Welcome to the latest installment of Leaders in Customer Loyalty, the podcast where Loyalty360 sits down with some of the most innovative and accomplished leaders in customer loyalty, engagement, and experience. As part of our Executive Spotlight series, we’re excited to feature a conversation with Per Jensen, Director of Loyalty at Stop & Shop.
Per brings a global perspective to loyalty strategy, drawing on his rich career across Europe and the United States. In this discussion, Per offers valuable insights into how Stop & Shop is evolving its loyalty approach to align with changing customer expectations, including the rollout of the retailer’s innovative Savings Center, a major shift in how customers access and engage with digital offers.
Throughout the episode, Per shares his thoughts on the importance of associate engagement, the growing role of private brands in driving loyalty, and why simplicity and clarity are critical for both internal teams and customers when it comes to program design. He also reflects on the differences between European and U.S. loyalty landscapes, offering practical takeaways for brands operating across markets.
Whether you’re looking to refine your loyalty strategy, enhance internal education about your programs, or gain a fresh perspective on how to build meaningful customer relationships, this conversation with Per Jensen delivers actionable insights and forward-thinking strategies.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 2 (00:03):
Good morning.
I'm.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Mark Johnson from Loyalty360.
I hope everyone's happy, safeand well.
I wanted to welcome you back toour new Loyalty360 series.
The Leaders of Customer Loyaltyseries is called our Executive
Spotlight series.
It will be part of the Leadersin Customer Loyalty series, of
course.
In this series we featureconversations with some of the
most influential minds incustomer loyalty.
(00:24):
They are driving success withinthe most esteemed customer
loyalty programs in the markettoday, all of which are members
of Loyalty360.
Today we have the pleasure ofspeaking with Per Jensen.
He is the Director of Loyaltyat Stavinshop.
Per, thank you for taking thetime to join us today.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm doing good.
I really enjoy theseconversations and what Line 2
360 have helped me learn overtime.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Absolutely Well.
Thank you.
First off, for those who maynot know about you, can you give
us a brief background on yourfocus at Stop and Shop?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, the past year the focus really has been on
rolling out and testing and thenrolling out our savings center.
I've spoken of that in the lastconference, but it's a big
change for our shoppers and theway they can interact with
digital offers, and so that'swhere most of my energy has gone
(01:22):
, where my energy has gone intoover the past year.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Excellent.
When you look at Stop and Shop,customers are evolving
different expectations todaythan last year and even five
years before that.
So how does Stop and Shop workto meet the evolving needs and
expectation of today's customers?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, I general in retail, we all feel that that
pricing is is a big deal.
It has always been a big deal,but more so now.
Um, but there's more to it thanjust pricing, and so what we're
what we're doing is we'relooking at simplifying and
(02:04):
enhancing kind of the experienceand the offers that we have.
That's one part.
Another part is to grow privatebrands.
We want to extend and expand onour digital engagement as we
have it, but make it even better.
And then there's in-store aswell, to improve the shopper
(02:26):
experience when people arewithin our stores.
We have an online business aswell, but there's also a focus
on that experience in the store.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Okay, and how does the customer loyalty play into
meeting those evolving needs andexpectations?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah.
So we try really at thestrategic level, at the higher
level, to align with what we cannot everything we can affect,
but we put in some new campaignsthat will help those efforts
that I mentioned before.
So one of them is we arebuilding a private brand focused
(03:04):
campaign.
Another one is we are expandingon offers that we give to our
associates to get them becomemore knowledgeable about our
private brands so they canbecome ambassadors of those
private brands to their friends,their families and the shoppers
(03:28):
that they meet in the store.
And then we're trying someinnovation through our programs
where we work closely with ourCPG partners that are able to
put together meal kits out oftheir family of products so that
we can provide discounted quickmeal kits for them.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
That's awesome.
You do a number of great thingsfor the Stop and Shop program,
award-winning program, veryfocused on customer experience
and customer expectations.
What's the single biggestfactor you think that influences
a great customer experience?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I'd love to say it's our loyalty program.
But there are more importantthings, and to me it's really
our customers' interaction withstore associates, how the store
is laid out, the cleanliness ofthose stores, those things kind
of play into what I'd calllarger loyalty.
But that's where kind ofcustomers really get their first
(04:33):
level of truth with our brand,and so to me that's the most
important thing.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Excellent.
For those who may not know, youhave deep roots in Denmark and
Austria.
You later built the CatalinaMarketing Program from the
ground up in Germany and now youlive in the US.
So when you look at thosedifferent and very diverse
wonderful environments, what doyou enjoy like about these other
countries?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, I would say, first and foremost, what I like
is change.
