Every day this week, we are rolling out the profiles of our 2022 Marketers of the Year. Read the other stories as they are published here.

This story was originally published in the Winter 2023 issue of strategy.

When Navin Singh joined the marketing team for Scene in February 2021, the program was preparing for a rebrand.

At that time, Scene’s ownership was shared between Scotia and Cineplex Entertainment, and it had a long-standing partnership with Recipe Unlimited that allowed members to spend and collect points on dining, as well as at the cinema.

That foundation of entertainment rewards was a strong one, but the loyalty program had been rendered effectively dormant as a result of the closure of many of the businesses at which its points could be used and collected, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even still, Singh says, he was optimistic about the future of the brand. And why not? It was already the leading specialty retail loyalty program in Canada with more than 10 million members.

Singh’s team worked to expand that lead further toward the end of 2021, when they launched the rebranded Scene+, resulting from a merger between Scene and the Scotia Rewards program, as well as a number of meaningful partnerships that vastly expanded the context in which Scene points could be earned and redeemed.

“Our strategy is to bring the meaning to the ‘plus’ in Scene+,” Singh told strategy.

Singh’s team achieved that goal through an email marketing campaign that also leveraged its owned channels – website, social and app – to showcase the new contexts in which Scene+ loyalty points could be redeemed and earned, including through a cash-back integration with Rakuten, integration into Apple and Best Buy’s ecommerce platforms, and travel rewards through a new partnership with Expedia.

“The program had evolved to fit our members’ lifestyles and give them all something to look forward to,” Singh reflects. “It was more than just the new colours and tone, there was a new experience that we were standing for.”

The rebrand would have been enough work for Singh’s team to communicate. But then, six months later, a new owner bought a stake in the Scene+ program: grocery giant Sobeys’ parent company, Empire.

Scene+’s expansion across the company’s national grocery banners was announced immediately thereafter, and so the work began anew for Singh and his team as they sought to integrate Empire’s marketing department, led by Sandra Sanderson, into an ownership group that already included Scotia and Cineplex.

“It was an exciting new partnership, and our role at Scene+ was to see how we could help our owners collaborate on a common vision, direction and marketing strategy for the program that built brand equity and delivers experiences that are great for our members,” Singh explains. “The greatest challenge is that we have three of the best marketing teams to work with, and they all have very strong ideas and leadership. We might not make everybody happy, all of the time.”

Through 2022, much of the marketing effort focused on the new rewards available to Scene+ members. Empire’s integration of the program into its banners was a gradual one, with the program rolling out in its grocers within Ontario through November.

Alongside that cross-country rollout came a new platform, developed with independent agency Rethink, that co-opted imagery Scene members would recognize – such as the marquee signage employed by old-school cinemas – in order to drive home the fact that what was once a loyalty program associated primarily with entertainment options was now expanding into grocery.

The message was clear: Scene+ is no longer just a specialty retailer loyalty program. It had transitioned into a much larger proposition. “People are using the program every day now,” explains Singh. “That’s special to see.”

The expansion has also reinforced the need for Singh’s team to keep messaging its existing membership.

“We have work to do on the Scene+ brand to make sure all our members know that we’ve expanded as a lifestyle program,” he explains. “We’re still about movies, which are our heritage, but we’re now also about much more. And we’re going to continue to tell that story because that brand platform – ‘It’s Raining Rewards’ – is a message that’s really hitting home.”

Scene+ worked with agency Rethink on “It’s Raining Rewards” to highlight the expansive nature of the loyalty program.

What it all boils down to for Singh is that this is a busy time for Scene+ – and he’s a true believer, he says.

“Our new brand is entirely centred around optimism. At times, there have been two steps forward and one step back, but there is that sense of optimism in the market now: theatres are open again, with energy and demand there; restaurants are open again, and our members are flocking back to them,” Singh elaborates. “The new categories we have added in – online shopping, travel, grocery – those are game-changers.”

That optimism is translating into growth, too. While Singh couldn’t reveal specific data, the Scene+ app had been a stalwart in the top three app downloads in Canada on both the Apple and Android app marketplaces, and the new memberships that the program once would have spent months acquiring is now being acquired in “weeks and days,” he notes.

Scene+ is also still expanding into new retail frontiers, with Home Hardware joining in 2023.

“The program has got it going on,” Singh says. “We’re just trying to keep up with the aggressive plans for growth, as well as all of the new and old members alike who are coming back to the program.”