September 5, 2025 • 10 mins
In this episode of The CEO’s Desk, Loyalty360 CEO Mark Johnson shares insights on the evolving role of brand partnerships in customer loyalty. From high-profile collaborations like Ulta & Target to innovative programs from MGM, JetBlue, and Walmart, Mark unpacks what’s working, what’s not, and how brands can evaluate partnerships for true mutual value. Discover the biggest challenges—technology integration, co-marketing, ROI alignment—and hear predictions for how partnerships will shape loyalty strategies in 2025 and beyond.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi everyone.
This is Ethan Perry fromLoyalty360, welcoming you back
to our next episode of the CEO'sDesk, our podcast episode,
where we hear about the latestand greatest insights in
customer loyalty from the oneman who hears it all Loyalty360
CEO, mark Johnson.
Welcome, mark, glad you couldbe here again to give us your
(00:26):
big picture view on everythingloyalty.
Looking forward to thediscussion, thank you.
So today we're going to, Iguess, revisit or, you know,
continue the conversation aboutpartnerships.
It seems like it's somethingthat never really leaves the top
concerns of loyalty marketersand and everyone in the space
here.
We've heard from many of ourbrand members, and even in our
(00:49):
latest state of customer loyaltyresearch, that their approach
to brand partnerships hasevolved over the past couple of
years.
From your perspective, howcritical are external
partnerships in helping brandsevolve their loyalty strategies
in 2025 and beyond?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Partnerships are an area that brands have pretty
significant interest in, butit's definitely fallen a little
bit in both a qualitative andquantitative perspective.
We saw that in the 2025 Stateof Customer Loyalty paper, where
we research and ask differentbrands about 100, 105 members
primarily what are the topopportunities in customer
loyalty and partnerships?
It's a top five area ofinterest, but it's usually one
(01:33):
or two.
Now it's kind of fallen alittle bit, both from the
percentage of people who have aninterest in partnerships but
also just from kind of a netranking.
So, partnerships there's a bigpush right now on optimization
of the partnerships.
If you have one, two, three,four, are they working?
Do they provide value to bothof the brand's customers?
(01:57):
So there's a big push right nowon optimization.
They're important, but they area little bit more challenging
than they have been in the pastto get them approved, get them
up and running but, mostimportantly, get them
co-marketed within bothorganizations.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, and we know partnerships aren't always easy.
We hear in member discussionsthere are challenges like
integration, complexity,aligning, brand values, data
sharing, even legalconsiderations that come up
often, particularly in regulatedindustries like banking.
What do you see as the biggestroadblocks that brands encounter
when they're trying to forgethese types of partnerships?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I think there are a few.
Again, based on what we hearfrom the members of Voltea360
and what we see in the researchis that making sure there's
alignment between brands and thebrand's customers that can be
kind of a big challenge.
It's foundational Making surethat the partnership is approved
by both brands and we've seenmany partnerships or a number of
partnerships over the lastcouple of years where they're
(02:55):
kind of terminated at the end.
They were trial partnerships.
They were in agreement to doco-marketing on both sides and
that didn't actually come intofruition.
But one of the biggestchallenges now is getting the
technology approved.
So not only do you have to getthe partnership approved within
your organization, you have tomake sure you have the
technology that will allow youto kind of facilitate the
(03:17):
partnership.
And that's a big challenge rightnow, just with the economic
headwinds.
So you're having to get two orthree different things approved
and, most simply, brands are.
With this economic disruptionwe have each brand and everyone
working in the brand customerloyalty team is busy.
So how do you get in contactwith other brands?
(03:38):
How do you manage the meetings?
How do you kind of look at thevalue discussion?
How do you formulate that newROI.
That is needed when youfacilitate or have an interest
in running these more custompartnerships.
So many partnerships are, youknow, getting killed before
they're even getting up andrunning.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, and you know, we've seen.