So, having lived in differentcountries, different cities,
just the change in itself isinteresting.
But if I contrast, let's say,more Europe versus the US, is
the walkability and bikeabilityof cities and towns.
(05:23):
There are great, let's say,town centers that that exist in
in europe.
Those have to some degree beenlost here in the us.
Other things that that I that Inotice is that the food, either
in restaurants or in thesupermarkets generally are
healthier in Europe.
(05:45):
We have here in the US a much,much higher variety and
selection of offers the store,the supermarkets, for example, a
much larger here in the US.
And then what else?
A number of years back I spentthree months driving around the
(06:06):
us from the east coast to thewest coast, from north, north to
to south.
That was still when gas priceswere low, um, but there is, the
landscape changes so much,people change so much and it's
hard to appreciate.
You know, for me, for example,growing up in denmark, you know
the us was one thing, but it'sso many different things, um.
(06:30):
But now I live with my familyhere in massachusetts and I feel
it's a good kind of middleground of it has a european feel
, has a strong us feel to it.
It's a nice mix that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Uh, when you look at the focus on customer loyalty
the customer how is the focus?
Maybe similar or even different.
When you look at Europeholistically in the US.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Consumer promotions, for example, is only a
relatively recent phenomena inEurope.
Regulations changed around2000,.
But still it's not at the levelas it is here in the US.
So that's one thing.
(07:22):
Then there is privacy.
It's much stricter in europethan it is here, which enables
us here in the us just to to doto get access to a lot more
information on on the customer.
And lastly, I would say thatscale here in the US it just
(07:45):
creates an advantage on its own.
We at Stop Shop we have 5million customers that's the
size of Denmark set.
(08:08):
That enables to offset thefixed costs of all the work that
goes into personalizing offersand experiences.
And so that's really what I seeas the main differences that we
just have a lot moreflexibility here in the US to do
things.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
That's awesome, your family.
You brought them up a littlebit.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about your family?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, at a high level .
I'm married.
We've been married almost 30years.
We have three children.
The two older ones, they are inDenmark and they studied at my
alma mater.
They studied machine learning,or more broadly known as
artificial intelligence andmathematics.
(08:48):
And the youngest one, she's ahigh schooler, she's a senior
and she will be following intheir footsteps this summer.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
That's awesome.
It's great when kids follow inyour footsteps.
My first two are marketing andecon majors as well.
It's great when kids follow newfootsteps.
My first two are marketing econmajors as well.
So, uh, the rest probably willnot be, but uh, it's good to get
two out of four and it's coolto have the same passions as
them, for sure, yeah, yeah.
So you talked, uh, youmentioned that, uh, you went to
school in europe.
Uh, what?
What college was that?
What university was that?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
yeah, it's um, it's called denmark's technical
university, uh, and at the timeit's interesting, there's
Technical University and at thetime it's interesting, there's
no bachelor, there's only amaster's you can go for.
So it was kind of a long haulbecause at the same time I was
doing a lot of sports andworking.
So it was really hard nothaving that kind of bachelor
(09:39):
level where you can kind of takea break and start working full
time.
And then later on I went to theUS of bachelor level where you
can kind of take a break, startworking full-time and then, uh,
later on I I went to the us andI went to colombia business
school for, uh, for a businessdegree in finance, and marketing
.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Uh, what sports did you play?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
what sports?
Yeah, oh, um, I do.
I I've done a lot of differentsports at a relatively high
level, but my passion was for along time was team handball.
It doesn't really exist here inthe US.
I did play in the NationalLeague here in the US for two
(10:18):
years.
We were number four, so Iplayed for Boston, but it's far
the other.
The next team is so far away.
The next team would be at WestPoint in New York.
Then it might be in New YorkCity.
In the city itself there was ateam, then it might be Duke
University.
So that was just too muchtravel for me.
(10:38):
Was used to the next time the.
The competition could be heldwith the next time town over, so
that was a little bit uhdifferent and just took too much
time to get involved in furtherexcellent, and what was your
first job after college?
after college I started out onmy own and it was a little bit
(11:05):
by chance.
Someone was calling for my myfather he was.
He was an engineer and he hadpublished many, many books
around machine design.
And this person he was lookingfor my father to help him on
some design, but my dad was inthe US.
I was looking for my father tohelp him on some design, but my
(11:26):
dad was in the US.
I was in Denmark so I said Ican help you and so I got
involved in making and designingfood machines and it was just
the two of us building that forrestaurants that supplied other
restaurants, so it was kind ofsemi-industrial and I had a good
time doing that.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
That's awesome.
We've had a number ofconversations throughout the
years.
You are a very passionateperson, obviously, about the
brand, customer loyalty, dataand doing as much as you can for
the customer.
