From Loyalty to Membership

Membership is also a vehicle of the modern aspiration economy. It represents a shift from doing things for the benefit of others (conspicuous consumption) to a value model where we invest in things that benefit ourselves: access, knowledge, information, experience, privacy, belonging, self-actualization. In the modern aspiration economy, consumers ... See more

The irony of most of today’s loyalty programs is that they aren’t about loyalty at all. They have more to do with economic calculation and gain management than with the true affinity for a brand.

True loyalty is emotional and irrational, and often at odds with our survival instinct. To achieve it, brands are better off with membership programs than the point schemes. Figuring out a good membership scenario is even more important today with a proliferation of subscription models, private chat rooms, and an ever-increasing costs of paid socia... See more

For example: there are programs that allow customers to earn points for following a brand or for writing a product review. This sort of bribery usually attracts the least loyal - and least valuable - audience who is mostly interested in the positive transaction utility and has a low brand investment (once they claim a reward, they can unfollow the ... See more