Rethinking Loyalty

Foreword

Welcome to Rethinking Loyalty – an anthology that brings together some of our most insightful thinking on loyalty and personalisation from across the past year and how we see the future being reshaped.

The starting point for this collection is a simple but uncomfortable truth: loyalty programmes have become too easy to copy. Years of well-intentioned discounting have created widespread “discount apathy”, leaving customers free to drift between schemes that look and feel interchangeable. As economic pressure continues, retailers are being forced to confront a harder question – not how much value they give away, but what their loyalty proposition actually stands for.

That shift in thinking runs through every piece in this anthology. Loyalty is no longer something that lives neatly inside a programme. It is becoming a continuous relationship, shaped by personalised engagement across apps, stores and touchpoints. Offers still matter, but they sit alongside tailored content, experiences and journeys that reflect the customer’s broader behaviour, not just their last transaction.

Much of this is being enabled by foundations retailers have already built. Heavy investment in first-party data, customer identity and analytics is beginning to pay off, as native AI and automation move loyalty closer to real-time relevance. At the same time, a more confident use of blended data – from context and location through to financial and behavioural signals – is expanding what personalisation can realistically deliver.

As loyalty matures, it is also becoming more creative. New funding models are emerging, blending retailer, supplier and retail media investment. Member pricing is being used more strategically. Product-based rewards, social commerce and embedded loyalty across wider ecosystems are opening up new ways to deliver value that feels personal, distinctive and aligned to brand.

Finally, there is a growing conversation about what comes next. Agentic shopping and AI-mediated decision-making may still be nascent, but they raise important questions about how loyalty works when customers increasingly rely on digital assistants to guide choice. The response, as explored throughout this anthology, lies in designing propositions that are optimised for new decision systems while remaining meaningful to the people behind them.

Taken together, the articles that follow reflect a shared direction of travel. Loyalty is moving beyond points and discounts towards something more intentional – more personal, more creative and more deeply connected to brand strategy. Our hope is that this collection helps you navigate that shift with clarity and confidence.

We hope you find it useful.