Analysing Gen Z Behaviour to Loyalty Programs, with Jaimi Farrey

In this episode I am joined by, Jaimi Farrey, previously Senior Loyalty and Personalisation Manager for Grill'd, an incredibly popular (and famous) health focused QSR in Australia.

Jamie and I discuss how Gen Z's preferences for loyalty programs differ hugely from those of previous generations, especially in terms of the need for instant gratification, an alignment of belief and preferences on new communication channels, such as WhatsApp and social media platforms. Grill'd satisfy the alignment of belief with their donate a burger initiative which has been incredible popular with their younger customer demographic.

We also talk about how we are all getting a bit Gen Z these days and what this means for traditional loyalty programmes. We offer suggestions on what brands should do to embrace this transition.

Hello and welcome to the future of loyalty podcast with me your host Tom Peace the future of loyalty are a series of informative and engaging podcasts with a laser focus on the emerging Trends within the customer loyalty engagement and CRM sector I invite industry leaders and subject matter experts to discuss the future developments in customer strategy and all our discussions are focused on where the industry is going next our discussions are fuelled by a passion for new developments and Innovations in sector and we aim for about 20 minutes perfect for your coffee break your lunchtime or your journey home if you enjoy this podcast Please Subscribe at www.theloyaltypeople.global to get all our content direct to your inbox

