I’ve been in Kraków this week, on stage at the Comarch User Group 26 with Paula Thomas and Nyeleti Nyeleti Sue-Angel Nkuna from the Let’s Talk Loyalty team. Paula is presenting her research on the world’s largest loyalty programmes. I am sharing the best stories on data, engagement and personalisation from the brands we have had the privilege of interviewing on Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV.
Two days in, six things stand out. Not as trends to file away, but as strategic imperatives for anyone running a loyalty programme right now.
1. AI is the revolution. But human connection is still the product.
There is no ignoring it. 42% of the most complex questions put to AI are now answerable by it. China is deploying AI faster and at lower cost than anywhere else in the world. The pace is extraordinary.
But here is what the most experienced practitioners in this room keep coming back to: AI should power the background of your loyalty programme, not the front. The technology should make your programme faster, smarter, and more precise. The experience your customer has should feel like a human being who understands them, not an algorithm that has profiled them. Seamless, insightful, and genuinely personal. That is the balance the industry is working hard to get right.
2. Emotional loyalty is not a nice-to-have. It is the differentiator.
The programmes that consumers genuinely value, the ones they would fight to keep if forced to choose, are not the ones with the highest earn rate or the most features. They are the ones that create a real emotional connection.
Our own Truth and BrandMapp Loyalty Whitepaper, now in its tenth edition, confirms this in the South African market. 85% of South Africans actively use loyalty programmes. The average member is enrolled in 10.4. But usage is not the same as loyalty. The question every programme manager should be asking is not how many members they have. It is how many of those members would genuinely miss them. We gain insight into this sentiment in the whitepaper when we reveal which loyalty programme can you not live without. This is a true indicator of emotional loyalty.
3. Customer lifetime value requires courage.
Several presentations at Comarch made the same point from different angles: the industry is still too focused on short-term metrics. This year’s campaign results. This quarter’s redemption cost.
The brands that are winning long-term have made a deliberate choice to focus on customer lifetime value instead. That often means driving a higher redemption rate, investing more in retention, and resisting the pressure to optimise for this year’s numbers at the expense of next year’s relationships. It requires courage at a leadership level. But the data on customer lifetime value makes the case clearly, and the brands that have made this shift are reaping the rewards.
4. Loyalty data should serve the customer, not just the business.
It was confirmed repeatedly across the presentations: a loyalty programme is the most effective customer-focused mechanism for gathering meaningful data. But the question is what you do with it.
A simple example shared was e.l.f. Cosmetics. On registration, they ask members a detailed set of questions about their skincare, their age, their preferences. Not to build a targeting database. To immediately start serving that customer better. The data informs the brand experience from day one. That distinction, using data to serve rather than simply to sell, is what separates programmes that build genuine loyalty from those that merely track behaviour.
5. Authenticity is a strategy, not just a sentiment.
One of the most powerful insights highlighting loyalty authenticity came from HomePro in Thailand. Their loyalty programme incentivises members to recycle old appliances, fridges, microwaves, items that would otherwise become toxic waste. The result: 6,000 vans of appliances recycled, the equivalent of planting two million trees.
This is not a box-ticking exercise in corporate do-gooding. It is a loyalty mechanic that connects members to something they genuinely care about, rewards them for doing the right thing, and creates a relationship between the brand and the customer that goes well beyond a transaction. It is one of the clearest examples I have seen of what authentic loyalty design looks like in practice.
6. At the top tier, status beats points every time.
For your highest-value customers, the conversation about points and cashback becomes increasingly irrelevant. What they want is recognition. Access. Experiences that cannot be bought.
The conference explored how top-tier customers are emotionally connected to their status, but sometimes not necessarily to the brand that granted it. Status match programmes, where a customer can transfer their top-tier standing from one brand to another, particularly common in airlines, illustrate this clearly. Customers will follow their status. The implication for programme design is significant: if you want to retain your best customers, you need to offer them something that status alone cannot replicate. That means invitation-only access, genuine personalisation, and experiences that make them feel known, not just ranked.
Closing thought
The theme connecting all six of these points is the same one that runs through our Truth and BrandMapp research: the loyalty industry has matured past acquisition. The work now is about depth, not breadth. About building programmes that earn a permanent place in someone’s life, not just a slot in their wallet.
