John Boynton
With the hiring of its first CMO this past fall, Aimia now has a single c-suite executive in charge of both Aeroplan and its B2B marketing operations. That CMO is John Boynton, a long-time marketing executive, who was hired in September with a mandate to build both Aeroplan and Aimia’s brands in Canada.
Marketing recently had a chance to sit down with Boynton to talk about taking over both divisions. He told us that as a veteran CMO, he not only knows how to speak to consumers, but also understands the problems that other CMOs are facing and what they’re looking for in Aimia’s loyalty products. Winning over CMOs on the virtues of loyalty marketing, and especially loyalty data, is at the heart of Aimia’s B2B business.
He said in today’s world, there’s no such thing as a CMO who doesn’t see the value of data, but many are struggling with how to extract that value. Boynton said CMOs are filled with questions about data, such as “How much, and which kind, and what is real-time vs. not real-time? How do I get the right insights. And how do I know they’re the right insights?”
As former CMO of Rogers, one of the biggest data warehouses in Canada, Boynton has a lot of experience in getting value out of data. He spent 12 years at the company, serving as CMO of Rogers Communications for the past five years and before that as CMO of Rogers’ wireless division. During that time, Rogers made major investments in developing its data collection, storage and analysis tools and learned how to implement them both in its own marketing and with B2B clients.
In his new role, Boynton plans to use his experience with data to help brand clients get the most out of Aimia’s loyalty solutions. The firm has spent much of the last decade enhancing its data infrastructure and capabilities, most recently through a strategic partnership with global analytics firm Fractal, which will see much deeper integration with Fractal’s high-powered analysis and data visualization products. In the rich field of social data, which is coming to play a big role in loyalty marketing, Boynton is working in partnership with Engagement Labs to help drive the development of social analytics and brand-focused metrics.
Aimia’s investments in data have followed a big shift in the loyalty industry towards using loyalty data to better understand and relate to customers. Programs like Aeroplan are now less focused on driving retention through currency. Aeroplan miles and travel rewards are now just one tool rather than the entire strategy, Boynton said.
“Today, it’s about how do I get enough data and information about the customer that I can be more intimate?” he explained. “If I’m more intimate, I’ll be more relevant. If I’m more relevant, I’ll get response rates. If I get more response rates, I’ll achieve my business’s key performance indicators. And there are multiple indicators now that are driven by that – acquisition for sure, but a lot of retention, up-selling, cross-selling and even customer experience, in terms of special moments when you’re trying to make a difference in the customer’s mind.
“That’s why Aimia — Aimia globally, Aimia in Canada and Aeroplan as a coalition – are so data-centric now, and why we’re really a data analytics company first and foremost.”
He points to the convergence of long-term marketing trends driving marketer and loyalty firm interest in data. For one, the technology underlying data marketing has matured. Where a CRM system used to involve dozens of partners, now a handful of players offer true end-to-end collection, analytics and communication platforms, making it drastically easier for businesses and marketers to work with data. Meanwhile the cost of data storage and processing have fallen, making it feasible for brands to maintain large customer databases.
Another big factor is the comfort that consumers now feel with sharing data with loyalty programs. Though many consumers are still wary of non-consensual data collection, they’re much more likely today to understand and accept data collection through fully consensual channels like Aeroplan, and to see value in exchange through more relevant and personalized benefits.
“We may be in the most exciting time in my 20-plus years in marketing,” Boynton said. “The world has finally hit and crested a tipping point that people have been talking about for a long time.”
