AGENDA

This session explores how retailers can guide customers through meaningful brand journeys by tapping into emotional loyalty. Ann Taylor/Loft and Kobie will present high‑level learnings from consumer research, highlighting how emotional motivations shape customer behavior in ways traditional data cannot capture. As privacy expectations shift and cookies deprecate, emotional loyalty signals offer retailers a durable, future‑resilient way to personalize experiences across fragmented channels. Attendees will learn how emotional data transforms the “what” of customer actions into the more powerful “why,” enabling empathetic and adaptive personalization in real time. The session will show how emotional loyalty metrics complement behavioral data to reveal customer sentiment, intention, and unmet needs. Speakers will also share real‑world examples demonstrating how emotionally defined segments behave differently and how brands can act on this insight immediately. Finally, the session will outline practical ways retailers can scale emotionally driven experiences, ensuring relevance even as customer contexts and expectations continue to evolve.

Most loyalty programs behave like bad relationships: a warm welcome, a birthday message once a year, and long stretches of silence in between. At Home realized it had fallen into that same pattern — operating a CRM program disguised as loyalty and expecting customers to feel connected. To rebuild trust, the team took the unusual step of deeply listening to customers, not about taglines or what they like about us, but about their real experiences, needs, and frustrations. What followed was a foundational reset of how At Home thinks about loyalty, recognition, and communication. This session reveals how At Home rebuilt its loyalty vision by treating customers like real people, not data points — creating a relationship based on intention, recognition, and continuous dialogue. Beyond overhauling the value proposition and modernizing data through new partnerships, At Home also reimagined its community management approach, establishing active two-way conversations on social and digital channels to keep the conversation going long after its pilot. Through humor, candor, and real insights, attendees will learn how At Home turned customer conversations into fuel for program evolution, emotional loyalty, and ongoing engagement. Participants will walk away with frameworks, lessons learned, and a challenge: if your brand only “checks in” with customers on their birthday, it’s time for a reset — and we are happy to bring the matches.

Loyalty today means moving beyond points and perks to deliver flexible, emotionally resonant experiences that keep guests coming back. This session explores how Choice Privileges is evolving to offer more frequent recognition, simpler pathways to status, and rewards that feel “within reach” for the everyday traveler. With insights and learnings from the launch of the refreshed program at the start of 2026, as well as some “hot off the presses” early results, this session will highlight how experiential redemptions, expanded partnerships, and new flexibility features are designed to meet modern guests where they are and how they travel now.

With Subscription Loyalty programs on the rise, alongside the desire for exclusivity among shoppers in general, now may be the time for your brand to explore or update an existing program. Join Andrew, a passionate proponent of this growing area in loyalty, to learn more about Cinemark’s Movie Club, launched in 2017. Following a timeline of successes as well as lessons learned along the way, this session will share takeaways that you can apply to your own company. You will learn the key benefits (and trade-offs) of a subscription loyalty program; how to evaluate whether this type of program is a good fit for your organization; and if so, best practices for designing and launching. For those already exploring or with an existing subscription loyalty program, Andrew will share how Cinemark drives continued success through consistent improvements that address their customer base as well as attracting new customers.

For too long, CRM has been treated solely as a performance channel. Disney chose to treat it as a brand experience. In this session, Emma Cox, Head of CRM EMEA at Disney, and James Ray, SVP Global Head of CRM at Bond, reveal how Disney has reimagined CRM – a channel often dominated by functional, performance-led thinking – into a powerful engine of fandom, engagement and long-term value. By fusing first-party data, deep customer insight and marketing technology with Disney’s storytelling heritage, the team transformed email into distinctive, entertaining and deeply engaging customer experiences – from immersive Marvel and Star Wars moments to unexpected interactions that reward curiosity on open. The result: measurable increases in retention, conversion and long-term customer value, proving experience-led CRM can outperform promotion-led approaches. Attendees will learn how creativity and interactivity can become a core strategic ingredient in building differentiated, high-performing CRM programmes that drive sustained commercial impact. Join this session to discover what happens when data science meets imagination – and why the future of CRM belongs to brands that choose wonder over noise.

Foot Locker set out to prove that incremental profit does not require deeper discounting. By shifting away from mass promotions and toward personalized, intent-based offers within its existing digital ecosystem, the brand delivered smarter value to shoppers in real time, based on purchase context and customer behavior. The result was measurable incremental performance, including sales lift and margin lift, while maintaining a seamless customer experience. Beyond profitability, the approach also drove stronger order economics, including higher AOV and increased apparel attachment through more multi-item baskets. This session will share the strategic shift, execution model, and the early vision for how “demand shaping” can extend these outcomes further by aligning personalized offers to real-time inventory and business priorities - offering a repeatable framework for retailers seeking profitable growth without more discounting.

Customer loyalty is not an accident—it’s the result of harnessing customer data to deliver personalized, seamless experiences across every touchpoint. In this case study, Hibbett will showcase how brands can leverage customer analytics to strengthen loyalty, improve retention, and drive long-term growth. The session will highlight how creating a single customer view and integrating engagement data across omnichannel touchpoints allows brands to better understand and anticipate customer needs. Using Hibbetts’ customer-first approach as a real-world example, we’ll explore how data-driven insights can inform strategy, deliver measurable ROI, and ultimately “drive customers to new horizons.” Key takeaways include How to use customer data to personalize experiences across acquisition, loyalty, and retention. Real case studies showing how Hibbett leverages insights to boost repeat purchases and engagement; A framework for connecting KPIs like CLV and redemption engagement to actionable strategies that enhance the customer journey; and practical methods for evaluating and forecasting campaign success to align loyalty goals with broader brand performance.

Join this session to learn from Ruth Crowley how brand purpose and a framework built around customer focus, digital strategies, and Brand Strategy are integral to the success of any brand and required to retain and acquire customers while keeping a brand relevant in the changing landscape of retail.  Ruth will share examples from companies like Harley- Davidson, Nickelodeon, Universal Studios, M&M Mars and Hudson Group, the largest travel retail Company in the world.

For Live Nation VIP, the challenge was maintaining a premium experience during the long gap between a ticket purchase and the night of the show. Traditional CRM methods were often too static and transactional to capture the high-energy pulse of live music. To foster deep emotional loyalty with a new generation of fans, Live Nation had to solve a complex puzzle. They needed to deliver high-touch, personalized communication at a global scale while keeping the experience human and exciting. This session provides a transparent look at Live Nation’s strategic pivot toward guiding fans through a tailored, data-driven narrative. We will explore the internal hurdles of bridging the gap between massive data sets and creative execution. Leaders from Live Nation and Blings will share how they implemented real-time rendering to transform static touchpoints into interactive journeys. Attendees will leave with relatable takeaways on how this shift to dynamic content redefined their retention strategy and drove significant wins in fan sentiment by meeting fans exactly where they are in the moment. Join this session to get a transparent look at how Live Nation addressed the challenges of implementing real-time rendering at scale, and how the strategic wins were achieved.

LaVella will show the audience how Patagonia designs lifecycle programs that prioritize customer experience through examples like Worn Wear trade‑in flows, post‑purchase education, and customer surprise‑and‑delight moments. She will also share strategies for building frameworks that map customer journeys and adapt to evolving customer needs.