Evidence of the health of the loyalty marketing business is that my list of subjects to write about grows faster than I can type.

Yesterday, as I picked up the USA Today slipped under the door in my NY hotel room, a glossy 8 1/2 x 11 flyer fell in my lap and changed my blogging plans for the day.

“It’s Like Joining EVERY Hotel Loyalty Program. Except, it’s only one.” was the message. Flipping the piece over, the offer was clear: book  and stay 10 nights using Hotels.com and earn 1 free night at any of the 60,000 hotels offered through the site worldwide. Better yet, signing up for the WelcomeRewards™ challenge offered the chance to win 2 bonus nights over the course of 30 total nights booked.

The punch card might be the oldest loyalty tactic in town, but it works well for Southwest Airlines and for Hotels.com. I did a quick comparison and the simplified approach is not too far away from the basic value promised by traditional hotel loyalty providers Marriott and Intercontinental Hotels Group. For example, if a member of Marriott Rewards or Priority Club stays 10 nights at one of their respective properties with average room rate of $100, a free night is on the radar.

I know that Marriott and IHC offer multiple ways to boost earnings and have much more sophisticated programs overall, but for the budget driven traveler, joining WelcomeRewards™ is not a bad deal.

Interesting to me is that the program was launched in July 2008 but has had low visibility in the consumer eye. Also, given that Hotels.com is an operating company of Expedia, I wonder why the ThankYou! Rewards currency that Expedia uses wasn’t extended over to this brand.

WelcomeRewards™ comes with a few conditions (a/k/a the Loyalty Asterisk™), specifically:

• Rewards may be redeemed at “eligible” hotels, but I could not find that term defined on the web site
• The maximum value of a free night can’t exceed the average daily rate of the 10 nights used to earn the reward. You can however, choose to pay the difference if you really want to stay at a higher priced property
• Taxes, fees, meals, incidentals and any “other costs associated with the booking” are not covered by the free night
• Each loyalty credit is valid for three (3) years from date earned
• The program may be terminated by Hotels.com at any time

Summing it up, the flyer that dropped in my lap reminded me why brands continue to choose data-driven incentive (Loyalty) programs to engage and retain customers. Far too many people that I have heard from are using travel aggregator sites like Hotels.com and Expedia to shop around and then login to their frequent guest account at the airline or hotel chain of their choice to book reservations.

To break the habit, Hotels.com had to do something and WelcomeRewards™ is an easy to understand program that delivers sufficient value change a few consumer minds.

Josh Stevens is the Groupawn, striving to live off Groupons for one year. If he’s successful, Groupon gains additional publicity in extreme fashion, all for the cost of $100,000 – the carrot in front of Josh until May 2011.

I’m neither a “WegPawn” or eligible for any incentive from Wegman’s, but I am considering moving in for the summer.

The Western New York grocery chain is ranked 28th largest in the US and # 3 on Fortune magazine’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2010. In real terms they combine the best that Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, Panera Bread, and a host of QSR restaurants have to offer and provide a learning platform for any retailer hoping to drive brand loyalty and customer engagement.

And, Wegman’s seems to be creating its momentum absent of the typical array of grocery rewards programs used by competitors.

The interesting thing from a In the 2010 United States of America, there is an expanding group of people working independently and in collaborative teams to deliver high value at reasonable cost to Corporate America across a spectrum of service offers. I co-founded the Customer Strategy Network with this in mind and believe these consciously organized networks can be the tip of spear to drive innovation and efficiency in our economy over the next ten years. Chris Brogan shares an interesting post today on the meaning of independence in today’s business world which you might want to read to stimulate more thought on this subject.

With or without permanent office space, there is always the occasional need to get work done on the fly – whether on the road or in between business meetings. I don’t think Coworking was part of Wegman’s original business plan, but they offer an ideal platform for people on the move and in the process create customer loyalty for their core business.