You know some high profilealliances happening across
industries recently, somesuccessfully, some not.
You know.
The example of Ulta and Targetunraveling their shop and shop
agreement next year comes tomind.
What can brands learn fromthese large, well-publicized
partnerships to help shape theirown strategies and stay ahead
(04:16):
of evolving customerexpectations?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, there are a number of different brands out
there that are doingbrand-to-brand partnerships
quite well.
You look at MGM.
They're a member of theMulti360.
They have a number of differentprogram partnerships that
they've launched with RoyalCaribbean, celebrity, marriott
and you think, ah, travel travel, that might be not a value add,
not a benefit, but it actuallyis.
They see those that areinvolved in both programs and
(04:40):
how the co-marketing issignificantly beneficial to both
.
You look at United and JetBluewith their Blue Sky program,
another one, again anothertravel example.
But why would United andJetBlue ever partner with each
other?
Obviously there's some value inalignment and those programs,
although newer, are workingquite well for both programs.
(05:01):
And you mentioned the AltaTarget example.
That is actually you got to askme kind of winding down.
But many in retail right noware focusing on the private
label brands right and makingsure that they're putting their
private label brands out.
And Target obviously is goingthrough a number of changes
(05:22):
right now within theorganization, but they are
focused on their private labelbeauty brands.
So you know that creates thattypical agency conflict we all
learned about in business school.
I'm not saying that'snecessarily the issue, but I
think Target is looking to putmore and more of their own
brands in front of theircustomers because they know that
it's more profitable.
And there's been some questionsabout profitability within that
(05:45):
organization, so that may haveled to some of that dissonance
with regard to a reason why itmay have kind of folded.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, and one of the other concerns we've heard from
marketers is that partnershipssometimes risk becoming
one-sided.
It can morph into more of apromotional push than a true
collaboration.
How should brands go aboutevaluating their potential
partners to ensure that there'sa genuine mutual value for them
both?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
That's a big consideration for our members as
well.
We meet, we have peer groupsfor certain brand members of
Volti360.
They're seven to eight brandsin non-competing industries and
this is a pretty relevant andrecent discussion with regard to
the one-way hash we call them.
You look at some of the cableindustry.
(06:33):
Right, I'm going to give you adiscount for my program, but
what is the cable company?
They're getting the industry.
Right, I'm going to give you adiscount for my program, but
what is the cable company?
They're getting the value.
Right, they're getting thevalue of that discount to offer
their customers, but are theychanging to whatever that gift
card may have been?
So you look at some of the cableand telecoms.
They've had to change theirprogram because the customer at
(06:55):
the end maybe wasn't necessarilygetting that value.
You've seen United Airlinesagain to bring them up.
You know they are no longerselling their customer loyalty
points into partnership programs, right, so they're kind of
retrenching a little bit as well.
So and it gets back to thatwhole idea of that reciprocal
value and oftentimes thatone-way hash.
(07:16):
The goal is for the the personoffering the gift card and those
respective opportunities isthat eventually they'll flip and
just work with me direct andthat may or may not be the case.
It's similar, like the OTAexample In travel.
If someone's using an Expedialoyalty program and you're
booking your Wyndham, your Delta, your Marriott visits through
(07:38):
that reward program, you know,at the end of the day Marriott,
delta Enterprise, they want toget you as a direct customer and
that is obviously theopportunity around partnerships.
But oftentimes that doesn'thappen and I think that's why
those one-way pushes, or one-wayhashes, as we like to call them
, are not as prevalent as theyonce were.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Excellent.
Well, one last question for youabout partnerships.
We know that brands are alwayson the lookout for some positive
examples of great brands thatare standing out in the
marketplace.
You mentioned a couple ofinteresting travel examples.
Are there any other innovativeloyalty partnerships you've seen
this year that you think mayhelp set that new standard for
the industry?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Sure, I think, one that I have a good deal of
respect for and I really didn'tfrequent them very often before
is the Walmart loyalty program.
