Customer loyalty is dynamic, compelling and changing all the time. Awareness of a loyalty program’s importance was once relegated solely to a handful of sponsors of a program at a company, or those of us toiling in our industry to support the program. Today, loyalty programs are an enterprise initiative — reflective of the customer experience of brands, managed by customer service, finance, marketing, operations and IT, driven by segmented media and consumer campaigns, and expected to drive ROI, fostering lifelong connections and creating lifetime brand value.
The loyalty and customer experience landscape has been positively impacted by several exciting trends:
- The analyses of Big Data which derive meaningful consumer behavioral insights. We challenge ourselves and our clients to use it to create genuine experiences versus the more simplistic points-for-rewards stereotypes
- The need for devices and channels (think smartphones, tablets, digital signage, kiosks, radio, TV, print, etc.) to create a consistent customer experience. We need to build omnichannel loyalty programs, and then mine the data sets they create
- The importance of having programs that appeal to both the rational and emotional sides of the brain — emotional connections can include elements of gamification and social media, while rational are the tangible rewards e.g. discounts or coupons
These trends – and other insights – form the backbone of the Kobie Knowledge Quarterly Review. Our goal is to bring to you loyalty landscape commentary and analyses of where the loyalty industry is heading. We welcome conversations about loyalty through our observations, commentaries, insights and, in some cases, criticisms of the developments taking place.
We hope the Kobie Knowledge Quarterly Review leaves you with a greater appreciation that customer loyalty isn’t just about the program itself. Or even solely for driving ROI and heightening customer engagement. Loyalty, the bond an individual makes with another, is central to the human condition. It’s about reciprocity, faith, trust and at its greatest intensity, a type of moral obligation, akin to the connections we forge with family and friends.
Brands and businesses, the best ones, are no different.
Michael Hemsey, President
Kobie Marketing, Inc.
#ThroughGlass : An Introduction to Google GlassNick Moline
I was recently asked to give a presentation about Google Glass down in Saltillo Mexico at a tech conference there. These were the slides from my presentation (Video coming soon)
Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields: ' used to live in a commune where mus...Dj Rama
Is it ingrained in him that this is the perfect length for a pop song? “It’s ingrained in everyone in Gen X or earlier,” he says. “It used to be that seven-inch singles were 2 mins 50 in length maximum – this is before Bohemian Rhapsody and such epics were considered singles.” It’s much more rare for him to write a song that lasts around five minutes. “That’s long to me, yes, both in my tastes and musical output. I like bubblegum and experimental music so I’m comfortable with two minutes and I’m comfortable with six hours.”
A complete biography on rock musician Ozzy Osbourne. I put this together for a class project a few years ago. It is a very detailed and very long show.
3. 62MARCH 2008
music
Stylist: EMMA PRITCHARD.
Photographer’s assistant: DAMIAN SIMMONS.
Stylist’s assistant: ELIZABETH YOON.
Location: MORIMOTO, NYC.
YS BY YOHJI YAMAMOTO shirt.
Moby’s own glasses.
4. MARCH 200863
music
“
This particular album is sort of a concept record,” Moby says of his
March release, Last Night (Mute Records). “It’s me trying to make a
record that somehow reflects what I would hear if I went out on the
Lower East Side on a Thursday night.” In fact, Last Night is an eight-
hour long crazy night on the town condensed into a 65-minute album.“I was
sort of envisioning my ex-girlfriend going out,” he explains. “It starts with
her listening to music while getting ready. As the night progresses, it gets a
little weirder and atmospheric. Then it ends in this almost reflective beatific
place.” Upon noticing the stupefied look on my face, the humble beatsmith
kindly elaborates: “You’re in a nightclub, and it’s 4:30 in the morning. The
lights come on. You leave, and go to someone’s apartment. All of a sudden,
after six or seven hours of griminess, you’re sitting on someone’s roof
surrounded by plants and trees while the sun comes up.”
Although Moby is a bona fide international superstar with a list of
hits that date back to 1991, starting with the UK hit “Go,” he comes off as
more of a boy next door than a celebrity, especially when he discusses two
of his favorite shows, The Simpsons and Family Guy. “I’ll always love The
Simpsons,” he confesses with a smile. “I used to be really obsessive about
that show, but Family Guy is so unbelievably funny and edgy that I almost
feel like The Simpsons is playing catch up.” After 19 seasons, The Simpsons
has ruled the pop culture scene even longer than Moby himself. When the
series originally aired its fifth season in 1993, he was busy touring with
The Prodigy, Orbital and Aphex Twin. By the show’s eighth season in
1996, Moby was on tour in Europe, alongside the Red Hot Chili Peppers,
promoting the message-driven electro-rock album Animal Rights. The
pinnacle of his mainstream success came in 1999 with the release of Play,
an album that sold nine million copies worldwide and was nominated
for the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance.
However, to this day, Moby has yet to receive a much-deserved Grammy.
Of course, winning a Grammy was the farthest thing from Moby’s
mind when he was rocking out to bands like Joy Division and The Clash
as a kid. “The one area of music I’m perfectly comfortable being nostalgic
about is early punk rock,” he exclaims. His mother was a classical pianist, so
he grew up playing classical music, but that all changed the instant he got a
guitar. “When I was a punk rocker in high school, I hated electronic music,
and I only ate at McDonald’s and Burger King,” he admits.“There’s a certain
irony that five years later I was making electronic music and I was a vegan.”
Moby’s evolution continues with the launch of MobyGratis.com, a
website that allows students, not-for-profit filmmakers and visual artists
to incorporate his music into their films free of charge. His goal is to enable
filmmakers to spend their time making movies rather than contacting
record companies to license music. He’s also helping to raise funds for the
Institute for Music and Neurological Function (IMNF), where researchers
investigate the actual effects of music on different types of physical and
neurological trauma. “I looked at what they were doing, and I was just
stunned,” he explains. “What’s amazing is you can have someone who’s
had a terrible stroke and lost the ability to speak, but they can still sing.
Once you get them to start singing again, they [can] rebuild, in their brain,
the ability to speak again.”
While Moby appears to be one of the busier philanthropists of 2008,
it’s easy to forget that all of his contributions to society stem from an
appreciation for music and the club scene. “When I started deejaying in the
early ’80s, I was going to clubs in New York all the time,” he says with a
smile. “I really fell in love with black and Latino music of the ’80s. So when
I started making my own electronic music, it was very inspired by dance
music.” And on Last Night, not only does Moby capture the essence of that
New York party scene, but, by fusing it together with his brand of emotional
orchestrations, he modernizes it. SAM FRANK
“When I was a punk
rocker in high school,
I hated electronic
music, and I only ate
at McDonald’s and
Burger King,” he admits.
“There’s a certain irony
that five years later I was
making electronic music
and I was a vegan.”