Having just toured the East Coast of the US, I’ve had the opportunity to experience the merchandising approach of several grocery chains including Publix, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Harris Teeter, and a few other smaller players. In my opinion, Wegman’s sits above them all in creating grocery loyalty, with beautifully organized stores, reasonable prices, a fantastic array of prepared foods, and a comfortable coffee shop and dining loft where customers can relax over a meal or pound away on their laptops using the free wireless Internet.

Wegman’s is not treating customer loyalty as a fad and as a result has been on the “Best Companies to Work For” list every year since it began in 1998. The company’s mission statement outlines three beliefs that define their viewpoint on what it takes to build customer loyalty and increase intrinsic business value over time. Some excerpts:

• “We believe that good people, working toward a common goal, can accomplish anything they set out to do”
• “We set our goal to be the very best at serving the needs of our customers. Every action we take should be made with this in mind”
• “We also believe that we can achieve our goal only if we fulfill the needs of our own people. To our customers and our people we pledge continuous improvement, and we make the commitment: “Every Day You Get Our Best”"

And the absence of rewards programs?

Wegman’s discontinued a punch-card style Coffee Club in 2007 (but still offers refills for $.50) and has de-emphasized its Shoppers Club, at least in practice. Jo Natale, Director of Media Relations, shared that Shoppers Club “is still very much active”, but “since we moved to consistent, low prices several years ago (in place of short-term sales), there are fewer discounts overall, because our prices don’t fluctuate as they once did”.

Am I a Wegman’s family member? No.

Is Wegman’s perfect? No.

Could Wegman’s be more creative in collecting and using customer data & reinvigorate a fading two-tier customer club? Yes.

Despite areas of potential improvement, is Wegman’s the best example I have seen of a grocery chain delivering on its brand promise & creating grocery loyalty through merchandising and store design? Yes!

Am I really moving in this summer? No, I really like my family and will save Wegman’s visits for those on-the-fly email check ups and when I want some really great food!

I have a young daughter and being the competitive type she will sometimes challenge me to a race. There’s just one condition—I have to give her a head start. This is important, at least to her, because it increases her chances of winning—and seems to motivate her to run even faster than if we’re at the starting line together.

It’s something I thought about as I read a passage in Switch, the new book by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. They tell a story about a local car wash that ran a promotion featuring loyalty cards. Each time a customer bought a car wash, they got a stamp on their card. When the card was filled up with 8 stamps, the customer got a free wash – a concept known as punch card loyalty.

But at one point, the car wash tried something different. They gave customers a card that needed 10 stamps to qualify for a free car wash, instead of 8—except the card already had two stamps on it, effectively giving customers a “head start”.

According to the book: “The goal was the same for both sets of customers. Buy eight additional car washes, get a reward. But the psychology was different. In one case, you’re 20 percent of the way toward a goal, and in the other case, you’re starting from scratch.”

The result: those who got a head start were about twice as likely to stay in the program and redeem for a free car wash. As the book points out, it seems this group of customers was more motivated when they were partially finished with a longer journey than at the starting gate of a shorter one.

It’s something to consider in all loyalty endeavors: What if you gave new members a head-start? Would they be more motivated to stick with your loyalty program? It works with my daughter, it worked for the car wash in Switch, and it just might work for you.

Tom Rapsas is a 20 year direct and loyalty marketing veteran and heads up Creative Services at Hanifin Loyalty. He can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas

Up until a few weeks ago, I had little awareness of the InterContinental Hotels Group. Known by the acronym IHG, they operate brands like Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza which are part of the Priority Club Rewards loyalty program.

The main reason IHG hasn’t been on my radar is simple: for most of the past decade, the majority of my stays were business-related and on the company dime. So to build up maximum loyalty points for personal use, I had narrowed my hotel universe to the Fairmont Hotel group (President’s Club), as well as hotels aligned with the Hilton Hhonors program.

Over the past few weeks though, IHG has come to my attention not once, but twice.

Reason #1. IHG made a brilliant marketing move. When Hilton Hotels decided to raise the number of loyalty points required for a free hotel stay earlier this year, IHG pounced. They launched a campaign for their Priority Club rewards program that called out the changes to the Hhonors frequent guest program via a contest called the “Luckiest Loser”.

