By Will Novosedlik

In this series, we ask top industry execs and marketers across the country about their biggest fears and concerns. What are the things of marketing nightmares? This week, we catch up with Parkland Corporation’s new SVP of strategic marketing and innovation Uwe Stueckmann about the biggest problems he faces.

Parkland is a Calgary-based energy and retail company that operates gas stations under the Pioneer, Columbia Fuels, Ultramar, Chevron and Fas Gas Plus brands, as well as franchised Esso locations. Its integrated business includes retail, commercial and refining. Before joining Parkland, Steuckmann worked in senior marketing roles at retailers like Loblaws (where he was EVP and chief customer officer for 12 years), Lowe’s, Shoppers Drug Mart and Suncor. In his current role his responsibilities include developing Parkland’s Journie loyalty program.

So, what keeps you up at night?

We’re fortunate that we’re in a business that is resilient in the face of fluctuations in the economy. It’s more recession-proof because fuel is something you have to buy, a little like food. So I don’t lose any sleep over macroeconomic trends, but I do worry a lot about getting the balance right.

We’ve built this beautiful [loyalty] channel with Journie, and programming in a way that is the most customer-friendly and the most appreciated is really, really tricky. We have to be careful to use this channel in a way thas doesn’t inundate consumers with stuff they don’t want to hear about. And we have to balance it in a way that is not only good for the consumer but good for our business, that’s the biggest challenge. And the technology infrastructure underneath it that makes it all possible is probably the hardest nut to crack.

Since loyalty is such a big part of your role at Parkland, what is your perspective on the state of loyalty in Canada right now?

It has certainly been an interesting last 24 months or so with Air Canada taking back Aeroplan and the near demise of Air Miles. It has been a very dynamic space lately, not least because loyalty card members are sitting on $16 billion of unredeemed points. On the bright side, it also includes our recently announced partnership with Aeroplan.

If I think about it, there hasn’t been a great deal of innovation in the loyalty space for quite some time. There’s this general approach to loyalty that creates some kind of a base currency and then tries to influence consumer behavior through a personalized offer strategy, and that is true for most loyalty programs. But it’s no longer just about monetary value. That’s just the cost of entry. It’s about creating experiences that remove friction, that add joy and that are more than just giving me your data to get a dollar off.

We are spending a lot of our energy thinking about how to create a loyalty program that incentivizes the consumer to identify with the point of sale. Particularly in retail, where otherwise you have no visibility into who the customer is. The loyalty program is this exchange of value where customers identify themselves with a card, an app, or a phone number and the company gets the benefit of having the data. The challenge is to use that data to generate incremental value.

Canadians have an awful lot of loyalty programs to choose from. There’s PC Optimum, Canadian Tire Triangle, Costco, Amazon Prime, Air Miles and then there’s the various financial institutions. How are you helping them buy into Journie?

Our program is a bit different than other programs. It’s about instant gratification. It’s about buying fuel, a purchase that is highly price sensitive. It’s quite easy for customers to earn a 7 cents-a-litre discount with our program. And if they happen to be a CIBC customer, they get an incremental 3 cents-a-litre, so that’s 10 cents-a-litre off. That adds up. If you look at how people will go all over town to find even a small discount on gas, our program offers a great deal of value.

And then we have an element of surprise and delight where you can unlock little treats and get a free soft drink or a free snack along the way, for example. So if I’m pulling up and filling up my car and I’ve got my kids in the car, I can go in the store and maybe get a free chocolate bar or a bag of chips for them. What makes us unique is this combination of giving people real value on something they’re looking for (i.e., fuel) and a little unexpected reward.

What can you do for customers who just want one or two loyalty memberships? Is that why you partnered with Aeroplan and CIBC? 

We partnered with Aeroplan because there’s a good and loyal customer base that is motivated by that currency. We launched late last year to give people the opportunity to choose Aeroplan as a reward versus the instant discount. And we’ve seen a lot of customers pick us up on that. We’ve brought a lot of new customers to our network. In fact, we have significantly exceeded our targets.

How do you promote Journie?

Not through classic marcom. We rely on our own channels to promote the brand. We see millions of Canadians every year. Our loyalty program really is the creation of our own channels. It creates a direct conduit into the palm or the inbox of our best customers. And that allows us to do all the things that you’d expect a loyalty program to do – driving incrementally from our existing customer base, recognizing our customers for their loyalty and showing our appreciation.