I'm joined today by Jamie Farrey all the way from Australia uh Jamie would you like to please introduce yourself hi Tom thanks for having me today yes so I'm Jamie I actually he more from your side of the pond as they say so I'm originally from Sunny Scotland and I am made the trip to Australia for a holiday uh about eight years ago and yeah still here so um yeah just the weather's a bit better but it’s pretty similar to back home which is which is nice yeah well uh the weather’s certainly better at the minute because we’re right in our cold snap it's uh the day of recording is the 18th of January2024 we're expecting the blizzards to hit any minute we've been told snow and ice by the weekend so uh yeah you’ve definitely you're definitely from weather point of view in the right place yeah I won't tell you how hot it is here then so yeah and where abouts in Australia are you based you Sydney based and know I'm in Melbourne believe it or not it does actually get a bit cold down here not as cold as you guys but um so yeah I've been here the whole eight years um worked for yeah a few different brands over here and I’m currently working for a brand called grill’d yeah I've heard of it so it's a bit it's kind of like a Nando equivalent right pretty much like in terms of that dating it experience is it's very similar to like a yuk Nando where you go with your friends and you know to hang out but you know the food's a bit different we focus more on Burgers you know beef burgers chicken burgers healthy fried chicken urgers so um yeah I guess our differentiate our brand over here in Australia we really lean into the kind of um you know that healthy Burger space so we want you to be able to enjoy us and that kind of guilt free way we do a lot of work over herewith um you know it's all about sport nutrition health so we have a lot of sport ambassadors brand ambassadors we're currently working with Ash Barton a campaign right now that we have in market for former tennis um number ones uh yeah it's really great to work for quite a purpose-driven brand yeah wonderful and um I understand that the brand as well as health it does a lot of um kind of sustainability and charity work tell us just a little bit about that yeah for sure I think that’s why I love working for the uh gr our loyalty program is called relish membership with heart um and a big part of our relish membership is allowing our members to give back to their local communities while also enjoying the brand in a more traditional way with you know a traditional more uh rewards and freebies um basically when you get to a certain point along your journey you get the choice to take a free burger or you can donate it and Via one of our charity Partners we'll give it to someone you know doing it tough in in one of our inner cities so um yeah it’s really special I think to date members have donated over155,000 of their burgers so it is something they really see value in mind that they love about the programme fantastic that sounds excellent and actually it feeds really well into the subject that we wanted to talk about today which is Gen Z loyalty and it sounds like it sounds like that's a restaurant really aiming at a GenZ Population right or maybe GenZ and a little bit older yeah for sure I think as definitely our target audience is where we see our growth audience in in Gen Z I'd say our established audience is more you know a bit older generation you definitely millennial we just celebrated our 20th birthday this year so we've definitely retain those customers since they were young since they would have been Gen Z and they're now older with their families and we you know now we see the families coming through and those children enjoying it so yeah definitely um growth in that gen Z for sure yeah and you know the Gen Z loyalty trend has-been has been talked about a lot and I think it's still good to talk about it in a little bit uh a little bit more detail but I think it's interesting geta view from other parts of the world here what we're seeing here is that the Gen Z generally and the Millennials a little bit are very different in their approach to loyalty and it's quite difficult for a loyalty brand to deal with that and I'm wondering if it’s a similar thing in Australia and atypical of other countries maybe you can advise but I tell you what we're seeing here is that um in the past the Loyalty proposition has been driven a lot by the kind of convenience element and the value element and I'm a victim of this massive Avios lover um collect as many Avios as I can but it's all about the value I collect those Avios I fly with BA I um and its partners and I have an AMX credit card and I'm just trying to get as many Avios and then I use the bios to part pay for next year's family holiday and that for me is a really that locks me in loyalty wise because of the value element but I must admit that and even I am changing so I start to think about well do I want to always fly BA or am I looking for a flight that might be slightly better time or better location and that the carrier is becoming a little bit less important and I think that’s how look Gen Z act right they’re better researchers they aren't swayed as easily by those kind of points value messages and are also looking for kind of other alignments of belief sustainability charity whatever um and I wonder if that is that also what you’re saying is that would you agree with that yeah absolutely I think you know you nailed it on the head and I think those you know those habits are changing you know when you think of any audience they've constantly got a phone in their hand they've grown up you know just having the world at their fingertips so to them it's not an effort to be researching um taking the time out of their day because they're already there they’re already were you know on their phones looking for information looking for Content it's not they're not having to go out of their way now to do that research so I think they are very they’re Savvy Shoppers like you said they’re they are still looking for prices and discounts and things here anyway but I think um yeah like you said they’re just looking for a bit more I kind of like to think of it if you picture each generation as like a pie chart the JZ pie chart they definitely have they're looking for offers but I think what builds up the rest of their pie chart is definitely different to the you know older Generations like you said um from a cause um purpose sustainability point of view yeah that's interesting actually because I suppose value it’s not that value isn't important it's just that they want the value instantly they want a discount they don't want deferred value in terms of the don’t want to earn points that will be valuable in 12 months they want the discount now that's maybe what sways them a little bit more right yeah well I mean they've grown up again having everything at their fingertips the patients levels are definitely different like you said they want that instant gratification they want that instant um reward I think though where they might differentiate a bit though is while we're seeing you know they are looking for and they might not be as loyal to a brand I feel when they are loyal they're super loyal I saw a survey recently where it was you know what does loyalty mean to you and it meant to Gen Z like loving the brand you know that love aspect they absolutely love it and that was you know say 34% versus the Boomers was 15% so when they are loyal they’re very loyal it's when if they‘re in that in between space yet they are going to jump if someone's gives them that better instant kind of gratification yeah absolutely you're absolutely right