The consumer who was the “luckiest loser”—the one with the most points invested in the HHonors program—won 2 million Priority Club points. Additionally, 20,000 “lucky losers” got up to 20% of their current HHonors balance in Priority Club points. Everyone else got 1,000 points just for entering.

It was a smart move —and a great use of the IHG database. It seems they had a 50 to 60% overlap between Priority Club members and those enrolled in HHonors, making it easy to target disgruntled Hhonors members. After all, these folks had seen their stake in the Hilton program shrink by 20-25% overnight.

Reason #2. IHG saved me a few bucks. Funny how when I went solo and hotel charges began appearing on my personal card, as opposed to a corporate credit card, I began looking at hotels that were, how can I phrase this, cheap. So when I was searching for an inexpensive place to stay in New York City a few weeks back, I checked the IHG corporate site—and came up with a mid-town Manhattan Holiday Inn with an eye-popping rate of under $100 bucks a night.

So what was a $100 room in New York City like? Okay, it won’t be confused with The Plaza. But while this particular Holiday Inn was a little worn around the edges, the room was clean, the bed was more than comfy and the staff was friendly. I even got a pretty good cup of coffee in the morning.

So now I’m a member of a new hotel loyalty program, IHG’s Priority Club Rewards. I’ve already received a “thank you for my stay” e-mail which was nice. And while I dearly miss the Fairmont, until the economy picks up, I’ll be pulling out my Priority Club Rewards card a little more often.

Tom Rapsas is a 20 year direct and loyalty marketing veteran and heads up Creative Services at Hanifin Loyalty. He can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas

With March Madness about to launch into full swing, you might be dusting off your list of favorite sports bars. In South Florida, there are a lot to choose from, but there is only one that combines good vibes, good food and a decent rewards program – Duffy’s Sport Grill. If you aren’t familiar with the area, Duffy’s is operates a 20 store chain between Melbourne and Plantation on the Southeast Florida coast.  I believe the firm to be privately held and have noticed their expansion in my area through assumption of real estate from Roadhouse Grill as that chain exited locations.

The program is simple to understand, encourages repeat visits and sports an email based communications stream that provides just enough information without being intrusive. They’ve even got a decent Twitter account which seems to be following people back (the exception for many business twits) and posts about more than just their daily special.

The Club MVP program was comfortably explained by well trained staff. Enrollment consisted of completing a simple post card size form while I waited to wrap up our tab.  Name, email address, zip code and birthday were the required data to get started.I wonder if they use the zip code to manage communications – South Florida is a tourist market and maybe they tailor offers for locals and visitors.

The program awards 1 point for every dollar spent and automatically credits $10 to the member card once accumulating 100 points. Points never expire and the 10% back is nothing to sneeze at. Members can earn double points every Tuesday and those who visit 12 times in a 12 month period receive a $25 credit on their birthday.

The communications via email over the first 30 days were on target and well paced:

• After enrolling, I received a Welcome to the Club MVP program message highlighting special offers and links to get more information
• Day 4 – I received “Ways to Save Big at Duffy’s” which informed me of mid-afternoon specials at 40% off
• Day 8 – Since we were nearing the holiday season, I received an email inviting me to ” Book your company’s holiday party and keep the MVP points yourself!”
• Day 18 – Another special was highlighted having to do with Game Day Deals (food and drink specials)
• Day 30 – More Game Day Deals were touted prior to the weekend

Following this first salvo of email, they’ve been judiciously letting me know about seasonal events, gift card specials (buy $100 gift card and earn $20 bonus)  and other special offers 2-3 x per month. I can’t say that they have offered anything of a personalized nature but since they haven’t tried a survey, that stands to reason. I also haven’t noticed any email triggered by a visit or items ordered – something to consider for the future.

