Loblaw has added a healthy new feature for its PC Plus loyalty membership, in a move to make it a wellness program, in addition to a points offering.
Beginning this month, the grocery retailer has integrated the Guiding Stars program into its PC Plus membership program, allowing users to keep track of how healthy their purchases are and how they stack up against their neighbours. Since 2011, Loblaw has partnered with the Guiding Stars program, which gives foods a star ranking based on analysis by dieticians. Store shelves at Loblaws locations currently show the star ratings.
Now, the brand has worked with Toronto’s SapientNitro to make the program available to its PC Plus members through its loyalty app and website. Using the PC Plus members’ shopping data, the platform stacks their purchases against Guiding Stars criteria on a new online dashboard, showing each user how they’re doing in terms of healthy eating relative to others in the community and those who shop at the relevant store. “When customers see their profile, spelled out simply in a dashboard format, the dots connect quickly,” Uwe Stueckmann, SVP of marketing at Loblaw told strategy in an email. “People understand the value right away.”
Currently, there are over nine million members in the program. “We have never been as overt with Guiding Stars as we are today, but we’ve also never had a customer quite as open to nutrition marketing as we have today,” Stueckmann says.
“In the long run, we may be able to incent better shopping behaviours,” he says. “By showing customers their current week’s basket, their previous eight weeks, as well as their year-to-date percentage of star-rated products, we are perfectly positioned to consider additional incentives for making better nutritious choices.”
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