Of all the email that fills my box during the Christmas season, a survey will always get my attention.

In a research project conducted by Hanifin Loyalty in 2009, we found that across 22 rewards programs in the Airline, Hotel, and Retail sectors, only 1.56% of total email sent was a survey. Considering that a stated objective of most loyalty programs is to create a dialogue to better understand customer preference, that figure seems low.

Tropicana sent me a survey this week in connection with its Juicy Rewards program. It was brief and focused on determining which rewards were most appealing to members.

Loyalty Truth reviewed Juicy Rewards in this post and we noted that the value proposition was strong given the value delivered for money spent. Looking under the “orange peel”, the value is made possible as most rewards are discounts on partner purchases, rather than hard dollars or merchandise.

My Loyalty Asterisk™ – sense tells me that Juicy Rewards members might have engaged by entering lots of codes, but redemption is either low or members have complained about lack of choice. Whatever the reason, Tropicana was smart to inquire if I was interested in using my points for a sweepstakes, donating to a charity, or for longer term saving to cash in for a more substantial reward.

They probed for my tolerance in accumulating points over time, asking what types of rewards I preferred over a 1,3, or 6 month period of time. Lastly they asked about specific charities and reward types I wanted to see in the program and even allowed space to write in my own preferred charity and reward item. I doubt that free entries to a sold out Ironman event got many votes, but I made my voice known.

Where the survey missed the mark was in not asking who they were talking with.

Let me explain: My wife does most of the shopping and probably didn’t even notice the on-carton information about Juicy Rewards. If she had, she would not have taken time to enroll as she would not be the type to enter codes online.

Only this Loyalty nerd would squint long enough to read the small-print codes on the carton and then take time to enter them online just to see what happens next. A consequence of this typical household scenario is that my wife changed juice brands without notice a few weeks ago. Probably there was a coupon or special on another brand and she went with the savings.

Suddenly our consumption of Tropicana came to a screeching halt and our participation in Juicy Rewards probably reflected the shift in behavior. If someone was looking at the data behind the scenes at Tropicana, they would notice this drop-off and could have sent me an email nicely reminding me that they are still on the shelves of my local grocer.

Just as important, they should have started the survey by asking if I was the one who did the grocery shopping in my house and, if not, request the contact info for the family member who did. Not everyone would volunteer this additional data, but its worth a try.

Congratulations to Tropicana for sending me a focused survey and allowing me to express my opinions to improve the program in my eyes. Knowing who you are talking to is absolutely fundamental to creating powerful insights from data and Tropicana missed the mark here.

To improve most loyalty programs today, we don’t have to come up with the next brilliant idea, we only need to execute fundamentals with greater discipline and attention to detail.

That’s how you can squeeze more juice out of any database.

Amazon announced it is selling more Kindle books than hardcovers, the US Postal Service is in jeopardy, and Continental Airlines will begin allowing travelers to scan themselves on board flights. As change marches on, what other familiar aspects of our lives will join the milk-man in a mythical global retirement home?

Keep an eye on traditional points-based loyalty programs, because they just might be next.

Points programs have been around for decades because, as my friend Jim Ryan told me, “they work”. Jim, the former CEO of Carlson Marketing, knows this business cold and although we both agree that points-based loyalty currencies are an effective medium to change & measure consumer behavior, the companies which foot the bill for these programs are increasingly opting for something different.

I did a market scan recently and found a few examples of how Loyalty Marketing is being redefined:

• Ford ran its “Fiesta Movement” campaign (to be profiled soon in Loyalty Truth) over a year ago, recruiting 100 agents to drive a Ford Fiesta and document their experiences through written and video blogs. The results? Ford created over 11 Million social networking impressions, created a 37% awareness of the new car across Generation Y (Millennials), and enjoyed one of the best new car introduction campaigns in years.

• Tropicana launched Juicy Rewards, a hybrid of the on-carton coupon model which typically requires consumers to enter codes online till their fingers bleed in order to win something of value akin to a paper clip. The difference here? Tropicana has aligned itself with a strong portfolio of merchants offering discounts that equate to 5X the value of the product purchase price.

