The Culture Contract Series Part Two - Loyalty Demands Executive Alignment.
Loyalty in 2025 Requires Structural Commitment, Not Program Recycling
The Illusion of Easy Loyalty
For decades, companies equated loyalty with marketing mechanics. They bolted on points, coupons, and perks and called them proof of customer commitment. In the 1990s and early 2000s, this worked because consumers had limited choice and slower access to alternatives. That market has disappeared.
Today, transactional loyalty is fragile. Digital platforms allow instant price comparisons, erasing any advantage from marginal point differences or short-term discounts. Inflation intensifies the problem: when the value of rewards erodes faster than prices rise, schemes lose credibility. Competitors with stronger automation or deeper pockets can replicate offers overnight.
Data backs the decline. In Ogilvy One’s 2024 study of 31 senior loyalty leaders across EMEA, 68% said programs that fail to reinvent themselves quickly become irrelevant. Loyalty has to adapt to cultural and technological change. The lesson: stop treating points as strategy.
Alignment Across Leadership
Real loyalty begins when it is embedded into the culture of the business and backed by leadership, not copied from industry templates. Conny Kalcher, Group Chief Customer Officer at Zurich Insurance, stated directly: loyalty cannot be imported. To imitate another industry’s model signals a lack of conviction.
Alignment means loyalty is treated as an executive responsibility. The CEO tracks it as a core KPI. The CFO measures investment in terms of long-term relationship value, not quarterly ROI alone. HR integrates loyalty into hiring and training so employees live the brand’s commitments. When every function shares accountability, loyalty stops being a tactic and becomes the operating model.
This shift demands trade-offs: resources are redirected, accountability is shared, and leaders are forced to confront short-term pressure against long-term value. Avoidance is easy; alignment is work. But without alignment, loyalty remains a marketing line item instead of an organizing principle.
From Silo to System
Nestlé Spain demonstrates the structural shift. Its NFC Family program was not parked in marketing. Advertising, CRM, IT, and global data teams built it together. The real change was not the program itself but the refusal to let silos dictate execution.
Cross-functional work slows decisions and introduces friction, but it forces loyalty into the system rather than the department. Nestlé connected CRM data with advertising, designed journeys across divisions, and enforced shared metrics. Loyalty was measured by sustained family engagement, not campaign clicks. This was structural redesign, not another points campaign.
Most organizations protect silos to preserve comfort. Customers, however, see brands as unified systems. Nestlé’s decision to design accordingly gave its loyalty program credibility.
Empowering the Frontline
Loyalty is tested daily at the frontline. Many companies undermine it by treating employees as script readers. The result is inconsistency and erosion of trust.
Empowerment changes the equation. Brands that train, equip, and authorize employees to solve problems signal credibility. It comes with risk: mistakes and variability occur. But customers read discretion as authenticity. When an agent can waive a fee, upgrade a service, or resolve an issue instantly, the message is clear—this brand stands by its promise. When employees are forced to escalate every decision, customers see loyalty as rhetoric, not practice.
The Cost of Avoidance
The cost of neglecting this shift is not theoretical. The same Ogilvy One study found that programs failing to evolve did not just underperform—they undermined brand trust. Customers disengaged not only from the scheme but from the company itself.
Hard numbers follow. Abandonment rises when benefits lag behind expectations. Enrollment slows when programs look dated. Worst of all, cultural perception turns: a generic, rigid loyalty scheme reflects an outdated brand. Competitors that align leadership, redesign systems, and empower employees gain credibility and preference.
In 2025, loyalty is not measured by points earned but by cultural legitimacy. The difference is visible in growth, retention, and reputation.
Bottom Line: Loyalty Survives Only With Alignment
Loyalty that remains a marketing tactic is fragile and short-lived. Brands that align leadership, dismantle silos, and empower employees build loyalty into the system itself.
Without structural commitment, loyalty collapses into commodity.