One of the things that youchampioned is a training,
education process within yourorganization, creating awareness
around the program, educatingup and educating down.
(12:08):
You know how did you start thattraining process within Stop
and Shop.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, I think it was a unique chance because I
started the role as a new personand I had an excuse that way to
meet with people.
There was kind of I needed toget on board within the
organization, but I used thatsame use that as an excuse as
well to, um, while I waslearning from other people to
(12:36):
educate them on the loyaltyprogram and kind of see what
what they knew and what theydidn't know, and and so that was
a large effort that I spent thefirst three months doing and it
became, as I learned and gotfeedback, I could kind of refine
my own story that I would bringinto these meetings and I met
(12:57):
with more than 100 people withinthe first three months to kind
of learn and to spread the wordaround what the loyalty program
could do for them that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
When you first began to look at the need for a new
process, better process, uh, youknow what did you see?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
yeah, what I learned was that the, the, the loyalty
program that that we hadtogether.
I call it program, but it'sreally three different loyalty
programs two legacy ones and onethat was started maybe a year
before I went into the role, andso there's a lot of confusion
(13:37):
between you know, one personmight be familiar with one
component of it, the one theywere participating in but not so
familiar with the othercomponents, and so I learned
really that I had to explainthat we had these three programs
, how they worked, and so Ibuilt up one slide that kind of
gave people one overview.
(13:58):
But my learning was really thatthe design of our loyalty
program was too complex forourselves to understand, so it's
got to be very hard for ourshoppers to understand and to
make improvements andcommunicate out to our customers
the benefits.
Our program was evenexponentially harder to do
(14:24):
program was even exponentiallyharder to do.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
So, going forward, you identified a need state.
You put together processes tokind of address them.
How do you work going forwardto keep those within the
organization up to speed on thecustomer loyalty program and
your efforts?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I try to focus on something that's going to be
important to the listener, theinterlocutor, and so right now
we focus, for example, on whatour savings center is able to do
for our shoppers and able to dofor the business able to do for
our shoppers and able to do forthe business.
(15:06):
And it's a relatively complexvalue proposition.
And with that complexity thereis always a component that is of
value to whatever department Italk to, whether it's the PR
team, the team, our merch team,our finance team and um, so so
(15:29):
we're just reiterating the valueprop of that part of the
loyalty program.
We've included that as part ofthe loyalty program and so now
it's a very specific thing thatit's important for us to kind of
rally the troops around.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Excellent.
Going back to your work life,stop and shop and, before you
know what's the best work adviceyou've ever been given.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, that's interesting, I think, to me.
I took a Dale Carnegie coursemany years ago and there was a
concept called KISS.
I'll change it into keep itsimple, simple, really focused
on simple.
I have degrees in engineeringand business and the language
(16:16):
can become quite technical andyou know, but it's not good for
communication.
So it's really been something Ilearned over time is really to
simplify the stories, simplifythe language, and it's really
something that has helped me, uh, over time, to to become an
(16:39):
efficient and effectivecommunicator is to keep things
simple and it's something I tryto install within my team is to
reduce, reduce, reduce to thepure essence of of the message
and that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I know you put a number of pieces in place, uh to
create some simplicity withinthe stop and shop loyalty
program.
Uh, it's definitely somethingthat's uh kind of very relevant
right now within the industrysimplifying the programs, and
you seem to do a great job withthat.
So congrats around that, thankyou.
When you look at your careersuccess, you know what are a
couple of things you're mostproud of.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Let me see.
So the first one was maybe notone thing, but I'd say first off
, right out of college, juststarting out in business without
knowing all the difficultiesyou can run into and thinking
about financing and you know thefuture, just going in the now
(17:39):
and here.
When I look back, if you knowwhat you're going into, you
probably wouldn't do it.
There's a lot of risk with it,but it paid for me to go to
Columbia Business School.
So that was one thing.
The second one is really havinglaunched Catalina Marketing in
(18:01):
Germany.
It was a cold start, soconsumers didn't know about
consumer promotions, Retailersdidn't know about it and
manufacturers didn't havebudgets and there was no
infrastructure.
So everything kind of the wholestory had to be built from
scratch and it's almost like awhole worth a whole hour of
discussion all the hurdles thathad to be overcome with that.
(18:24):
But that's one I'm reallyreally proud of.
And the latest one is justgetting this savings center
launched, because it's a complexstory with many unknowns, but
it solves for so many differentproblems within our company that
I'm really really proud of it,that it was a creative solution.
(18:47):
How we execute it having asaving center is nothing new,
but how you execute it, so it'sin the details.
That's what made it really,really powerful, and I'm super
proud of what we're able to dowith that.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
That's awesome.
