Under the direction of Medianet publisher Oliver Jonke, Harald Gutschti (CEO Unito/Otto Group), Konstantin Kasapis (CEO and owner of SlopeLift), Walter Lukner (managing director of Payback), and Ernst Gittenberger (IHaM Institute for Retail, Sales and Marketing) provided insight into the importance of loyalty programmes during an age of social media. Do companies even need "loyalty" when they can connect directly with customers in a traditional way and via social media platforms?

The bottom line during the talk came from Jonk: "Advertising cannot replace loyalty, but it can promote it." Gittenberger continued: "Loyalty is geared towards retaining customers for the long-term. It does not replace advertising but, at the same time, advertising alone does not create customer loyalty."

Lukner believes that Austria is a "loyalty country" but the basic service of setting up a loyalty programme costs the same, whether in Germany or in a country as small as Austria. Kasapis believes the decisive factor is the relevance of customer loyalty programmes for consumers, which has to be created first. Gutschi used a well-known phrase: "It's always more expensive to invest in acquiring new customers than to retain existing ones."

Read more about the expert talk in the current issue of Medianet on March 1, or online, opens an external URL in a new window.