I’d always liked these guys and we were going to build a program with competitor Backcountry 2 years back until they back-treaded a bit…..but take a close look at Moosejaw…this is a powerful programs…simple benefits, but what i like most….look how easy they allow you to use points OR $$$ to buy…this is the new world order and what consumers expect and demand..other than 50% off everyday

WSJ reports brands loyalty is down as private label and price trumpeting it.  While its sort of obvious, it really means brands need to work harder and smarter to give their more profitable customers continued reasons to engage and support the brand.  It means reinforcing the brand message, rewarding most profitable customers with thanks and recognition and continued work to improve brand perception and value amidst the economy’s fury…

OK.  Now can you think of a set of brands more likely to get crushed in today’s economy that Williams-Sonoma?  There sell aspirational merchandising via traditional direct marketing methods and sit on lots of expensive stores.  Their product is increasingly copied elsewhere and their marketing is so traditional and so mail heavy—-we’ve been waiting for this shoe to drop for a year now.  In San Francisco, first it was Gap being woken out of bed—now its Williams-Sonoma’s turn.….expect fewer brands and a company at best 50% the size within a year.  The resumes have been flowing out for months now….

Well, Loyalty Lab lost this one—we were in there and thought we had a espresso shot of being their partner but they went to the agency of record and built on top of First Data, their POS gift card vendor.  Its a solid program and well designed——will it work?  You betcha.

The Wall Street Journal today offered advice regarding storing customer data. Their point of view – which I concur with – is if you don’t use your customer and credit card data, don’t bother taking the risks in storing it. My view is – if you store this data, mine it. Ensure custom messaging, offers and insights flow from each megabyte of data you store. Data is like sand in a sandbox. If you have kids and they use the sandbox, it’s great. If you don’t have kids, and there are cats in the neighborhood, don’t keep sand in the sandbox. It ends up being quite a negative experience.

Best Buy emailed all its members promoting them to a ‘Black’ loyalty program tier. But then said ‘Sorry—just kidding’. Imagine 5 million members being told, ‘Sorry, we didn’t really mean to invite you to our new party’. It is critical that brands run test lists and be super careful at the trigger. This is a costly mistake and surprising for a mature program.

The days are over when a 10% marketing spend on online ad campaigns cut it. The pendulum has shifted – and your commitment to engage in a more meaningful online experience is required to hook your most important buyers or buyer influencers.

But it’s not easy and the stakes are high. Getting her attention and keeping it requires that you understand the difference between phony and real, and that your creative agency or marketing partner really ‘gets’ what makes her tick.

My 5 requirements to being successful in this new online ad world:

1. Make your hot new products ‘virtual’ and tradable online–allow your potential customers to forward, share, show-off and try-on your latest fashion, vacation or benefit.

2. Extend into Facebook (and perhaps MySpace). This may require a media buy. But this is likely where she is, and if you think you can build a social island without connectivity, your ad dollars will be wasted.

3. Tie into celebrity or something super-topical. Your new product might be hot – but your definition of hot is nothing compared to Britney, Paris or this week’s new Hollywood release and intra-celeb du jour.

4. Make sure your physical stores (if you have them) aggressively bounce-back to your online promotion and vice-versa.

5. Have a brand or product that has the potential to be talked about as new. Last year’s styles and commodity products need not apply.

Today’s WSJ article got me thinking.

We’ve always been loyalty snobs but yesterday’s news on Amazon entering the market Amazon To Focus On Customer Loyalty Points is truly great news. Amazon is opening up their backend and allowing third parties to create ‘reward centers’ based on 3rd party products. This makes it that much easier to offer aspiration rewards. Less need now to secure dedicated third party fulfillment relationships with traditional older-school firms like Maritz Marketing.

Note –Amazon is only entering the fulfillment side of the business. But it’s another great leap for cloud computing. As more and more functionality is available via web services, the better and easier it will be to build powerful loyalty programs!

Dave Friedman at Razorfish speaks succinctly when he says ‘the home page really doesn’t matter’. This may be really important for Marketers to understand and track over the short term. With the rise of cross-linking, social media and brand name recognition, authorities or friends you trust now recommend (or syndicate or digg) you interesting information. Home pages are but a billboard to anyone who doesn’t know you, or if they are finding you in an offline environment.

Read this carefully.

No surprise that the real growth in payment types is in the debit and prepaid side of banking. Credit cards are increasingly feeling like ‘an old man’s product’ as the youth continue to use the debit card they were given at college, etc. The unbanked, non-resident population, and perhaps those with a blemished credit history, are seemingly gravitating toward some type of debit vehicle. The non-stop coverage this summer on excess credit card debt surely doesn’t help the marketing efforts for new credit cards either.

Read today’s article from Retail Wire.