If you could bring one greatchange to the workplace, or a
change in general, what wouldyou focus on and why?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
What I've observed, to some extent a difference
between at least Denmark, the US, and Denmark and Germany.
It's about autonomy, so givingpeople freedom to make the
decision, you know, let's sayclosest to where the decision
can be made.
(19:34):
If you give people autonomy,they think more about what they
do and they get moresatisfaction out of achieving
results and they get moreownership of the results.
So that's one thing that I tryto do within my team and I can
see good results coming from it.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Okay, you are one of the more active participants
within Loady360, within thebrand community.
We appreciate everything thatyou do in that regard, but when
you look at it, what have youfound value about the community,
and would there be some thingsyou would like to see more of,
potentially?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Well, I would say I enjoy the community
(20:41):
no-transcript there, so I reallyenjoy that.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
If you could ask one question of someone else who's
running a customer loyaltyprogram?
If one question, what wouldthat question be about their
customer loyalty program?
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I guess there's not a simple question, but I was.
I would say what's the next bigbig idea that you have,
something that can really impactthe total business, so not a
tactic, but something thatreally can you know is strategic
solves for some larger problemthat's aligned with the
(21:24):
company's goals?
What's that big idea that youhave?
I'd love to hear about those.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
That's awesome.
Everyone's looking for thatnext big idea, whether it's AI
or, you know more, targetedpersonalization, so that would
definitely be a very relevantquestion to ask, for sure.
And the last question we liketo wrap this up with is if you
could give some words of adviceto young marketers, young
professionals in customerloyalty, customer experience,
(21:51):
about developing effectivecustomer loyalty strategies and
elevating the customerexperience.
What would you suggest to them?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
The following starting place is it's difficult
really to get to know yourcustomers directly, but whatever
you can try to empathize, be intheir shoes.
I would call it it's almostlike zen right Be and feel like
the customer.
So, rather than anecdotal, butreally try for me with Stop and
(22:23):
Shop, for me it means going intothe stores and kind of
observing customers and get afeel for who they are and then
that way I can kind of empathizewith their experiences and then
from there, once I have someconfidence in who our customers
are, then from there you canstart to look at okay, what are
(22:47):
now the pain points, what arethe frictions shoppers, in our
case, experience.
And then you start to then lookat research and other things.
Now you can interpret it andyou can think about how can you
translate these insights intoaction.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
That makes sense, well, great.
Thank you very much for theinterview, per.
It's been great speaking withyou.
You have a lot of significantand very unique experience.
It was great to find out alittle bit more.
I didn't know that you startedCatalina in Europe and Germany,
so that's great to hear.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah it was fun.
So thank you so much.
I enjoyed this, mark, and Ilook forward to conference in 25
.
Excellent.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
And we forgot one thing.
We forgot the quickfirequestions.
We like to keep these to one,to a short phrase or a quick
response.
The first question we have ishow would you describe your work
life?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
interesting.
I look for challenges and bigresults, and so that's where all
my energy goes, what my energygoes to okay, if you have a day
off or a week off from work,what are you doing?
Probably some work in the house.
I play some piano, I enjoybiking long-distance biking and
(24:08):
then I play a little bit ofsoccer.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Okay, that's good.
If you could go back to school,what would you study?
Speaker 2 (24:17):
What would I study If I really think about it?
I would study physics, probablyand physics for the reason
because it's so abstract thatyou really have to think really
hard.
But once you've gone throughthat and you don't have to get a
phd in physics but just youknow at the undergrad level,
that level of abstraction cancan enables learning many other
(24:41):
areas much faster.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Excellent.
What facet of your job do youlike?
Would you like to know a littlebit more about Partnerships?
Ok, what facet of your jobwould you like to know less
about?
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know minute details.
I like to have conversations atthe higher level, but details
are really important.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
How do you plan for projects?
Are you a strategic planner ormore of a just-in-time kind of
person?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
It's more, I would say 50-50.
And so, between planning andjust-in-time, okay, what
motivates you in tacklingchallenges at Stop?
Speaker 1 (25:14):
and Shop.
And just in time, okay, whatmotivates you in tackling
challenges at Stop and Shop?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
I'm self-motivated.
I look for big challenges, bigideas and on the opposite side,
if there's too much routine inwhat I do, that will be
demotivating.
So to motivate myself, I justtry to look for that next big
thing that can have a bigbusiness impact.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Okay, and what is your favorite?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
sports team.
Sports team uh team.
That would be national uh teams.
It would be the danish nationalteam in team handball or the
soccer team.
Okay, that's what I follow.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
And who is your favorite athlete of all time?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Their athlete.
That would be.
