The latest news in the world of customer experience and customer loyalty.
This Is a Stickup…Give Me Your Rewards Points
People will steal anything, and one of the hottest commodities among the cyber-criminal class is…you guess it: rewards points. An article on Yahoo’s Canadian site detailed one woman’s experience in which someone hacked into her PC Optimum rewards account and stole 390,000 points, which were used at a Shoppers Drug Mart. Another person had points stolen and used to purchase a video game console, which is easily sold for cash. According to the article, PC Optimum had dozens of accounts hacked last week, with several other loyalty programs getting hit as well over the past year. A report by Bond Brand Loyalty found Canadians were sitting on $16 billion worth of rewards points, which are ripe for picking. Rewards points typically aren’t protected to the degree of, say, bank accounts or Fort Knox. But that may soon be changing. If it’s a source of currency, people will try to steal it, which means it won’t be long before you will need four passwords, six security questions, a thumbprint, face recognition and retinal scanning to access your account.
It’s a rough day to be….
Heinekin. The beer brand is taking a hit after it launched a new advertising campaign that people are arguing is racist. The ad features a bartender sliding a Heinekin bottle down a bar and past three people of color before arriving in front a lighter-skinned person, where the ad’s tagline shows up: “Sometimes lighter is better.” Oops. Heinekin apologized and, according to an article in Marketwatch, said “While we feel the ad is referencing our Heinekin light beer—we missed the mark, are taking the feedback to heart and will use this to influence future campaigns.” Despite the apology, social media did not treat the company well.
Apple News Adds to List of Publishers That Can Serve Ads in Its Articles
Apple announced it will expand the number of publishers that can serve ads into its Apple News articles, according to an article on Digiday.com. By using Google’s DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), publishers can take the direct-ads sold on their own sites and plug them into Apple’s app. The option was successfully tested last year. Participating publishers are excited about the prospect of DFP because, the article notes, running their DFP ads on Apple News serves as extension of their respective websites. New York Media has four properties publishing on Apple News, the article says: New York magazine, Vulture, The Cut, and Grub Street.