Day two of the 2018 Customer Expo commenced with presentations from award finalists. The 11am sessions featured representatives from a range of innovative brands: T-Mobile, Best Western Hotels & Resorts, Wyndham Hotel Group, Ally Financial, Ceasars Entertainment, AccorHotels, Allianz Partners, Budweiser, Canadian Red Cross, and Prudential Financial. These brands presented on their efforts in Brand Collaboration, Brand Messaging & Communication, and Experience & Design Innovation.
In the Cumberland Ballroom, Chris Roution, Director of Marketing Partnerships & Business Development at T-Mobile; Fred Pratt, Director of Marketing for Best Western Hotels & Resorts; and Toyin Powell, Director of Member Acquisition and Early Engagement Strategy at Wyndham Hotel Group, discussed profitable collaborations their companies have created with other brands. Roution discussed running an engagement campaign that has offered rewards from over 400 companies. Pratt described his company’s partnership with Disney, which improved engagement with the teenage segment. Powell addressed how her company’s partnership with Caesars Entertainment enabled members of loyalty programs from both companies to access a greater number of rewards.
In Nashville Ballroom F, industry leaders came together to discuss brand messaging and communication. Ally Financial’s Brian Roach, Marketing Director of Strategic Initiatives, and Kristen Kille, Marketing Manager, took the stage to discuss the company’s Superbowl “hijack.” During the game, Ally eschewed traditional TV spots in favor of an interactive game that, only operative while commercials were playing, awarded money based on users’ personal investment goals. Ryan Hill, Director of Customer Experience for Caesars Entertainment, noted that brand awareness does not always bring brand favorability and that Caesars has employed its Like a Caesar campaign to appeal to younger audiences. Next, Siobhan Mitchell, Director of Loyalty Marketing for AccorHotels, talked about the importance of keeping a consistent message for a brand to raise visibility, as her company is doing to make itself known to the North American market. Lastly, Fred Pratt, Director of Marketing for Best Western, noted that the average American has 8 to 10 loyalty cards, but that “those are just the ones they remember” and so “it’s confusing.” A strong and clear message can help cut through the rest.
The morning sessions came to an end with ideas concerning experience and design innovation, which were shared by Andrew George, Associate Director of National Customer Experience Marketing; Dragan Yerkic and Nate Ford, Director of Quality Assurance and Speech Analytics Analyst at Allianz Partners, respectively; George Li, Senior Associate Director from Budweiser; and Lesley Hubbard and John Consigli, UX Design Manager and Director of Digital Products & Customer Experience at Prudential Financial, respectively. George discussed how his company harnessed data to map out journey paths to enhance relationships with donors. Li showed people ways Budweiser replaced text-to-win with innovative geotargeting and retail hook strategies but with the same values generated. Ford and Yerkic emphasized how important speech is in current customer engagement and how their companies utilize speech analysis techniques for driving loyalty. Lastly, Hubbard and Consigli spoke about the consistent, disruptive three-day sprint strategy their company is implementing for creating engagement among customers.