One competitor on the local scene is Flanigan’s, renowned to have the best ribs in town. For years the stores in our area have been offering paper based punch cards, which in my opinion are completely worthless. There is a temporary feeling of earning something when you receive the card from the wait staff, but inevitably the card is lost along with the value.

The Flanigan’s chain has fragmented ownership and just recently I saw the group that owns the Quarterdeck (near the beach and Port Everglades) going “Duffy’s style” with a plastic card that allows value to be accumulated.  Let’s see how that one works out.

The lesson learned is simple: just like cash back can be turned from a transparent reward that offers limited leverage into something more powerful with partner offers, a few tweaks to the traditional punch card used by many small – medium businesses can be made to create a loyalty program that matters.

Online retailers have a uniquely difficult challenge in building relationships and creating customer loyalty. Without a store-front to rely upon, most online retailers lead with product selection and price to attract first time buyers.

This leaves many to rely on ad words and keyword search as their only acquisition funnel. Generating repeat business, building trusted relationships, and retaining valuable customers? Those three goals can become esoteric concepts to the marketing department as they  continually focus resources on acquisition for fear of muffling the principal sales driver that works.

The first wave of internet business placed the hurdle for marketing very low. Building traffic and gathering eyeballs was all that mattered and it seemed that selling this portfolio of traffic was more the goal than creating a business model on fundamental business principles.

Web 2.0 is different. The online stores that are working operate like a traditional retailer in the sense that they have to provide product choice, quality, and good service as a minimum to succeed. The business models adopted are generally sound and the achilles heel for those single channel, pure online, retailers remains price. Price as in LOW price.

Hammer Nutrition is one pure online retailer that caught my eye. The company caters to a well defined passionate customer group, endurance athletes. But they are not allowed the privilege to compete in a vacuum as many of their supplement and fueling products (electrolyte drinks, energy bars, joint formulas) are sold by larger, heavily branded, and more widely marketed companies from GNC to Power Bar (owned by Nestle) and Clif Bar (distributed through major grocery chains, Costco, and specialty shops).

How does Hammer Nutrition compete? It stays true to the values of its founder, Brian Frank. Brian grew up in California in a progressively-minded household and caught the action sport bug early on, riding bikes, skateboards, swimming, and racing BMX and motocross bikes to the point where he won Montana State Motocross Championships in the late 90’s. Frustrated by the sparsity of quality, naturally formulated products to meet the needs of endurance athletes, he founded Hammer Nutrition during the 80’s.

His mantra from those days has survived the passage of time:  Deliver naturally formulated quality products and cement customers for life with product knowledge and trust.

A little guerrilla marketing was at the core of the Hammer strategy: provide “Race Bags” at events around the country as a cost effective way to meet the core audience for Hammer products at their moment of highest interest. If you’ve participated in any organized athletic event from a local 5K walk to an Ironman, one of the “bennies” received for your entry fee is the race day bag. The bag itself carries branding on the outside and is kind of like the athlete’s version of an Easter basket – lots of product samples and surprises inside. When I spoke with Brian a few months ago, he told me that the program now distributes over 750,000 bags across 2,200 events in North America. That’s some powerful grass roots marketing – Word of Mouth advertising at its best before the term was coined.

The impressive part of the marketing strategy at Hammer Nutrition is its constant flow of educational and product information materials, part of an overall communication stream designed to build engagement and increase customer retention. A first order will usually trigger sending of the “Little Red Book” (product descriptions and usage instructions) and a “Welcome to the Family” letter signed by Brian Frank or one of his guru partners Steve Born or Dr. William Misner.

Triggered by an array of qualifying metrics, new customers receive monthly product-focused brochures, quarterly Endurance News magazines with articles highlighting athletes of all types who have competed successfully using Hammer products, and reminder post cards with previous orders outlined to facilitate easy reorder. Invitation to join the Autoship program is packed with benefits and discounts and the Referral program has a dual benefit feature where both existing and new customer earn a discount.