there and I think to build on that I think they are better Advocates so once you have locked them in and they are once they are super loyal they really Advocate they are telling everyone and they've obviously got the advantage of understanding how Instagram Works who knows how that works but they use social media they talk to their friends Etc so once you have got somebody loyal the advocacy that you can drive from that is really strong right oh for sure and I think you know traditionally you know we were content consumers like we consumed content they’re content creators so what we’re seeing is they're coming brand ambassadors especially you know with the rise of things like web 3 and Brands moving up towards those um digital spaces for Jen Z to that Community piece that that's really important to them they want to connect with like-minded individuals that have the same um that believe in the same causes and things as them so they're creating content so that brand of Ambassador piece cannot be overlooked by Brands like the you know the equity that's given you is huge amongst that group yeah totally agree okay great so that's how the genes sort of different to us in terms of it's certainly different to me in terms of their approach to loyalty and how do how do traditional loyalty Brands kind of um switch to interact with these guys better you know if you’re a hotel chain an airline a retailer a restaurant uh that’s been running a traditional style program for many ears how do we advise Brands to flip to be a bit more Gen Z focused I think it's got to always start with you know are you listening and are you asking you know are you trying to connect or are you assuming you know look at your data what is your data telling you but always reach out to your audience and ask if you traditionally don’t have a Gen Z audience and you’re trying to you know reach Their audience again there's ways that you're going to be able to start doing research there and I think that's key is really looking at your channel mix and understanding okay am I reaching them where they're like I just said they're spending you know some studies are staying over nine hours a day in front of a screen so they’re on their phones they're on their screens are you there you know traditionally back you know back in the day male would have been you know the of the day right and then it would have been email and we still talk about email as king and that might be true but we see email as a channel for this generation is nowhere near as impactful you know they're on social media paid media that's where they are messaging apps you know you yeah whether it’s uh WeChat line um WhatsApp Snapchat like that's where they are so if you’re not there you're not going to get to talk to them um if you're sending them10 emails a months about your latest campaign and things that's not going to be the way to engage his audience yeah I totally agree and that is a good point we often don't think about that within the Loyalty industry we think about the traditional ways of interacting with our um our customers and our members from a loyalty point of view but tally just traditional marketing and channel mix isa big and very important part uh and that can't be overstated okay so but what about um the role of kind of influencers and celebrity in that because Gen Zs also react really well to that sort of thing right and you mentioned AshB and AshB's got a really strong um link to your brand in terms of health um and that is also a really important thing for Gen Z population right yeah I think with influencers I think a lot of Brands will see okay we want to Gen Z let's get some influencers and you know it's and that's really not going to marry up that way and I think Brands really have to understand it has to make sense like that customer has to see the partnership as something that makes sense otherwise it's going to come across as really unauthentic and I think authenticity is really important with Gen Z as well so if it looks like you’ve just paid someone a million dollars to come and promote your brand but and if it’s an alcohol brand and then they don’t even drink alcohol openly on socials you know they're going to pick up on tat and they're not going to resonate with that partnership so another thing Brands need to consider is the cost to work with influencers so it’s not realistic if you don't have a big budget there you're not going to get those big names you then have to kind of start coming down the funnel of Okayama what are audience interested in who are the micro inflows in in this space and again what's going to resonate so again it's about meeting them where there are and doing it an authentic way and getting people getting influencers that actually genuinely love your brand because like that love word again if they're going to resonate with that if they also love your brand yeah absolutely and the authenticity is a big thing right because green washing or green washing Sports washing or any type of washing can massively backfire if you get that wrong to that audience then the negative effect of that will be much worse than any positive she could have had so I like what you're saying about find an influencer that loves your brand because if it doesn't come across authentic or if there is one underlying problem that you didn’t research well enough that can significantly damage the brand right yeah and like I said they will find out like we just said they're in the content they're on their phones um you know they're going to find something that they don't uh like if they feel it’s um unauthentic and they know what they’re talking about this generation that they spend they're really passionate about things that weren't as important pertains to Generations before me you know definitely Millennials are started that Trend I think of um looking at causes a bit more and you know now with Gen Z it's going to be more important than ever so if you as a grandparent clear what you actually believe in its yeah it's going to be problematic yeah absolutely and I think just final thoughts and because we just need to finish up now but um my final thoughts would be that actually we’re all getting a bit jenny right I mean Mentioned it I'm my behaviour is starting to change and I think what we need to does we actually need to think about that the Gen Z genes behaviours that we're looking for that you very eloquently described there actually is stretching across us all we're all generations are looking for an alignment belief we are looking for instant gratification we're um we're becoming more loyal but we're also becoming a bit more fickle um so we to all the brands out there need to think about these type of behaviours not just for a demographic of people but just generally we're all going a bit that way right absolutely you know JZ they're leading the agenda and like you said it's already starting to kind of permeate through society and do think it's a good thing like we’re holding Brands more accountable you know what’s the data the value exchange I’m giving you my data what am I getting back are you being loyal to me and I really think you know Jens is really driving that agenda and I love it um so I’ll be interesting to see how Brands start to react to that over the coming years perfect well yeah I think that absolutely right but thank you Jamie that has been a really fascinating conversation um so thank you very much for your time um and this h this has been a pleasure to speak to you no thankyou thank you for having me glad to beat the start of this journey with you I’m sure it's going to be a long and fruitful one so excited to be here yeah thank you very much thanks.