In the early 1990s a brilliant marketeer named Terry Leahy introduced a loyalty card that changed everything. With its incredible shopper behaviour insights, Tesco’s Clubcard simultaneously rewarded customers while boosting its own coffers. The introduction of Clubcard was to transform the fortunes of Tesco, its then marketing director, and the owners of the loyalty card operator, Edwina Dunn and Clive Humby. And it changed marketing as we know it, spawning numerous imitations, from Sainsbury’s belated launch of its Nectar card to the Boots Advantage card, and arguably heralding the modern era of Big Data.
“The myWaitrose loyalty card has evolved into a subtle but powerful weapon. I raise my free coffee to it”
Adam Leyland, Editor
Waitrose took even longer to come to the party, launching its myWaitrose card precisely two years ago. But as we reveal, it is proving every bit as successful, with three million people now owning one, and 50% of sales now directly linked to it.
Yet the myWaitrose loyalty card is markedly different. Eschewing a points-based approach, its initial proposition was to develop a shared love of food with shoppers through on-brand prizes (days out with Michelin chefs), spectacular giveaways (a year’s worth of shopping), plus 10% discounts off cookery classes. And the first few times I used it I was unimpressed, first by the 1p discount (!) it offered on my various shops (which varied from £20 to £35) and second, when it subsequently introduced a free coffee and broadsheet for all users, the fact that shoppers started loitering and dawdling round the aisles in my local store as they tried to balance their coffee while they shopped.
On one level, a free coffee and newspaper simply replicates the experience on a decent economy class air flight. But the fundamental principle underpinning the myWaitrose loyalty card is more clever than that. It’s ‘The Power of Free’ - replicating what Mark Price has called the “random acts of kindness and generosity” that uplift the soul, and turn the drudgery of shopping - indeed life - into something magical. And the card has evolved, through various tweaks and better execution (including 10% off 500 products now), into a subtle but powerful weapon (that’s simultaneously boosted early morning footfall). It also delivers an immediacy that chimes with the modern consumer. None of this saving-for-a-rainy-day malarkey. We want savings or free coffees and we want them now.
As well as piling on the benefits, myWaitrose is also growing more sophisticated, with a new agency partner enabling Waitrose to offer more personalised elements. How far it goes down this route remains to be seen, because one of myWaitrose’s strengths is the unobtrusiveness of its look and feel, but one thing is for sure. It’s getting noticed.
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