we’ll be exploring how partnering with the right loyalty program for your business can help expand your existing customer base. Acquiring new members can often be prohibitively expensive with low ROI. The companies on the panel have all figured out ways in which they can gain new customers by tapping into existing loyalty programs without spending a lot of money. The panelists will discuss how they evaluate potential loyalty programs, how they measure success, and why loyalty programs offering rewards that are longer term investments, i.e., take longer to realize, tend to perform best. 

Speakers

Jared Schiers, VP, Access, Supply and Engagement, Survey Sampling International

Jared Schiers has been with SSI for almost two decades. In his current role, Schiers designs and manages all aspects of respondent engagement across SSI’s online panels and sample sources. This includes designing cutting edge digital marketing acquisition and engagement strategies, managing a relevant and diverse rewards program, architecting industry leading quality controls and fraud prevention techniques, and ultimately providing a relevant and engaging experience to SSI’s millions of online respondents.

In addition to his expertise in online respondent engagement techniques, Schiers has a deep background in telephone research sampling and data collection. During his 20 year tenure with SSI, he has played a number of diverse roles giving him a well-rounded view of survey research and the respondent experience. Schiers joined the Mountain West telephone research team in 1995, then was Director of Client Services and later VP, Marketing for Western Wats, which later became Opinionology. Opinionology merged with SSI in 2011.

Mike Bolmer, VP, Financial Institution & Affinity Partnerships, Barclays Bank

Michael Bolmer is Vice President, Financial Institution & Affinity Partnerships at Barclaycard US.  Michael is responsible for the overall Upromise and Sallie Mae co-brand partnership. He has worked in the Partnership group at Barclaycard US for nearly nine years holding various management positions within the Travel & Entertainment and Airline segments.  During his career at Barclaycard US, he has overseen five new co-branded credit card launches and two co-branded credit card conversions.

Prior to joining Barclaycard US, Michael spent 6 years in the credit card divisions at MBNA and later Bank of America where he held various roles in Collections, Customer Marketing Strategy, and Database Marketing.

Michael earned an MBA from Auburn University and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

Rick Schneider, VP of Business Development, Priceline Partner Network

Rick Schneider is Vice President of Business Development at Priceline Partner Network. He is responsible for growing Priceline’s unique private label affiliate network designed to build online hotel, car, air and packaging for already established and highly successful travel websites, affinity groups and privately branded loyalty programs. His accounts include AAA, Fuel Rewards, Major League Baseball, Shop.com and other highly successful organizations.

Prior to coming to Priceline, Rick was a co-founder of Travelocity Partner Network for a decade. He grew the network from zero to 8,000 worldwide affiliates.

Rick has worked with thousands of website owners while developing business in the online travel space.

Prior to Priceline and Travelocity, Rick managed the agency franchise program at Carlson Wagonlit Travel after owning his own chain of brick and mortar travel agencies in Florida.

Before his 20+ years in the travel space, Rick held a variety of positions in broadcasting including TV News Anchorman, TV News Director, Radio News Anchor, Talk Show Host and Morning Air Personality while working under his stage name of Chris Van Dyke.  He served as Executive Producer of television coverage of both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions for over 150 local stations and global networks over a twelve year period at Potomac Television Communications.

Rick is a frequent speaker on all things related to Internet Travel in the private label space. 

Sean Keaveny, SVP, Business Development, Upromise

Started his career at in public accounting, then worked in senior level corporate and operational finance roles for B-to-B publishing giant Reed Business Information. After 8 years in finance, he helped create the Reed Business Interactive Group with overall responsibility for digital advertising operations, web analytics, and e-mail marketing. After successful implementation and integration of the Burst AdConductor platform at Reed Business, he joined Burst Media to manage and grow the AdConductor ad network-building product and service line as a separate division. After successful growth with major media companies like MTV Networks, Fox Sports Interactive, BET, Parade, Inc, Starz, and others, he created and lead the Audience Platform group to provide better audience and inventory monetization strategies across all managed networks. In addition to platform licensing and branded ad network development, the division included Burst’s owned and operated performance network, Burst Direct, demand partner/exchange and channel sales, as well as direct advertising sales. In his current role at Upromise by Sallie Mae, Sean is responsible for all aspects of partner management, advertising sales, new business development, operations, customer service, and retail-focused product marketing for America’s premier “save for college” brand.  Sean graduated from the College of the Holy Cross with a degree in Economics, and lives with his wife and 3 children in the Boston area.

London Heathrow is the world’s second-busiest international airport and Europe’s premier gateway to North America. It operates some of the world’s most valuable retail space, with over 150 commercial partners comprising outlets from iconic brands such as Louis Vuitton and Burberry. Driving increased participation and basket size within that space from over 74 million annual passengers is the core objective of the Heathrow Rewards loyalty program, launched in 2013 in partnership with Comarch.

This session will explore the challenges of creating a loyalty program encompassing multiple vendors and targeted at a global and transient customer base. Learn how Heathrow has grown the program to 1.3 million members, driving incremental spend, customer insight and greater advocacy for the wider airport experience. Understand the technical innovations developed to better reward members and support commercial partners, including a unique app allowing retailers to offer instant points redemption without costly integration between ePOS systems and the loyalty engine. The session will also offer future plans for the program: unlocking new revenue streams in conjunction with third-party loyalty programs and constantly improving the customer experience; Making every journey better.

