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Loyalty in our new reality: How brands can thrive by prioritizing care, kindness & trust in a changing landscape

What does loyalty mean today?

Jonathan Legge10 min2020-07-20

Deep dive into our categories

We felt the winds of change beginning to blow before the shadow of Covid-19 drew itself around the globe. The old ways weren't working. Society had started to reassess misguided anthropocene thinking. The pandemic, like all great crises has brought focus and now much of what we have known is, thankfully changing.

What we have been observing is how people are dealing with this transition. How we respond in a crisis says a great deal, not just about who we are, but about who we want to be. The world paused the economy in order to prioritise society as a whole. In doing so vital qualities like care, kindness and trust have re-entered the public consciousness in force.

These could be the foundational qualities of our new reality.

Jonathan Legge

Business has changed. Between the indiscriminate hit of the pandemic and the righteous power of the movement condemning racial injustice, no brand can move forward as they were. Customers are people and we are emotional beings. Transactional gestures don’t cut it any more.

In our new reality brands that care - that show their human side - will reach people. Human connections count. And brand loyalty is not about a transactional programme of points and convoluted tiers.

Brands that care (genuinely and for all) are the ones that will survive no matter the crisis.

Jonathan Legge

True loyalty is a vital asset now more-so than ever before. It is a human impulse in an increasingly digital world. Loyal customers are actively engaged in their choices and decisions. Positive engagement speaks volumes about a brand’s wellbeing. Brands that care (genuinely and for all) are the ones that will survive no matter the crisis.

&Open works in the service of brands and people to establish loyalty.

Our mission is to forge lasting relationships between companies and customers. We do this through easy, contextual and memorable gifting. A human gesture. This reaches people with a powerful message: they matter. This brand cares.

We believe our future has a society, not an economy, at its heart. People matter more than numbers. This is what loyalty looks like in our new reality.