They're starting to add acurrency and value to that
program currently, but it's intheir partnerships the BK
partnerships not that I go toBurger King that often but the
Paramount partnerships.
They have a number ofpartnerships that are very
(08:38):
unique.
I think it does a good job ofkeeping the Walmart name and
brand in front of themoftentimes when they're not in
the store and also the BPEarnify coalition or mini
coalition.
They're looking to pulltogether their partnership with
Amazon and some of the others.
I think has the opportunity todo some very unique things as
(08:58):
well to coalesce others aroundthe brand, and I definitely
think there is we're not Canadanecessarily yet, but there is
kind of an interesting push tohave not two coalition programs
but again finding kind ofpartners that can add some value
when that customer is notengaging with one or more of the
brands.
So it'll be interesting to seeif there's more partnering up
(09:21):
and does that lead to exclusivepartnerships where you have to
kind of reconfigure your currentbench of partnerships?
So it's definitely aninteresting time.
There is interest, not as muchmovement, maybe not as much
traction due to some of thechallenges that exist, but it'll
be interesting to see howpartnerships evolve over the
next year or two years.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, that's definitely right on.
Those are both great examplesand I know as an Amazon Prime
user myself that Earnify one hascome into my world, and I
actually learned about that atLoyalty Expo.
I was not aware of it until Isaw the presentation by BP and I
went immediately to my Primeaccount and connected those two
things and then for my summerroad trip this year I definitely
(10:04):
was looking for those brandsthat were in that portfolio to
fill up my gas tank.
So I think it's working andit'll be interesting to see
where those kind of minicoalitions or other programs go
in the future.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Cool.
Well, thank you so much, Mark,for taking time out of all of
the exciting loyalty work thatyou do every day to come and
give some information to ouraudience.
We always appreciate it.
No one has insight into as manyloyalty programs as you do and
so you know we really, you know,appreciate you coming and
bringing that to our audienceand for everybody out there.
Make sure that you aresubscribed to Leaders and
(10:40):
Customer Loyalty so you nevermiss an episode and you continue
to get all the great interviewswe have with brands, vendors
and, of course, with Mark.
Thanks again, Mark, Thank youeveryone.
Hi everyone.
This is Ethan Perry fromLoyalty360, welcoming you back
to our next episode of the CEO'sDesk, our podcast episode,
where we hear about the latestand greatest insights in
customer loyalty from the oneman who hears it all Loyalty360
CEO, mark Johnson.
Welcome, mark, glad you couldbe here again to give us your
(00:26):
big picture view on everythingloyalty.
Looking forward to thediscussion, thank you.
So today we're going to, Iguess, revisit or, you know,
continue the conversation aboutpartnerships.
It seems like it's somethingthat never really leaves the top
concerns of loyalty marketersand and everyone in the space
here.
We've heard from many of ourbrand members, and even in our
(00:49):
latest state of customer loyaltyresearch, that their approach
to brand partnerships hasevolved over the past couple of
years.
From your perspective, howcritical are external
partnerships in helping brandsevolve their loyalty strategies
in 2025 and beyond?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Partnerships are an area that brands have pretty
significant interest in, butit's definitely fallen a little
bit in both a qualitative andquantitative perspective.
We saw that in the 2025 Stateof Customer Loyalty paper, where
we research and ask differentbrands about 100, 105 members
primarily what are the topopportunities in customer
loyalty and partnerships?
It's a top five area ofinterest, but it's usually one
(01:33):
or two.
Now it's kind of fallen alittle bit, both from the
percentage of people who have aninterest in partnerships but
also just from kind of a netranking.
So, partnerships there's a bigpush right now on optimization
of the partnerships.
If you have one, two, three,four, are they working?
Do they provide value to bothof the brand's customers?
(01:57):
So there's a big push right nowon optimization.