It would be Maradona or.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Muhammad Ali.
There you go.
Excellent.
Well, Perry, thank you verymuch again for taking the time
to speak with us In our newexecutive spotlight series.
You are very passionate aboutthe industry.
I appreciate everything you do.
I consider you your friend andit's great getting to know a
little bit more about you.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Yeah, thank you, and likewise enjoyed this, looking
forward to all the lunch andlearns that are coming up.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
All right, thank, you very much, and everyone else.
Please join us back again foranother edition of our Executive
Spotlight series.
Until then, have a wonderfulday.
Good morning.
I'm.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Mark Johnson from Loyalty360.
I hope everyone's happy, safeand well.
I wanted to welcome you back toour new Loyalty360 series.
The Leaders of Customer Loyaltyseries is called our Executive
Spotlight series.
It will be part of the Leadersin Customer Loyalty series, of
course.
In this series we featureconversations with some of the
most influential minds incustomer loyalty.
(00:24):
They are driving success withinthe most esteemed customer
loyalty programs in the markettoday, all of which are members
of Loyalty360.
Today we have the pleasure ofspeaking with Per Jensen.
He is the Director of Loyaltyat Stavinshop.
Per, thank you for taking thetime to join us today.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm doing good.
I really enjoy theseconversations and what Line 2
360 have helped me learn overtime.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Absolutely Well.
Thank you.
First off, for those who maynot know about you, can you give
us a brief background on yourfocus at Stop and Shop?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, the past year the focus really has been on
rolling out and testing and thenrolling out our savings center.
I've spoken of that in the lastconference, but it's a big
change for our shoppers and theway they can interact with
digital offers, and so that'swhere most of my energy has gone
(01:22):
, where my energy has gone intoover the past year.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Excellent.
When you look at Stop and Shop,customers are evolving
different expectations todaythan last year and even five
years before that.
So how does Stop and Shop workto meet the evolving needs and
expectation of today's customers?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, I general in retail, we all feel that that
pricing is is a big deal.
It has always been a big deal,but more so now.
Um, but there's more to it thanjust pricing, and so what we're
what we're doing is we'relooking at simplifying and
(02:04):
enhancing kind of the experienceand the offers that we have.
That's one part.
Another part is to grow privatebrands.
We want to extend and expand onour digital engagement as we
have it, but make it even better.
And then there's in-store aswell, to improve the shopper
(02:26):
experience when people arewithin our stores.
We have an online business aswell, but there's also a focus
on that experience in the store.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Okay, and how does the customer loyalty play into
meeting those evolving needs andexpectations?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah.
So we try really at thestrategic level, at the higher
level, to align with what we cannot everything we can affect,
but we put in some new campaignsthat will help those efforts
that I mentioned before.
So one of them is we arebuilding a private brand focused
(03:04):
campaign.
Another one is we are expandingon offers that we give to our
associates to get them becomemore knowledgeable about our
private brands so they canbecome ambassadors of those
private brands to their friends,their families and the shoppers
(03:28):
that they meet in the store.
And then we're trying someinnovation through our programs
where we work closely with ourCPG partners that are able to
put together meal kits out oftheir family of products so that
we can provide discounted quickmeal kits for them.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
That's awesome.
You do a number of great thingsfor the Stop and Shop program,
award-winning program, veryfocused on customer experience
and customer expectations.
What's the single biggestfactor you think that influences
a great customer experience?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I'd love to say it's our loyalty program.
But there are more importantthings, and to me it's really
our customers' interaction withstore associates, how the store
is laid out, the cleanliness ofthose stores, those things kind
of play into what I'd calllarger loyalty.
But that's where kind ofcustomers really get their first
(04:33):
level of truth with our brand,and so to me that's the most
important thing.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Excellent.
For those who may not know, youhave deep roots in Denmark and
Austria.
You later built the CatalinaMarketing Program from the
ground up in Germany and now youlive in the US.
So when you look at thosedifferent and very diverse
wonderful environments, what doyou enjoy like about these other
countries?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, I would say, first and foremost, what I like
is change.
So, having lived in differentcountries, different cities,
just the change in itself isinteresting.
But if I contrast, let's say,more Europe versus the US, is
the walkability and bikeabilityof cities and towns.
(05:23):
There are great, let's say,town centers that that exist in
in europe.
Those have to some degree beenlost here in the us.
Other things that that I that Inotice is that the food, either
in restaurants or in thesupermarkets generally are
healthier in Europe.
(05:45):
We have here in the US a much,much higher variety and
selection of offers the store,the supermarkets, for example, a
much larger here in the US.
And then what else?
A number of years back I spentthree months driving around the
(06:06):
us from the east coast to thewest coast, from north, north to
to south.