Speakers

Jerry Filipiak, CEO, Comarch Inc.

CEO and Chairman of the Board at Comarch Inc., the U.S. presence of global IT provider Comarch.

Founder of Three Data Sources Sp. z o.o. and its subsidiaries: Pictales, Pointers, Autocorrect and Taut.

Founder of SoInteractive, a Polish-based turnkey-build software house of 100, with customers in the U.S., UK, Poland, Germany, France, Switzerland and UAE.

Lives in Brooklyn.

Studied (i.e., at Virginia Tech and Cornell) and worked (i.e., for Microsoft) in the U.S. before taking some time to build technology in Europe. Interested in theoretical computer science, computer engineering, mathematical models of time space and machine learning.

Simon Chatfield, Head of eBusiness & CRM, Heathrow

As Head of eBusiness & CRM for Heathrow Airport Ltd, Simon is the owner of CRM strategy and data-driven marketing intelligence to support annual net retail sales of £1.7 billion; managing below-the-line communications, loyalty operations and associated analytics. Additionally, he leads eBusiness innovation, bringing to life the brand promise of “Making every journey better” through the implementation of digital technologies for a more personalized airport experience.

Prior to joining Heathrow in 2012, Simon spent many years in travel industry product marketing and loyalty positions in both the UK and U.S., including with British Airways in New York NY, followed by consulting assignments defining digital engagement strategy for UK blue-chip businesses including Wm Morrison Supermarkets and British Sky Broadcasting.

Loyalty has spent much of its recent history going digital – that is, evolving towards more proficient ways of identifying customers and collecting customer data, more scalable ways of personalizing communications, and more targeted ways of deploying promotions and offers.

Amidst all the campaigns and communications, amidst all the likes, pins, follows, opens, clicks, purchases, promotions and points… is today’s marketer truly succeeding in engaging authentically with customers? Moreover, is today’s digitally-enabled and empowered customer truly loyal to brands, or just ‘loyal’ to the discount on which many brands’ programs are anchored today?

Consider, for example:

• 34% of consumers wouldn’t be loyal to the brand, if it weren’t for the brand’s (loyalty) program – accomplishment, or worrisome?
• 60% of consumers don’t know if the brands they shop have a mobile app – awareness challenge, or consumer apathy?

Bond Brand Loyalty’s Scott Robinson will facilitate a sure-to-be lively discussion among this panel of seasoned marketers, as they share reactions to insights gleaned through Bond Brand Loyalty’s just released The Loyalty Report 2015, and on key topics important to marketers today: brand loyalty, mobile’s role in driving loyalty, personalization and privacy, and more.

Attendees will take leave armed with newly available brand loyalty insights and, more importantly, with immediate implications for their business as identified by this seasoned panel of marketers.

Speakers

Alison Chick, Vice President, Loyalty & Customer Intelligence, Indigo

Alison Chick joined Indigo in October 2014 and is responsible for the design and operations for our two loyalty programs, iRewards and plum. In addition, Alison oversees customer intelligence, leveraging analytics and insights to drive better data-driven decision making at Indigo.

Prior to joining Indigo, Alison was at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, for over 7 years, where she was an Associate Partner based in the Toronto office and a leader in the North American Retail Practice. She supported retail clients on a broad range of topics including go-to-market strategies, loyalty program re-design, merchandising improvements and marketing transformations. Prior to McKinsey, Alison worked at Coach and P&G. 

Alison is on the Board of Camp Oochigeas, the only camp in Canada that can provide onsite chemotherapy for children battling pediatric cancer. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an engineering degree from the University of Toronto.

Lukana Justin, Sr. Director Loyalty & Personalization, Office Depot

  

Scott Robinson, Senior Director, Loyalty Consulting & Solutions, Bond Brand Loyalty

Scott Robinson leads Bond Brand Loyalty consulting & solutions discipline and is our thought leader for consumer loyalty strategy engagements.  His focus is enabling clients with the best possible solutions for their specific objectives and environments, and ensuring Bond Brand Loyalty maintains market leadership in terms of loyalty and CRM innovation, technique and approach.  Scott has over 10 years’ experience designing, implementing and optimizing large-scale loyalty and CRM programs, and helping clients understand how to use them as stepping stones for inspiring powerful relationships with their customers.  Along with his strong experience across a number of industries, including consumer retail and financial services, Scott brings a highly disciplined analytics approach to strategy development for clients.  Earlier in his career, Scott launched and developed Bond Brand Loyalty’s Consumer Insights and Strategy Group, and spearheaded the development of the CRM principles and techniques, campaign management protocols and consumer data-driven strategy development tied to some of North America’s most celebrated loyalty programs. Scott’s current focus is the intersection of marketing and neuroscience, through his involvement with The Maritz Institute.  Scott is frequently called upon to comment in the media, and is a frequent speaker at industry events including conferences by Loyalty360, CRMC, Argyle Executive Forum, eTail, CMO Exchange, CMA and AMA.  Scott holds an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. Twitter: @scottjrobinson1