British retail “drowning in sea” of unrewarding loyalty cards

Only Finland has more but, paradoxically, British shoppers among least likely to use them 

London – 7 December 2016. Although British shoppers are the most likely in the world to have a loyalty card, with the exception of Finland, they’re among the least likely to see or utilise the benefits, according to a Nielsen study of 63 countries.

Two-thirds of shoppers globally report being a member of a retail loyalty scheme, compared to 89% in Britain. Only Finland is higher (94%). The average British loyalty card holder has 3.6 of them, behind only Japan and Lithuania.

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New arrangements to ‘improve customer experience and compliance’ at visitor moorings on non-tidal River Thames

http://www.thamesvisitormoorings.co.uk/

The Environment Agency is to test new arrangements for managing its short-stay visitor moorings along the non-tidal River Thames.

During a 12 month trial starting today (Wednesday 16 November), Thames Visitor Moorings, (TVM) a private company run ‘by boaters for boaters’, will take over responsibility for managing bookings and collecting fees at 21 of the 22 visitor mooring sites currently operated by the Environment Agency.

The change will bring significant benefits for boaters and the Environment Agency alike.

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 Mihkel Jaatma, Realeyes’ CEO

The results are based on facial recognition technology which measured people’s reactions as they watched the ads:

• Buster scored better than 95% of the 5,700 ads ever tested by Realeyes in terms of emotional engagement, which is a combined measure of how the ad scores on attraction, retention, engagement and impact
   
• Furthermore, it scored in the highest 1% of ads ever tested among women under 30
   
• It’s the most compelling of the last six John Lewis ads (see chart below), the next best being 2011’s “The Long Wait” which scored better than 89% of ads ever measured.
   
• The scene of Buster on the trampoline is the most engaging scene ever tested for a John Lewis ad

“Initial industry opinion seems to be that Buster isn’t a ‘rockstar’ edition from John Lewis but consumer’s emotional reaction says otherwise – it’s more engaging than their previous five offerings,” says Mihkel Jaatma, Realeyes’ CEO. “Its success is very much driven by happiness, a significant departure from last year’s melancholic Man on the Moon which even John Lewis admitted may have been too sad.” 

Emotion measurement firm Realeyes measured the reactions of 1,700 people across 49 key facial points as they watched the ads via their webcam. The respondents were sourced by audience platform Lucid.
 

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Britons among world’s least likely to try mobile-only banking
They’re 50% more likely than the global average to prefer going to a branch
Despite the number of mobile-only banks set to launch in the UK this year, Britons are among the least likely in the world to use them.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of Britons aren’t likely to use mobile-only banks – those which don’t have a physical location and are serviced entirely via smartphone apps. Only four countries – France, Belgium, Hungary and New Zealand – are less likely than Britons to use these types of banks, according to a global study of 63 countries by Nielsen.

People in India are the most likely to use mobile-only banks (46% say they’re highly likely to do so) followed by Indonesians (37%). Despite the resistance to mobile-only banks among the British public, the 10% who say they’re highly likely to use them “still gives mobile-only banks a potential customer base of around 4.6 million British adults,” according to Stuart Tagg, Nielsen Europe’s financial services leader.

The main reason Britons won’t try mobile-only banking is due to security concerns (cited by 58%), followed by not having a need to do mobile banking (31%). One in five who won’t try it say it’s because they prefer to visit a branch, making Britons 50% more likely than the global average to prefer going into a branch.

“The reality is that mobile-only banking is most likely to take off in developing countries where the majority of the population don’t have bank accounts or easy access to physical branches,” said Tagg. “However, there’s still a good opportunity in Britain, particularly if banks can overcome the general unease about sharing financial information digitally by convincing people that mobile banking is as secure as going into a branch. It’s then that the sheer convenience of mobile banking could make many reconsider.”

Tagg also notes that an “easy-in-theory” win for mobile-only banks is giving higher interest rates, this increases the number of people likely to use them by nearly 2.5 times, “after all, banking is about money.”