Cake Job

WHY HOSTING THE LOYALTY MARKETING SUMMIT IS THE BEST GIG IN THE BUSINESS

By Rick Ferguson

The best thing about serving as the host of COLLOQUY’s annual Loyal Marketing Summit this past September wasn’t the venue— though the Villas of Grand Cypress in Orlando, Florida is about as relaxing a spot to host an event as you could hope for. Nor was it the annual Casino Night, in which marketers from around the globe hooted and hollered around the fake Blackjack and Craps tables as if they were gambling it up at the Bellagio.

For me personally, the best thing about hosting the Summit is that I get all the benefits of serving on the faculty, including the chance to hobnob and share ideas with some of the best minds in loyalty, without having to do any work. I don’t have to actually be smart; I only have to act presentable. All I have to do is introduce the speakers, tell a few jokes and try not to trip on my way down from the podium. There are worse ways to make a living.

This year’s slate of Summit speakers may have been our best yet. In addition to keynote speakers MaryAnn Quinlan, author and CEO of Just Ask a Woman, and Lou Carbone, author and founder of Experience Engineering, Inc., the Summit also featured such heavy hitters as Citi’s Bill Borden, Cendant Hotel Group’s Wendi Mazzucco, AIR MILES’ Caroline Papadatos, Musicland’s Brian Miller, Visa’s Garrett Ippolito, Kickback Points’ Patrick Lewis, and a host of other outstanding and visionary marketers. This year’s attendees included representatives from American Airlines, Borders Group, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Real Rewards Malaysia, United Airlines, and many other innovative corporations. In all modesty, we’re convinced that, in its third year, the Loyalty Marketing Summit has become the premiere customer loyalty event in North America, if not the world.

To give a taste of the event to those of you who couldn’t make it this year, we’ve devoted this issue to a selection of articles written by some of the speakers at this year’s Summit— there’s enough loyalty strategy in this issue to send the most jaded marketer scrambling to keep up. If there’s a common theme that ran through this year’s presentations, it’s that each of these marketers is attempting to expand the boundaries of customer loyalty. Through innovation in strategy, technology and analytics, they’re uncovering new customer insights, building stronger customer relationships through sophisticated application of recognition and reward strategies, and spearheading efforts to turn product and channel-facing organizations into customer-facing ones.

Whether you run a points-based loyalty program, a private-label credit card, a dialogue-marketing program or sponsor a regional or national coalition loyalty program, the point is that you can’t compete in today’s marketplace without a loyalty strategy. That’s the purpose of the Loyalty Marketing Summit: to provide knowledge-sharing and networking opportunities to help marketers push the boundaries and create the next wave of marketing innovation. If we can achieve those objectives while giving our attendees the ability to laze in the sun, tee off at central Florida’s premiere golf resort and share cocktails and appetizers around the pool, then we’ve done our job.

But like I said, I have the cake job in this whole production. So please join me in thanking those Summit speakers represented here, as well as those whose articles you’ll read in upcoming issues, for their hard work in bringing their experience and insights to this unique forum. Judging from the glowing attendee reviews from this year’s event, their efforts did not go unappreciated. And if you couldn’t make it to the Summit yourself, don’t worry— just block off a week in September 2006 and look for the invitation in the mail. I’ll be the guy up front with the big goofy grin on his face.