They're important, but they area little bit more challenging
than they have been in the pastto get them approved, get them
up and running but, mostimportantly, get them
co-marketed within bothorganizations.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, and we know partnerships aren't always easy.
We hear in member discussionsthere are challenges like
integration, complexity,aligning, brand values, data
sharing, even legalconsiderations that come up
often, particularly in regulatedindustries like banking.
What do you see as the biggestroadblocks that brands encounter
when they're trying to forgethese types of partnerships?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I think there are a few.
Again, based on what we hearfrom the members of Voltea360
and what we see in the researchis that making sure there's
alignment between brands and thebrand's customers that can be
kind of a big challenge.
It's foundational Making surethat the partnership is approved
by both brands and we've seenmany partnerships or a number of
partnerships over the lastcouple of years where they're
(02:55):
kind of terminated at the end.
They were trial partnerships.
They were in agreement to doco-marketing on both sides and
that didn't actually come intofruition.
But one of the biggestchallenges now is getting the
technology approved.
So not only do you have to getthe partnership approved within
your organization, you have tomake sure you have the
technology that will allow youto kind of facilitate the
(03:17):
partnership.
And that's a big challenge rightnow, just with the economic
headwinds.
So you're having to get two orthree different things approved
and, most simply, brands are.
With this economic disruptionwe have each brand and everyone
working in the brand customerloyalty team is busy.
So how do you get in contactwith other brands?
(03:38):
How do you manage the meetings?
How do you kind of look at thevalue discussion?
How do you formulate that newROI.
That is needed when youfacilitate or have an interest
in running these more custompartnerships.
So many partnerships are, youknow, getting killed before
they're even getting up andrunning.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, and you know, we've seen.
You know some high profilealliances happening across
industries recently, somesuccessfully, some not.
You know.
The example of Ulta and Targetunraveling their shop and shop
agreement next year comes tomind.
What can brands learn fromthese large, well-publicized
partnerships to help shape theirown strategies and stay ahead
(04:16):
of evolving customerexpectations?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, there are a number of different brands out
there that are doingbrand-to-brand partnerships
quite well.
You look at MGM.
They're a member of theMulti360.
They have a number of differentprogram partnerships that
they've launched with RoyalCaribbean, celebrity, marriott
and you think, ah, travel travel, that might be not a value add,
not a benefit, but it actuallyis.
They see those that areinvolved in both programs and
(04:40):
how the co-marketing issignificantly beneficial to both
.
You look at United and JetBluewith their Blue Sky program,
another one, again anothertravel example.
But why would United andJetBlue ever partner with each
other?
Obviously there's some value inalignment and those programs,
although newer, are workingquite well for both programs.
(05:01):
And you mentioned the AltaTarget example.
That is actually you got to askme kind of winding down.
But many in retail right noware focusing on the private
label brands right and makingsure that they're putting their
private label brands out.
And Target obviously is goingthrough a number of changes
(05:22):
right now within theorganization, but they are
focused on their private labelbeauty brands.
So you know that creates thattypical agency conflict we all
learned about in business school.
I'm not saying that'snecessarily the issue, but I
think Target is looking to putmore and more of their own
brands in front of theircustomers because they know that
it's more profitable.
And there's been some questionsabout profitability within that
(05:45):
organization, so that may haveled to some of that dissonance
with regard to a reason why itmay have kind of folded.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, and one of the other concerns we've heard from
marketers is that partnershipssometimes risk becoming
one-sided.
It can morph into more of apromotional push than a true
collaboration.
How should brands go aboutevaluating their potential
partners to ensure that there'sa genuine mutual value for them
both?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
That's a big consideration for our members as
well.
We meet, we have peer groupsfor certain brand members of
Volti360.
They're seven to eight brandsin non-competing industries and
this is a pretty relevant andrecent discussion with regard to
the one-way hash we call them.
You look at some of the cableindustry.
(06:33):
Right, I'm going to give you adiscount for my program, but
what is the cable company?