That was still when gas priceswere low, um, but there is, the
landscape changes so much,people change so much and it's
hard to appreciate.
You know, for me, for example,growing up in denmark, you know
the us was one thing, but it'sso many different things, um.
(06:30):
But now I live with my familyhere in massachusetts and I feel
it's a good kind of middleground of it has a european feel
, has a strong us feel to it.
It's a nice mix that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Uh, when you look at the focus on customer loyalty
the customer how is the focus?
Maybe similar or even different.
When you look at Europeholistically in the US.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Consumer promotions, for example, is only a
relatively recent phenomena inEurope.
Regulations changed around2000,.
But still it's not at the levelas it is here in the US.
So that's one thing.
(07:22):
Then there is privacy.
It's much stricter in europethan it is here, which enables
us here in the us just to to doto get access to a lot more
information on on the customer.
And lastly, I would say thatscale here in the US it just
(07:45):
creates an advantage on its own.
We at Stop Shop we have 5million customers that's the
size of Denmark set.
(08:08):
That enables to offset thefixed costs of all the work that
goes into personalizing offersand experiences.
And so that's really what I seeas the main differences that we
just have a lot moreflexibility here in the US to do
things.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
That's awesome, your family.
You brought them up a littlebit.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about your family?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, at a high level .
I'm married.
We've been married almost 30years.
We have three children.
The two older ones, they are inDenmark and they studied at my
alma mater.
They studied machine learning,or more broadly known as
artificial intelligence andmathematics.
(08:48):
And the youngest one, she's ahigh schooler, she's a senior
and she will be following intheir footsteps this summer.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
That's awesome.
It's great when kids follow inyour footsteps.
My first two are marketing andecon majors as well.
It's great when kids follow newfootsteps.
My first two are marketing econmajors as well.
So, uh, the rest probably willnot be, but uh, it's good to get
two out of four and it's coolto have the same passions as
them, for sure, yeah, yeah.
So you talked, uh, youmentioned that, uh, you went to
school in europe.
Uh, what?
What college was that?
What university was that?
Speaker 2 (09:18):
yeah, it's um, it's called denmark's technical
university, uh, and at the timeit's interesting, there's
Technical University and at thetime it's interesting, there's
no bachelor, there's only amaster's you can go for.
So it was kind of a long haulbecause at the same time I was
doing a lot of sports andworking.
So it was really hard nothaving that kind of bachelor
(09:39):
level where you can kind of takea break and start working full
time.
And then later on I went to theUS of bachelor level where you
can kind of take a break, startworking full-time and then, uh,
later on I I went to the us andI went to colombia business
school for, uh, for a businessdegree in finance, and marketing
.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Uh, what sports did you play?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
what sports?
Yeah, oh, um, I do.
I I've done a lot of differentsports at a relatively high
level, but my passion was for along time was team handball.
It doesn't really exist here inthe US.
I did play in the NationalLeague here in the US for two
(10:18):
years.
We were number four, so Iplayed for Boston, but it's far
the other.
The next team is so far away.
The next team would be at WestPoint in New York.
Then it might be in New YorkCity.
In the city itself there was ateam, then it might be Duke
University.
So that was just too muchtravel for me.
(10:38):
Was used to the next time the.
The competition could be heldwith the next time town over, so
that was a little bit uhdifferent and just took too much
time to get involved in furtherexcellent, and what was your
first job after college?
after college I started out onmy own and it was a little bit
(11:05):
by chance.
Someone was calling for my myfather he was.
He was an engineer and he hadpublished many, many books
around machine design.
And this person he was lookingfor my father to help him on
some design, but my dad was inthe US.
I was looking for my father tohelp him on some design, but my
(11:26):
dad was in the US.
I was in Denmark so I said Ican help you and so I got
involved in making and designingfood machines and it was just
the two of us building that forrestaurants that supplied other
restaurants, so it was kind ofsemi-industrial and I had a good
time doing that.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
That's awesome.
We've had a number ofconversations throughout the
years.
You are a very passionateperson, obviously, about the
brand, customer loyalty, dataand doing as much as you can for
the customer.
One of the things that youchampioned is a training,
education process within yourorganization, creating awareness
around the program, educatingup and educating down.
(12:08):
You know how did you start thattraining process within Stop
and Shop.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, I think it was a unique chance because I
started the role as a new personand I had an excuse that way to
meet with people.
