Loyalty, restarted

The problem

Two point one million members, four per cent active. The scheme rewarded spend at a rate too small to notice and required an app almost nobody had installed.

It had been running for six years, which made it politically difficult to admit that it was not working.

What we did

We kept the member base and threw out the mechanic. Points became progress against a visible next reward, the app became optional, and the whole thing worked from an email address at the till.

Then a twelve-week test in one region before the national rollout, with a real control group.