They're getting the industry.
Right, I'm going to give you adiscount for my program, but
what is the cable company?
They're getting the value.
Right, they're getting thevalue of that discount to offer
their customers, but are theychanging to whatever that gift
card may have been?
So you look at some of the cableand telecoms.
They've had to change theirprogram because the customer at
(06:55):
the end maybe wasn't necessarilygetting that value.
You've seen United Airlinesagain to bring them up.
You know they are no longerselling their customer loyalty
points into partnership programs, right, so they're kind of
retrenching a little bit as well.
So and it gets back to thatwhole idea of that reciprocal
value and oftentimes thatone-way hash.
(07:16):
The goal is for the the personoffering the gift card and those
respective opportunities isthat eventually they'll flip and
just work with me direct andthat may or may not be the case.
It's similar, like the OTAexample In travel.
If someone's using an Expedialoyalty program and you're
booking your Wyndham, your Delta, your Marriott visits through
(07:38):
that reward program, you know,at the end of the day Marriott,
delta Enterprise, they want toget you as a direct customer and
that is obviously theopportunity around partnerships.
But oftentimes that doesn'thappen and I think that's why
those one-way pushes, or one-wayhashes, as we like to call them
, are not as prevalent as theyonce were.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Excellent.
Well, one last question for youabout partnerships.
We know that brands are alwayson the lookout for some positive
examples of great brands thatare standing out in the
marketplace.
You mentioned a couple ofinteresting travel examples.
Are there any other innovativeloyalty partnerships you've seen
this year that you think mayhelp set that new standard for
the industry?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Sure, I think, one that I have a good deal of
respect for and I really didn'tfrequent them very often before
is the Walmart loyalty program.
They're starting to add acurrency and value to that
program currently, but it's intheir partnerships the BK
partnerships not that I go toBurger King that often but the
Paramount partnerships.
They have a number ofpartnerships that are very
(08:38):
unique.
I think it does a good job ofkeeping the Walmart name and
brand in front of themoftentimes when they're not in
the store and also the BPEarnify coalition or mini
coalition.
They're looking to pulltogether their partnership with
Amazon and some of the others.
I think has the opportunity todo some very unique things as
(08:58):
well to coalesce others aroundthe brand, and I definitely
think there is we're not Canadanecessarily yet, but there is
kind of an interesting push tohave not two coalition programs
but again finding kind ofpartners that can add some value
when that customer is notengaging with one or more of the
brands.
So it'll be interesting to seeif there's more partnering up
(09:21):
and does that lead to exclusivepartnerships where you have to
kind of reconfigure your currentbench of partnerships?
So it's definitely aninteresting time.
There is interest, not as muchmovement, maybe not as much
traction due to some of thechallenges that exist, but it'll
be interesting to see howpartnerships evolve over the
next year or two years.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, that's definitely right on.
Those are both great examplesand I know as an Amazon Prime
user myself that Earnify one hascome into my world, and I
actually learned about that atLoyalty Expo.
I was not aware of it until Isaw the presentation by BP and I
went immediately to my Primeaccount and connected those two
things and then for my summerroad trip this year I definitely
(10:04):
was looking for those brandsthat were in that portfolio to
fill up my gas tank.
So I think it's working andit'll be interesting to see
where those kind of minicoalitions or other programs go
in the future.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Cool.
Well, thank you so much, Mark,for taking time out of all of
the exciting loyalty work thatyou do every day to come and
give some information to ouraudience.
We always appreciate it.
No one has insight into as manyloyalty programs as you do and
so you know we really, you know,appreciate you coming and
bringing that to our audienceand for everybody out there.
Make sure that you aresubscribed to Leaders and
(10:40):
Customer Loyalty so you nevermiss an episode and you continue
to get all the great interviewswe have with brands, vendors
and, of course, with Mark.
Thanks again, Mark, Thank youeveryone.
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