There was kind of I needed toget on board within the
organization, but I used thatsame use that as an excuse as
well to, um, while I waslearning from other people to
(12:36):
educate them on the loyaltyprogram and kind of see what
what they knew and what theydidn't know, and and so that was
a large effort that I spent thefirst three months doing and it
became, as I learned and gotfeedback, I could kind of refine
my own story that I would bringinto these meetings and I met
(12:57):
with more than 100 people withinthe first three months to kind
of learn and to spread the wordaround what the loyalty program
could do for them that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
When you first began to look at the need for a new
process, better process, uh, youknow what did you see?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
yeah, what I learned was that the, the, the loyalty
program that that we hadtogether.
I call it program, but it'sreally three different loyalty
programs two legacy ones and onethat was started maybe a year
before I went into the role, andso there's a lot of confusion
(13:37):
between you know, one personmight be familiar with one
component of it, the one theywere participating in but not so
familiar with the othercomponents, and so I learned
really that I had to explainthat we had these three programs
, how they worked, and so Ibuilt up one slide that kind of
gave people one overview.
(13:58):
But my learning was really thatthe design of our loyalty
program was too complex forourselves to understand, so it's
got to be very hard for ourshoppers to understand and to
make improvements andcommunicate out to our customers
the benefits.
Our program was evenexponentially harder to do
(14:24):
program was even exponentiallyharder to do.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
So, going forward, you identified a need state.
You put together processes tokind of address them.
How do you work going forwardto keep those within the
organization up to speed on thecustomer loyalty program and
your efforts?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I try to focus on something that's going to be
important to the listener, theinterlocutor, and so right now
we focus, for example, on whatour savings center is able to do
for our shoppers and able to dofor the business able to do for
our shoppers and able to do forthe business.
(15:06):
And it's a relatively complexvalue proposition.
And with that complexity thereis always a component that is of
value to whatever department Italk to, whether it's the PR
team, the team, our merch team,our finance team and um, so so
(15:29):
we're just reiterating the valueprop of that part of the
loyalty program.
We've included that as part ofthe loyalty program and so now
it's a very specific thing thatit's important for us to kind of
rally the troops around.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Excellent.
Going back to your work life,stop and shop and, before you
know what's the best work adviceyou've ever been given.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, that's interesting, I think, to me.
I took a Dale Carnegie coursemany years ago and there was a
concept called KISS.
I'll change it into keep itsimple, simple, really focused
on simple.
I have degrees in engineeringand business and the language
(16:16):
can become quite technical andyou know, but it's not good for
communication.
So it's really been something Ilearned over time is really to
simplify the stories, simplifythe language, and it's really
something that has helped me, uh, over time, to to become an
(16:39):
efficient and effectivecommunicator is to keep things
simple and it's something I tryto install within my team is to
reduce, reduce, reduce to thepure essence of of the message
and that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I know you put a number of pieces in place, uh to
create some simplicity withinthe stop and shop loyalty
program.
Uh, it's definitely somethingthat's uh kind of very relevant
right now within the industrysimplifying the programs, and
you seem to do a great job withthat.
So congrats around that, thankyou.
When you look at your careersuccess, you know what are a
couple of things you're mostproud of.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Let me see.
So the first one was maybe notone thing, but I'd say first off
, right out of college, juststarting out in business without
knowing all the difficultiesyou can run into and thinking
about financing and you know thefuture, just going in the now
(17:39):
and here.
When I look back, if you knowwhat you're going into, you
probably wouldn't do it.
There's a lot of risk with it,but it paid for me to go to
Columbia Business School.
So that was one thing.
The second one is really havinglaunched Catalina Marketing in
(18:01):
Germany.
It was a cold start, soconsumers didn't know about
consumer promotions, Retailersdidn't know about it and
manufacturers didn't havebudgets and there was no
infrastructure.
So everything kind of the wholestory had to be built from
scratch and it's almost like awhole worth a whole hour of
discussion all the hurdles thathad to be overcome with that.
(18:24):
But that's one I'm reallyreally proud of.
And the latest one is justgetting this savings center
launched, because it's a complexstory with many unknowns, but
it solves for so many differentproblems within our company that
I'm really really proud of it,that it was a creative solution.
(18:47):
How we execute it having asaving center is nothing new,
but how you execute it, so it'sin the details.
That's what made it really,really powerful, and I'm super
proud of what we're able to dowith that.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
That's awesome.
If you could bring one greatchange to the workplace, or a
change in general, what wouldyou focus on and why?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
What I've observed, to some extent a difference
between at least Denmark, the US, and Denmark and Germany.
It's about autonomy, so givingpeople freedom to make the
decision, you know, let's sayclosest to where the decision
can be made.
(19:34):
If you give people autonomy,they think more about what they
do and they get moresatisfaction out of achieving
results and they get moreownership of the results.
So that's one thing that I tryto do within my team and I can
see good results coming from it.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Okay, you are one of the more active participants
within Loady360, within thebrand community.
