A culture of corporate innovation is often considered a key business objective that can drive business performance, and oil companies are keen to create innovative concepts that impress consumers. And so it was very interesting to read the results of the second annual American Innovation Index, a study conducted in May 2019 with 8,863 consumers across 174 firms from 21 industries, which measured consumer sentiment and perceptions of this key corporate metric.
Overall customer’s identified clear technology leaders such as Apple (which leads the scoreboard), however given the breadth of industries surveyed, we were excited to find out which American fuel brand is most capturing customer’s attention when it comes to innovation. And that brand was Chevron – which has now been recognised as “America’s Most Innovative Oil Company“. What better reason to review their loyalty strategy and find out what we can learn from this leading fuel retailer and its “Extra Mile” convenience concept brand and its “Extra Rewards” programme.
Clear and consistent – Chevron Proving that Simplicity Creates Clarity for Customers.
Extra Mile Extra Rewards
Chevron is certainly keeping its concept simple and clear for customers. Its reward strategy offers:
- The entire programme is app-based, where customers join and register for the rewards program and keep track of their progress towards earning free “extras”.
- A sign-up bonus free product as an instant gratification “extra” reward.
- Further qualifying purchases simply earn “shields” – in keeping with the overall ‘superhero’ design and fun theme of the brand.
- 5 Shields = 1 Free Food Or Drink “Extra”.
- “Extras” vary but currently include the following branded items
- Any size of fresh coffee beverage, ICEE or fountain drink
- Regular-size Snickers®, any flavor
- 1 liter Arrowhead® water
- Any Johnsonville roller grill product (availability may vary by location)
Loyalty Strategy
While Chevron has clearly invested in its retail concept and fuel formula, its loyalty strategy is incredibly simple and clear. Given the brands mentioned explicitly in the “extras” rewards list, it would appear that their rewards are funded by suppliers (such as Snickers) – making the whole programme easily affordable and easy to manage for Chevron and its team of retail staff.
Chevron are certainly running a programme that customers can easily understand. And with rewards for every five qualifying purchases, it’s a generous programme too.
So while their loyalty strategy is unlikely to have helped them reach their innovation ranking, I think they’ve done a good job to create something so easy and understandable, with the added benefit of capturing customer’s data for future innovative ideas and enhancements.
About Us:
Liquid Barcodes is a leading global loyalty and digital marketing technology company specialised for the convenience store and foodservice industries. Our proprietary cloud-based technology platform allow retailers to create and manage their digital marketing campaigns with a proprietary process we call the “customer connection cycle’ to engage, promote and reward customers activities in real-time across digital and media channels.
How we do it:
We have developed the most advanced loyalty and digital marketing technology platform specifically for convenience store and foodservice retailers globally.
Retailers use our self-service dashboard to create and manage loyalty driven marketing campaigns that increase purchases with their existing customers, as well as effectively target and acquire new customers through partners or paid media channels.
One core component of live loyalty is gamification. We have gamified branding, loyalty and promotions. We believe this approach is essential in order to get customers’ attention and ultimately truly engage them with repeatable actions thereby winning their loyalty.
Check out some of our exciting/proven results here:
About Me:
Chief Content Officer, Liquid Barcodes and Independent Loyalty Consultant
With over twenty-five years marketing experience, I specialise in loyalty marketing consulting, managing consumer loyalty propositions, strategy and operations. In addition to working with Liquid Barcodes, my clients have included Telefonica O2, Three Mobile, Electric Ireland, Allied Irish Bank and The Entertainer Group, as well as Avios – the global points currency for some of the world’s top airlines. I am also a judge for the Loyalty Magazine Awards.
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