Partnerships
American Airlines and Hyatt Team Up
An airline company and a hotel brand have partnered to offer loyalty rewards to elite members. “American and Hyatt plan to start rewarding loyalty members for booking each other’s products. Under the program, elite members of Hyatt’s World of Hyatt program will earn one loyalty point for every dollar spent on American. Elite AAdvantage members, in turn, will earn one mile for every dollar spent at a Hyatt property.”
This is in keeping with the “consolidation” trend, in which brands partner to increase the value of their loyalty programs. The travel and hospitality industries often have a common audience, so this particular partnership is likely to bring an increase in loyalty.
Kohl’s Enlists Planet Fitness
Kohl’s has adopted a “rightsizing” strategy that will see a decrease in size of 10 of the brand’s stores. The newly freed-up space will be leased to Planet Fitness. Kohl’s has a similar partnership with grocery retailer Aldi’s. These moves are intended to stave off mass store-closings and increase foot traffic. Such partnerships make sense. Faced with digital competition, brands need to go “where the consumers are,” even if that means bringing the consumers’ gym to their stores.
Data
Zuckerberg Announces “A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking”
The Facebook founder and CEO has published a statement about data privacy and security on his own social platform. He states his company intends to “focus on the most fundamental and private use case—messaging—make it as secure as possible, and then build more ways for people to interact on top of that, including calls, video chats, groups, stories, businesses, payments, commerce, and ultimately a platform for many other kinds of private services.” It will interesting to see if such statements, met with action from Facebook, will be able to alter the brand’s damaged reputation.
Technology
Canadians Are Using Alternative Payment Tools
Increasingly, Canadians are using PayPal, mobile, and prepaid payment methods, instead of banks and traditional financial institutions. Use of these alternative tools has increased 16 percent since 2016. Younger Canadians, in particular, are using apps that help will savings and budget management. Brands are going to have to ensure that their customer experience accommodates non-traditional payment tools because they’re increasingly becoming many consumers’ methods of choice.
Leadership
Hudson’s Bay Co Leader Focuses the Organization
The CEO of Hudson’s Bay Co, Helena Foulkes, has been streamlining her company’s operations. “Before Foulkes became CEO in February 2018, the retailer had grown bloated with high debt and was chasing too many markets, all the while much of the business was stagnant or declining, notably Lord & Taylor and Saks Off Fifth.” Foulkes brought focus to her organization, and she explains how she did it in a Q&A with Fortune.