An open call to any athlete to use Hammer products is made via the HammerBuck$ program which challenges customers to “Turn race day into Payday”. Over $36,000 in cash and credit was awarded to 36 winners during 2009. The program is simple, race in Hammer gear, place highly in your race, and win some cash or credits for future purchase. Talk about crowdsourcing, just think about motivating gobs of your best customers who fit your ideal profile to wear your logo on race day and give it their all to stand on the podium at the end of the day!

Granted that I may have lost some of you who hate to run, or for whom the idea of an open water swim, adventure race or ultra-marathon is greeted with a wry smile while muttering “they’re nuts!”

Look past the issue of endurance sports and you will see a sophisticated, if not home grown, communication stream that delivers on the company’s brand promise while driving business goals. There are lots of good lessons for any pure online retailer to take away from a visit to the Hammer Nutrition web site.

Will MyTeamUSA  (U-S-A! U-S-A!) attract loyal Olympics fans?

Does anyone remember the launch of the Discover Card? When introduced in 1985 as “the card that pays you back”, it really felt different from Visa and MasterCard. Forget the card’s super high interest rate—I was getting cash back on every purchase!

Times change and now the cash back bonus doesn’t feel quite so special, but an outfit called My Fan Rewards is putting a fresh spin on it. They’ve teamed with the U.S. Olympic Committee to launch a program called MyTeamUSA Rewards.

The program works like this: When you shop through MyTeamUSARewards.com, using any credit card, you not only earn cash back from the retailer—a like amount is given to support U.S. Olympic athletes. For example, shop at the Nike Store and you’ll earn 4% cash back, while 4% of your purchase is matched and handed over to the USA Olympic team.

The program is free and feels like a good way to tap into the emotions surrounding the country’s Olympics love fest. But the real test is coming: keeping fans interested in the MyTeamUSA program now that the Olympic torch at the Vancouver Winter games has been put out.

My take: a solid, targeted emotion-based communications program could do the trick. The key will be in getting program participants juiced not about the Olympics that just passed, but for the next Olympic games to come. (2012 in London, in case you were wondering.)

On a side note, My Fan Rewards is rumored to be expanding into the pro sports market next. It’s not a bad idea, as professional sports teams showing fans a little return love could help ease the grumbling about ever-increasing ticket prices.  (Of course, let’s hope the cash rebates will be a one-way affair, and go straight into the pocket of the consumer!)

Tom Rapsas is a 20 year direct and loyalty marketing veteran and heads up Creative Services at Hanifin Loyalty. He can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas

My Dad taught me the value of money. Cash is King and all that.

A dollar is a dollar, that can’t be denied. And, those dollars are increasingly hard to come by with the demands of business pressing harder on most over the past two years.

With my mind on cash and flipping through the latest issue of Costco Connection at home the other day, I couldn’t miss the half page announcement that at Costco, February is REWARD TIME. For holders of the  True Earnings Card® from American Express and Costco, shoppers can earn 1% on all Costco purchases and up to 3% back on other purchases including travel, dining out, and gasoline purchased at the Costco store. Business cardholders enjoy a similar offer, topping out at 4% for gas purchases.

Rewards accumulate all year long and, just as folks are thinking of flowers in the spring, the annual disbursement of rewards checks is made each February. The certificates are able to be used for in-store purchases only and expire in about 6 months on August 31.

Costco, in their partnership with American Express, reinforces that a dollar is in fact a dollar. But does it have to be so?

The Costco cash back rewards model has weakness on two levels. First, with consumers interested ever more in redeeming early and often, are they willing to wait one entire year to enjoy their rewards? Actually, the real question is not if they are willing, but if they will consistently alter shopping behavior over this extended period of time. Second, the once a year model is less likely to encourage an extra shopping trip to Costco as it becomes a way to make a regular trip “cheaper” when the coupon is redeemed.

Can Costco do better? You only have to look at far as Target and Tescos to find an answer.

Tescos is the undisputed king of grocery loyalty and may be the undisputed heavyweight champ of leveraging the customer data it collects to drive value for customers and results for the business. Tescos Clubcard is based on cash back rewards, but manages to  turns a dollar (Pound Sterling) into two as it offers Tesco Clubcard holders double the value of their vouchers when applied to purchase of a range of popular items in-stores and online. They even have a nifty rewards calculator to help customers build excitement.

