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ASDA Rewards Logo

How ASDA leveraged Eagle Eye's market-leading loyalty platform and expertise to launch 'ASDA Rewards', deployed just 3 months after project kick-off.

Case Study:
Loyalty Launch
.

How ASDA leveraged Eagle Eye's market-leading loyalty platform and expertise to launch 'ASDA Rewards', deployed just 3 months after project kick-off.

ASDA Rewards logo
6
million

active members

£
525
million

built in Cashpots

52
%

sales linked to digital scheme

The Challenge

In 2021, ASDA, one of the UK's 'big four' supermarkets, exited the Walmart Group, having been acquired by the Issa Brothers and TDR Capital. Amidst the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and increasing pressure from the discounters, the new owners had an ambition to rapidly turn ASDA - a traditional EDLP retailer which had limited data about individual customers - into a business which used customer data to differentiate itself from the competition. It set out to do this by creating a compelling personalized loyalty proposition with an emphasis on value that was consistent with its EDLP proposition.

Summary:

  • ASDA was the sole big-four UK retailer without its own loyalty scheme.
  • ASDA and their suppliers lacked customer data with which to make informed, customer-centric business decisions.
  • They had very limited digital engagement with their customers, and no ability to deliver personalized experiences.
  • ASDA faced heightened competition from both discount chains and loyalty leaders during the cost-of-living crisis.

The Solution

In collaboration with Eagle Eye, ASDA launched 'ASDA Rewards' in just 12 weeks, an innovative cashback-based program where customers accumulate pounds instead of points. Customers accrue cash in their Cashpot to spend either in-store or online simply by completing missions or purchasing designated 'Star Products' whilst shopping.

Central to the realization of this initiative was ASDA's adoption of Eagle Eye's Real-Time Loyalty product, serving as the Loyalty Ledger discreetly in the background. To unlock the potential of personalization, ASDA leveraged the Eagle Eye Wallet, enabling real-time tracking of customer interactions across all touchpoints, delivering a single customer view.

The missions themselves exemplify the gamification capabilities of the Eagle Eye platform. Customers engage in a series of objectives to earn cash rewards, driving both frequency and spend. These missions can be completed within a single transaction or over a specified period, amplifying customer engagement.

ASDA Rewards - First Scan Bonus

Complementing this, the scheme offers additional earning opportunities through 'Star Products' and 'Superstar Products'. Customers receive instant cash rewards upon purchasing select items, which can range from own-brand to branded products—leveraging supplier-funding to deepen partnerships and collect invaluable data insights.

Thanks to the Cloud-Based Basket Adjudication feature, rewards are seamlessly issued and redeemed in real-time through the integration with ASDA's in-store and eCommerce points-of-sale. Customers can conveniently track their Cashpot balance and mission progress through the dedicated app, ensuring transparency and accessibility.

ASDA Rewards - Star Products

To further enrich and gamify the programme, ASDA and Eagle Eye partnered with Odicci in 2023 to introduce 'Spin-to-Win' and 'Scan-to-Win' games. These promotions rewarded customers every time they spent £5 during live campaigns, boosting engagement in the programme and increasing average transaction value.

ASDA introduced the Christmas Moment Saver Pot in the same year, also powered by Eagle Eye. This allowed customers to transfer funds to a separate "locked" cashpot at an accelerated rate (E.g. moving £40 would earn an extra £5). These cashpots were then unlocked for customers in December, helping their funds go further during the expensive festive period, and driving huge increases in footfall and basket value to ASDA.

asda-rewards-cashpot-fortune

Why ASDA chose Eagle Eye

Scalability

With 17 million customers, Asda required technology capable of handling scale. Eagle Eye's proven track record of managing 200 million loyalty members and delivering more than 750 million personalised offers weekly assured Asda that scalability was not an issue.

Speed

Integration with Asda’s physical and digital Point of Sale (POS) systems allowed Eagle Eye to facilitate real-time issuance and redemption of rewards, enabling Asda to deliver value to its customers in the blink of an eye.

Flexibility

Starting with a clean slate, Asda sought a platform that could evolve alongside their loyalty proposition, accommodating new and innovative use cases over time. Eagle Eye's AIR platform offered hundreds of use cases out-of-the-box with the team also showcasing an innovative roadmap, ensuring Asda's operations remained future-proof.

Grocery Expertise

Eagle Eye's extensive experience in assisting leading grocers worldwide provided Asda with valuable strategic insights from both technical and global best practice perspectives. Eagle Eye also connected Asda with overseas customers at their bi-annual Retail Summit events, fostering the exchange of insights and learnings.

Omnichannel Capability

Asda aimed for a seamless experience across all channels, Eagle Eye's solution ensured consistency across all physical and digital touchpoints.

Partnership Integration

Eagle Eye's plug-and-play platform could be seamlessly integrated into Asda’s existing tech stack, as well as with 3rd party partners such as Odicci, enabling Asda to deliver the exact customer experience they desired.

"Eagle Eye provided strategic direction from a technical perspective, but also guidance on global best practices in the loyalty space. They introduced us to other leading retailers around the world to understand what they were doing, what hurdles they had to jump over to successfully launch rewards programmes. What really stood out was the technical solution, the ability to manage that transactional layer, the wallet and to ever evolve the needs of the loyalty programme."
Mark Baxter
Senior Director for Loyalty at Asda

Results

Within 18 months of its launch, the loyalty scheme has an impressive 6 million active members and is driving a double-digit incrementality in customer-level sales, propelling the growth of the ASDA business. £525 million has been accumulated in customer Cashpots, with nearly all of these funds promptly redeemed and reinvested into Asda.

The strategic integration of the digital app element has successfully incentivized customers to download and engage with the app regularly as it is there that they can view the value they’ve accumulated, and unlock exclusive benefits. As a result, the scheme is now linked to 49% of total sales, furnishing ASDA with invaluable data that is laying the groundwork for future personalized marketing activities, as well as being used to make customer-centric decisions across all other areas of the business.

The spin-and-scan-to-win games alone have resulted in £36.2 million in cash giveaways, with an outstanding 80% redemption rate. Furthermore, the introduction of the Christmas Saver Cashpot has seen tens of millions of pounds reinvested in ASDA during a critical time of the year, resulting in a substantial £4.1 million in bonus cash for customers who embraced the initiative. Such overwhelming popularity has prompted ASDA to extend the Christmas Saver Cashpot to ASDA Rewards customers seven months earlier this year compared to its launch in July 2023, indicative of its enduring appeal and impact.

As we look ahead to the future, ASDA and Eagle Eye have some exciting developments in the pipeline for ASDA Rewards.

 

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