Loyalty program partnerships often provide powerful ways for brands to differentiate themselves and offer an increased level of value to their customers. Such cross-branding customer engagement efforts not only keep brands in the forefront of minds, they also bring a host of reciprocal benefits that loyalty program members find very rewarding.
These loyalty program designs, whether they are implemented in the form of large coalitions or smaller mutual partnerships, have been mainstays across the UK, Germany, and Canada for years.
Nectar remains the UK’s most popular coalition program, which includes 14 companies and over 400 online retailers in its network. Germany’s airberlin also recently expanded its partnerships by allowing members to redeem points for purchases made across many poplar online portals such as Zalando, Amazon, ebay, and more.
Because they tend to win favor with customers by allowing them to collect and redeem points easier and faster through everyday behaviors, such loyalty programs are also beginning to surface across more and more regions.
This practice is becoming popular in Japan as well, which is increasingly seeing the rise of new cross-industry loyalty program partnerships.
What’s more, loyalty programs in general are expanding across the country and they, according to the Nomura Research Institute, are expected to account for almost 1 trillion yen annually by 2018.
The three foremost examples of Japanese loyalty programs that are leading many of these new cross-promotional partnerships are Ponta, T-Point, and Rakuten Super Point.
Ponta, the loyalty program administered by Lawson convenience stores, already allows consumers to earn points by engaging with various banks, brokerages, hotels, and gas stations, and it has just entered a new partnership with NTT Docomo Inc., a leading mobile phone carrier.
Soon Ponta will also form a partnership with the Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) and will allow customers to earn points simply by paying their electricity bill.
T-Point, a popular Japanese credit card, will also enter a similar agreement with TEPCO. But even beyond offering points for energy bills, T-Point is partnering with mobile carrier Softbank Group Corp, FamilyMart Co. convenience stores, and Shinsei Bank and Suruga Bank as well.
Finally, Rakuten, Inc., one of the largest e-commerce sites in the world, has also added yet another level of loyalty program flexibility. Rakuten’s Super Point program is now letting members use points at both Daimaru and Matsuzakaya department stores, and Circle K and Sunkus convenience stores.
Of these three loyalty programs, Rakuten remains the most dynamic and allows members to use their points at nearly 520,000 different outlets.
Currently, members can engage with T-Point at 390,000 outlets and Ponta at about 100,000 outlets.