Even before the latest announcement, customers could spend their Clubcard vouchers at face value in-store and online or increase the value up to four times by selecting rewards offered by Tesco Clubcard partners including restaurants and entertainment venues.

Target announced they are testing new offer combinations with their private label and cobranded credit cards. Instead of the usual “10% off today’s purchase” incentive to take a store charge card, Target is testing everyday rebates between 3-5%  on all store purchases made with the card.  To me this means they are testing incentives to drive repeat purchase and retention rather than simply acquisition.

While it is not different in structure from the Costco program and there is no leverage on specific items purchased like Tescos offers its members, the test does create an incentive to increase visit frequency and the rebate is higher than the industry norm.

Focus group members may have spoken that “cash back is king” for years, but a closer look reveals that the pure model doesn’t breed stickiness to the brand.

Target is experimenting with changes and Tesco has already shared a partial answer key to the test faced by all retailers – how to keep customers coming back for more.

A small firestorm over the efficacy of Loyalty Marketing programs broke out over this past weekend thanks in large part to an article written by Joanne Kaufman for the Wall Street Journal.

Ms. Kaufman recounts a telling tale of how her own household purchase behavior adapted to take advantage of rewards programs from Duane Reade to Starbucks to the local pizzeria and shoe store, only to be thoroughly disillusioned by an in-store experience at Duane Reade.

It seems that her son was shopping at the store and had his rewards card rejected with a less than satisfactory explanation from the cashier that Duane Reade was in a “blackout” period prior to launching a new and improved customer loyalty program. According to Ms. Kaufman, worse than the blackout message was the discovery that points previously earned in Duane Reade’s Dollar Rewards™ program would not be honored in the new program.

There are several lessons to be learned here and a few questions raised as well.

First, some background: On Jan. 15, Duane Reade announced it was launching FlexRewards™, a replacement program to Dollar Rewards™, the Company’s previous customer rewards program. The new program was to be in effect on Jan. 16. On Feb. 17, Walgreens announced that it was acquiring Duane Reade, the largest drug store chain in New York City.

The Questions:

1. What influenced the timing of Duane Reade’s launch of a new program when they were (presumably) deep into the final negotiations of the sale?
2. Regardless of the answer to #1, how could someone within Duane Reade, a company recently complimented for its customer facing marketing efforts, have been lulled into allowing the “your old points don’t count” feature to come into play? Have a look at the message on the graphic here “The old card works (just not in our store). I clicked everywhere I could on the program website and could not find an explanation for this disconcerting message.
3. Could Duane Reade have found a better way to communicate the program transition to its members? Why, oh why, does business place the burden of communications on cashiers at the point of sale? It’s an unfair burden on the position with highest turnover in the store and one that does not serve the corporation well.
4. Walgreens has a lightly advertised rewards program “Walgreens Rewards“. Will they do away with this program or will they launch something that allows consumers to earn and accumulate points at any Walgreens-owned property?

Some answers are easier to guess at than others.

The announcement by Walgreens regarding Duane Reade mentioned specifically that it would allow the chain to continue to operate under its own name. That said, launching an upgraded program might have seemed business as usual to Duane Reade marketers. Needless to say, there needs to be some damage control from Duane Reade as an operational faux pas of this nature intensifies consumer ire towards consumer rewards programs.

The most interesting question to speculate about has to do with the future of the Walgreens customer strategy.

The current program “Walgreens Rewards” offers rewards on specified products purchased using a Walgreens Card®. The value proposition does not seem clear or particularly strong and there are many product restrictions which limit earning power for members. One strong program feature is the ability to pass the Walgreens Card at the point-of-sale and instantly be credited for rewards.

As far the new Duane Reade program itself, it seems that the earning power from its predecessor has been reduced. The current offer is for customers to spend $250 to receive a $5 cash back offer. This equates to a 2% earn rate, less than the 5% offered by the previous plan according to the WSJ.