We appreciate everything thatyou do in that regard, but when
you look at it, what have youfound value about the community,
and would there be some thingsyou would like to see more of,
potentially?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Well, I would say I enjoy the community
(20:41):
no-transcript there, so I reallyenjoy that.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
If you could ask one question of someone else who's
running a customer loyaltyprogram?
If one question, what wouldthat question be about their
customer loyalty program?
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I guess there's not a simple question, but I was.
I would say what's the next bigbig idea that you have,
something that can really impactthe total business, so not a
tactic, but something thatreally can you know is strategic
solves for some larger problemthat's aligned with the
(21:24):
company's goals?
What's that big idea that youhave?
I'd love to hear about those.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
That's awesome.
Everyone's looking for thatnext big idea, whether it's AI
or, you know more, targetedpersonalization, so that would
definitely be a very relevantquestion to ask, for sure.
And the last question we liketo wrap this up with is if you
could give some words of adviceto young marketers, young
professionals in customerloyalty, customer experience,
(21:51):
about developing effectivecustomer loyalty strategies and
elevating the customerexperience.
What would you suggest to them?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
The following starting place is it's difficult
really to get to know yourcustomers directly, but whatever
you can try to empathize, be intheir shoes.
I would call it it's almostlike zen right Be and feel like
the customer.
So, rather than anecdotal, butreally try for me with Stop and
(22:23):
Shop, for me it means going intothe stores and kind of
observing customers and get afeel for who they are and then
that way I can kind of empathizewith their experiences and then
from there, once I have someconfidence in who our customers
are, then from there you canstart to look at okay, what are
(22:47):
now the pain points, what arethe frictions shoppers, in our
case, experience.
And then you start to then lookat research and other things.
Now you can interpret it andyou can think about how can you
translate these insights intoaction.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
That makes sense, well, great.
Thank you very much for theinterview, per.
It's been great speaking withyou.
You have a lot of significantand very unique experience.
It was great to find out alittle bit more.
I didn't know that you startedCatalina in Europe and Germany,
so that's great to hear.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah it was fun.
So thank you so much.
I enjoyed this, mark, and Ilook forward to conference in 25
.
Excellent.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
And we forgot one thing.
We forgot the quickfirequestions.
We like to keep these to one,to a short phrase or a quick
response.
The first question we have ishow would you describe your work
life?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
interesting.
I look for challenges and bigresults, and so that's where all
my energy goes, what my energygoes to okay, if you have a day
off or a week off from work,what are you doing?
Probably some work in the house.
I play some piano, I enjoybiking long-distance biking and
(24:08):
then I play a little bit ofsoccer.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Okay, that's good.
If you could go back to school,what would you study?
Speaker 2 (24:17):
What would I study If I really think about it?
I would study physics, probablyand physics for the reason
because it's so abstract thatyou really have to think really
hard.
But once you've gone throughthat and you don't have to get a
phd in physics but just youknow at the undergrad level,
that level of abstraction cancan enables learning many other
(24:41):
areas much faster.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Excellent.
What facet of your job do youlike?
Would you like to know a littlebit more about Partnerships?
Ok, what facet of your jobwould you like to know less
about?
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know minute details.
I like to have conversations atthe higher level, but details
are really important.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
How do you plan for projects?
Are you a strategic planner ormore of a just-in-time kind of
person?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
It's more, I would say 50-50.
And so, between planning andjust-in-time, okay, what
motivates you in tacklingchallenges at Stop?
Speaker 1 (25:14):
and Shop.
And just in time, okay, whatmotivates you in tackling
challenges at Stop and Shop?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
I'm self-motivated.
I look for big challenges, bigideas and on the opposite side,
if there's too much routine inwhat I do, that will be
demotivating.
So to motivate myself, I justtry to look for that next big
thing that can have a bigbusiness impact.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Okay, and what is your favorite?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
sports team.
Sports team uh team.
That would be national uh teams.
It would be the danish nationalteam in team handball or the
soccer team.
Okay, that's what I follow.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
And who is your favorite athlete of all time?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Their athlete.
That would be.
It would be Maradona or.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Muhammad Ali.
There you go.
Excellent.
Well, Perry, thank you verymuch again for taking the time
to speak with us In our newexecutive spotlight series.
You are very passionate aboutthe industry.
I appreciate everything you do.
I consider you your friend andit's great getting to know a
little bit more about you.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Yeah, thank you, and likewise enjoyed this, looking
forward to all the lunch andlearns that are coming up.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
All right, thank, you very much, and everyone else.
Please join us back again foranother edition of our Executive
Spotlight series.
Until then, have a wonderfulday.
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