• Clorox launched CloroxConnects, a social site that serves three key audiences, consumers, partners, and employees. Better described as an Engagement Platform, Clorox encourages participation from each group and awards badges and recognition rewards based on proprietary game mechanics.

Don’t miss the subtlety of these new loyalty program formats. Each program has well defined business objectives, predictive analytics and financial modeling are used to refine audience targeting, and a loyalty processing platform is needed as the backbone to run the program in most cases.

In other words, the fundamentals to engage, interact with and retain customers remain consistent. The key difference is that instead of keeping score by awarding points, companies are moving towards scoring as much by social behaviors as transactional.

For the past 30 years, Loyalty programs have been designed by Boomers for Boomers. The influence of a digitally connected generation is more apparent than ever, and consumer engagement will only happen if you re-tool marketing strategies to embrace the Millennials and others who want more transparency and immediacy in their brand relationships.

Are you equipped to make these changes?

Orange Juice has been on my breakfast menu for as long as I remember. Linus Pauling shined the original spotlight on OJ as he asserted the benefits of Vitamin C to cure the common cold and retard the impact of certain forms of cancer.

Since then, there has been great debate about Pauling’s claims and the fruit juice has survived public relation storms from Anita Bryant to OJ Simpson. Nonetheless, we’re still enjoying OJ in our home and I just noticed the other day that Tropicana was promoting Juicy Rewards on its cartons.

The biggest challenge for consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies is to understand who is buying their product. Sure, they understand market share through reporting services and can track sales through various distribution outlets, but connecting with individual consumers is a highly problematic chore.

The messaging on the carton caught my eye:

• “Click, Save, Enjoy”
• “Collect points online for healthy savings on healthy fun”
• “Thousands of rewards nationwide – log on to find the ones near you!”

In a labor of loyalty love, I visited Tropicana.com and arrived at the Juicy Rewards landing page. My initial curiosity was held by two messages:

• “20,000 ways to save on everything from golf and workout gear to water parks and zoo admission”
• “One carton saves you up to $15, three can save you up to $45″.

With the average price of a 56oz. carton of OJ in my area around $3.50, Tropicana creates the perception of a huge return, dwarfing the usual 1-3% funding rate for rewards these days.

As soon as I completed my enrollment, I was asked to participate in a brief 4 question survey. Well designed, I was asked:

1. Which rewards categories most interest you?
2. We’d love to get to know you better. So clue us in by sharing your interests.
3. Think back on your most recent orange juice purchases. Ahhh … a fond memory, we’re sure! We’d like to know how often you buy Tropicana.
4. Are there children in your household? [this does not include the neighbor kid who just snuck in!]

These questions were cleverly designed and not overly intrusive. The entire customer experience was moving along without a hitch until I had to spend about 15 minutes locating and entering the correct on-carton codes to get my credits for future discounts. In the process, I discovered that the program was product specific as the Grapefruit Juice we had in the fridge didn’t qualify.

The labor intensive and menial nature of code entering is the achilles heel of CPG rewards programs and there surely must be a better way to solve this  painful aspect of program execution.

Overall, Tropicana’s approach is well executed and the messaging supports its product branding. Among the reward options available, members can donate points to “Rescue the Rainforest”. We are told that on the website that “Each point donated to help Rescue the Rainforest saves 33 1/3 sq. ft. of rainforest.” I don’t have any idea how the calculation is made and it is not explained on the website, but it feels right nonetheless.

Sometimes, rewards are all about perception. The Juicy Rewards loyalty program delivers a top-line message of value and capably solves the issue of customer engagement. Digging deeper, consumers will realize that the program is all about discounts, so nothing is “really” earned until the member decides to spend more money with one of the partners involved.

Still, the partner list is wide ranging, includes many top brands, and are localized and searchable by zip code.  If drinking our morning OJ can result in a 10% discount off a visit to MassageEnvy, it just might be worth the time taken to enter those codes.

I wonder what Anita Bryant would say about that?