FlexRewards™ offers members lower prices on many items and rewards that can be spent on the spot at point-of-sale or can be saved up for larger rewards. Clumsy paper coupons which could be easily lost by consumers have been traded in for electronic points tracking online. Points issued never expire provided a purchase is made every 26 weeks, a generous definition of an “active” customer in the pharmacy space to be sure.

According to Joe Jackman, Acting Chief Marketing Officer, Duane Reade “customers had spoken and wanted more easily attainable rewards”, adding “half of customers in our old program didn’t even redeem their reward coupons because there were too many restrictions”.

It certainly seems that the strategy cooked up by Duane Reade is headed in the right direction and had increased customer engagement as a key objective. The company even introduced a new “Super Saver” tier to reward higher spending customers at a faster pace and with more flexible rewards.

Contrast the two programs at Walgreens and Duane Reade and you should not be surprised to see either the Duane Reade program extended (in structure if not by name) to include Walgreens stores or some new program from Walgreens that would at least improve upon the current offer. The more inclusive, the better as customers will respond well to a program that allows points accumulation at both Duane Reade and Walgreens stores.

Lessons:

1. Execution nearly trumps strategy these days.  My old boss, Pat LaPointe, coined the phrase “Technology enables, but imagination wins”. Based on what clients are telling me today, I have modified the mantra this way: “Technology enables, imagination wins, but flawless execution will save your job!”.

2. Expectations for Customer Communication are higher than ever. Consumers have access to more information than ever and expect clear, transparent messaging. Anything less sets you up for what Ms. Kaufman called “Loyalty Betrayal”.

3. Staff training and incentives will trigger better program results. Turnover at the point-of-sale is difficult to control but an effort can be made to provide front line personnel with sales aids, inexpensive “take-me’s” and similar POS material to make the job easier for overburdened staff. Offering incentives for those that learn and deliver the message would help also.

Just a few months ago, on these very Loyalty Truth pages, I gave kudos to Caesars Atlantic City and its Total Rewards loyalty program.

During some trying times for the economy in general, and Atlantic City in particular, Caesars AC was making some smart moves to get its loyalty program members back to the casino.

Last week, Caesars AC got my attention again. But not in a good way. You see, they ran a rather bizarre full-page ad in the Sunday NYTimes magazine.

Let’s start with the image in the ad: a well-dressed 30-something guy has a pretty woman to his right. She has one hand on his shoulder and another wrapped tightly around his arm. It looks like they’re at a show. Okay so far, except our guy seems more interested in another woman to his left. He has his lips to her ear and her extended arm appears to be resting on his thigh.

Under the headline “The Life You Were Meant to Live“, the stilted copy reads:

Who is that in Section A, Row 1, Seat 5, having the time of your life? That’s Todd. Flanked by your fiery vixens. Paying no attention to your favorite band on stage. But give credit where it’s due. Todd is an escape artist. And when it’s time for a getaway, he get it’s right.

What!?!

Putting aside the confusing use of the possessive “your”, who are the fiery vixens with Todd? Am I supposed to pretend I’m Todd…on some kind of a three-way tryst? Is this what they mean by “he gets it right?” More importantly, did Caesars’ market research show the ménage a trois market to be a growing demographic?

Personally, I can only think of one word for the ad – Stupid.

Instead of creating a scenario that the largely upscale readership of the NYTimes magazine might be able to imagine themselves in, they’ve come up with a fictional character in a contrived situation that’s a non-starter for anyone not in the “swinger” category.

It of course begs the question, what were they thinking? The only thing I can come up with is that Caesars AC is trying to out Vegas-Vegas.

Sorry Caesars, as much as I like you and your loyalty program, you’re no Vegas. And there are better ways to spend your precious marketing dollars.

Tom Rapsas is a 20 year direct and loyalty marketing veteran and heads up Creative Services at Hanifin Loyalty.  He can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas