Jen LaForge 0:00

Today's episode of Stacked is going to highlight one of the fastest growing and most re-engineered loyalty programs I've had the honor of seeing and being a part of in the entire time I've been in the industry. And we are joined with Candace Troop to talk a little bit about that evolution, but also more importantly, how our consumers can be maximizing their points, loyalty, and cash back as we promised, learn how to stack and get the most out of every dollar. Candace, thank you so much for being here. Please share your background, your wealth of experience. Let our audience know really who you are and why you're here today.

Candice Troupe 0:34

Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. My name is Candace. As you said, I have been in the loyalty industry in Canada for over 20 years now. I'm dating myself. Most of my career was at the AirMouse Reward program, and I had the opportunity to really start out in CRM data-driven marketing at AirMouse, had a huge passion for it, left the loyalty space a few years ago, and then had the privilege of joining Scene in 2023 and thrilled to be here.

Jen LaForge 1:07

So you left and then you came back because you can't get enough.

Candice Troupe 1:11

Correct. Yeah, I left the industry for a little while just to kind of explore other opportunities in marketing. So spent a little bit of time in research, in payments in transit at Presto, and honestly, like yearned for the opportunity to be back in the loyalty space. And in 2023, Scene had really started its transformation. And I just I wanted to be a part of that. And it's been a privilege to have been there ever since.

Jen LaForge 1:41

And what an exciting place and time to come back. That is an amazing transformation of the loyalty program. We'll talk a little bit about that, but it is quickly becoming one of Canada's largest loyalty ecosystems. Before we dive in, a key question I've been asking a lot of our guests is your definition of value and how you would define value within the loyalty space?

Candice Troupe 2:05

When we talk about value, we we talk about it in kind of two ways. So one is from a member perspective. We have over 15 million members who are part of the program in Canada now. We were at 10 million just over five years ago. So massive growth. And so when we think about that value, first of all, we actually ask our members what matters to them. And we know points matter, the ability to earn them in the places that they shop every day and to earn lots of them so that they can redeem for things that they love. But you know, given the current state of the economy, members also care about discounts and they care about the opportunity to have cash back at Raccuton. And they they care about the opportunity to convert all of that into things that are meaningful in their life. So whether that's redeeming for a gift card, whether that's being able to take a trip, that's their definition of value. And to your point, Jen, they love to stack it. So they're willing to, you know, not necessarily go out of their way. They're willing to do the work to create the most amount of value for themselves as long as it's not full of friction. And I think one of the things that's great about Scene is for the most part, it's a super easy program to be able to get value from.

Jen LaForge 3:20

Let's talk a bit about that evolution of the Scene Plus program. You've done a great job building the base and the education on the new program, but many consumers and Canadians might still be thinking of SEAN as that movie loyalty program where you're earning points for popcorn and concession treats. In fact, it is a complete 180, 360 into a full ecosystem. Can you explain that the change in who Scene Plus is now and maybe why you decided to create that ecosystem?

Candice Troupe 3:52

Yeah, absolutely. So Scene has been around for almost 20 years. We're having our 20th anniversary next year, which is amazing. Thank you. And its origin story is rooted, as you said, in the movies and in banking. So Cineplex and Scotia Bank were the OGs of the SEAM program. We were called SIN at the time. And in 2021, um, Scotia ended up effectively going all in. They had two loyalty programs. So they had the SIEM program and they had Scotia Rewards, and they decided to invest fully in the SIN program. So that was sort of the first part of the transformation. And then a year later, Empire joined the SEAN program, not just as a partner in the program, but actually as an owner in the program. And if you're not familiar with Empire, that's SOB, Safeway, Foodland, Fresco. They have a number of grocery brands. So another really transformative moment because in loyalty, you have to have enough elements of everyday earn for the program to be kind of inherent in your life, to create the habit in your life. We went, as I said, from 10 million members to 15 million members. And in that process, we started to add some other partners as well. And the way that we think about partnerships is really we're super intentional about it. So, first of all, we ask members what they want in terms of the categories that they care about. We are rooted in this idea that whoever is part of the program needs to feel essential to the members' life. And so we've added very intentionally to this ecosystem, now in a place where we have over 4,500 physical locations and the opportunity for members to effectively get everything they need in one place in one loyalty program. So that in and of itself creates value because it means that you don't have to go elsewhere to be able to get what you need out of the program.

Jen LaForge 5:50

Why is that the coalition of all these partners within this ecosystem so important? And why do you think that that's lending to so much success with Scene Plus?

Candice Troupe 6:00

Yeah, there's a few things. I mean, transparently, I think there's still so much more that we need to do. So we have yet to fully unlock the network effect of the ecosystem because we were so focused on the build. So there's a ton of opportunity still. And to your point earlier, there are many members in the program who still kind of think that we are a movie program. Being rooted in entertainment is amazing because there's, you know, ultimately there's so much joy in entertainment. If you think about special moments you've had with your family, they're often tied to entertainment. But again, to really unlock the power of that coalition or the power of the ecosystem, we've got a ton of opportunity. And the benefit is, so from a member perspective, the benefit is that you've got all of the essential places, as I said, that you can shop at, unlock value at, stack value at, so on and so forth. From a partner perspective, the opportunity to share customers, acquire customers together, market to customers, and ultimately to create value together. The formula is one plus one equals three, meaning that what you do together is stronger than what you could have done on your own, which delivers, you know, it gives you the ability to drive scale as a partner, it gives you stronger ROI, and it gives you much more access to not just customers, but to the data surrounding customers as well.

Jen LaForge 7:32

What are the customers loving about this? And what has been really simple for them to get with the new program?

Candice Troupe 7:38

They love the fact that they can unlock that value that you were talking about. So, you know, they can earn points, they can redeem points when they're in store. If they've got uh a Scotia payment product, the ability to accelerate those points. There, Scotia has a number of credit cards that are just fantastic. That gets you to rewards much faster. And it also gets you to amazing redemption options. So there's things like points for travel or points for credit where you can use your points to pay off your bills or pay for a trip. So what members love is the ability to be able to get access to all of that value and to be able to, you know, stack it, stack it, stack it in order for it to feel really amazing for them. That's right.

Jen LaForge 8:21

We're making it easier to stack those programs together. Yep. If you look at the Scene Plus program, you've got the in-store or real life uh part of the program, you've got the digital earn part of the program. This is a highly complex consumer ecosystem to be navigating in an already hyper-complex space. So, what would you say, you know, is the the number one customer focus of ease using this program across so many different avenues? Like how do you hone in and ensure that it is consistent and seamless and feels like one program that everyone loves and uses every day?

Candice Troupe 9:04

So we are focused on trying to bring the intersection of simplicity, breadth, and value. And I would argue that the most difficult thing to do in a loyalty ecosystem is simplicity. And the reason for that is, you know, I'm I'm effectively a brand within a number of brands. So I think our starting point is different. Like we never walk into a boardroom and say, I'm going to dictate to you what the experience needs to look like. But in great partnerships, we will work together and agree on the points of friction that are, you know, if we can break down those points of friction and overcome them, the member from a loyalty program perspective will have a better experience and your customer will have a better experience. So it really comes down to collaborative partnerships. And, you know, we use a lot of data to say which are the key points of friction that really, really matter to improving the experience and effectively driving commercial outcomes as well.

Jen LaForge 10:04

Okay, and we don't like to talk about things going wrong, but in this evolution of the Scene Plus program, what was the greatest friction point that uh that you tackled first and removed that barrier to get five million additional members?

Candice Troupe 10:17

So a few things. I mean, we had to get we had to get the launch of Empire right and they did an amazing job. I think the scene team did an amazing job, but Empire really did an amazing job. They had a lot of lessons learned around what works and what doesn't work in loyalty, and they were able to apply that. So when you walked into a grocery store, you knew that CEM Plus was part of SOBs or Foodland, so on. Our digital experience has been an experience that, you know, has been a work in progress. And in 2024, we had a fairly significant issue around fraud. Many loyalty programs have. Loyalty is a is another currency, right? So fraudsters are out there trying to get access to points to be able to redeem for things. That was a bit of a setback for us because we needed to obviously fix fraud before we move forward with our digital strategy. That's all well in hand. We have amazing fraud tools, very low fraud rates. Consumers are very, very protected. So that's awesome. Our focus now is really making sure that we are as connected in the digital experience as possible and we are as frictionless as possible. And that when members come to our digital property or they want to link to Racquetin, they can do that as easily as possible and they can find the information that they're looking for. So we think that's really the great unlock. I mean, we need to become much more of a digital first brand. So that's where we're focused.

Jen LaForge 11:44

Okay, fantastic. I'm I'm really glad that you uh were so vulnerable in saying we had this big fraud issue because it does, it happens everywhere. Loyalty is a currency. We have fraud uh that happens all the time. We have an entire team working to prevent it. And a lot of the rules that we put in place that could be a bit of friction in terms of when we do our payouts are to protect our members from the fraud. Right. Not necessarily protect them from fraud, but when there's fraud being committed in a program, what that's doing is really eroding the ability for that program to give the richer rewards out, right? It's going to cost us money to combat this, the money we've lost, the money we're trying to recoup from it. Fraud's a really big issue in our space and with credit cards and gift cards. So you talked a lot about removing that friction. What is fraud ongoing from here look like with Scene Plus? And is that a team and where's their focus at protecting the industry as a whole?

Candice Troupe 12:43

Yeah. So when it happened in 2024, I'm really proud of how quickly the team rallied, first of all. We're a super small and scrappy team, like a hundred people in the whole organization, which by the way was 17 people five years ago. So an organization that was, you know, growing and maturing. And this was a discipline, as I said, that you know, we weren't great at at that point in time. So rallied super quickly. Um, and then we spent a whole bunch of money and time investing in fraud tools. And again, the power of the ecosystem was amazing because all of our partners, you know, leaned in and said, we want to be able to help. So we had the benefit of other organizations' expertise in tools and how they'd manage fraud, in the thresholds that were acceptable from a fraud perspective, in the watch out, so on and so forth. So tools are all in place. Our fraud levels are very low right now, and we have a tool that we're using to monitor at you know each of our partner locations. Again, with many conversations, when we see fraud just start going high, as an example, we have had challenges out east and we've had challenges in Quebec. So we'll sit down and have those conversations with our partners and work together to bring it down. It's no longer an issue for us. And what we're really proud of is actually we took the lead in bringing loyalty programs together, and they're now sharing best practices in fraud. So we're not only protecting seeing and seeing partner and members, but we're we're actually protecting the industry by the way that we're working together. Fantastic.

Jen LaForge 14:25

I also think that they they should be building this into curriculum and and it should be studied, along with affiliate marketing being added to curriculum. That's another conversation we had. But it really is a beautiful transformation. You've done so much across the ecosystem and for the industry. You've gained five million members almost overnight. Now you're in that next part of growing and evolving this program. What does that look like from this scrappy startup, huge growth, really getting a foothold in the industry? Next phase of Scene Plus, where are you going?

Candice Troupe 15:02

Yeah, that's a great question because we're right in the middle of our three-year plan. I would say that there's a number of pillars, but the two critical, maybe three, are deepening member engagement. I'm gonna talk about that in a second. Creating a tighter, stronger emotional connection, and driving stronger ROI for our partners and our owners. So if I start with the first one in terms of deepening engagement, the the funny thing about loyalty programs is that we often show up very functionally and transactionally. And if you think about, you know, where loyalty has been in the last few years, everybody's adding sort of a new feature in order to be able to compete. And as a result of that, we're sort of in this functional space where like redeeming for something is joyful. And generally, redeeming for something is connected to an experience or a moment. I redeem for Disney to take my kids. You don't remember the redemption, you remember the moment, right? At Disney. We don't do enough to create that sort of experiential, emotional connection back to the rewards, back to the program, back to the value that the program is creating for you through all of our partners. So we're gonna double down on that. And um I think that's a really cool way for us to differentiate relative to the other programs out in out in the market. Engagement matters because we've been in growth mode for a number of years. We're adding millions of members a year, as I said. We'll continue to do that, we'll continue to drive engagement or acquisition. But if you think about, we have 15 million members who are not shopping the ecosystem strongly enough. So there's a couple of things that we're focused on there. One is we have a very good understanding of who in the 15 million base has strong value today and who has strong potential. So we'll start to do more targeting and more relevant offers to those members. We still have a comprehension issue. So we need to make sure our members understand that we are so much more than the movies, we're more than grocery, fuel, credit card. We have amazing offerings like Racquetin, like Expedia, like home hardware. So we've still got a comprehension piece that we need to work on. And at the end of the day, we've got to make sure that we're creating enough value for those members. And our our approach to that will be not just stacking value, but actually focused on creating things that are special. So we talk a lot about, you know, everybody sort of uses surprise and delight as, you know, marketing mantra. Um, but what we want to do is bring special. And when we bring special, we will create that emotional connection and we'll create joy. So we're looking forward to sort of seeding these moments in the lives of our members that are going to have them feel more strongly connected to partners, to the brand, and ultimately drive long-term loyalty. And that's that's what we all want.

Jen LaForge 18:03

If anyone listening knows me well and and listening to what you've said so far today, it would be no wonder why uh this is one of my favorite loyalty programs and why I'm so fascinated with the transformation. You touched on so many parts there, but what I I loved was my definition of value when we started this. I talked about it being emotional and behavioral. And you just nailed it in terms of being part of that journey and creating that special and having that more emotional impact so that you do remember how you got to Disney, not just that you were at Disney. Absolutely. So can you talk a little bit about what that would look like from a consumer perspective and maybe where that first key focus on creating that emotional journey, what does that look like?

Candice Troupe 18:52

We haven't fully fleshed this out, but we we have a number of thoughts that we're actually bringing into our our board conversation in July. Some of that is just, you know, back to our early conversation, reducing the friction. Because we know that members and Canadians at large, we're all kind of, you know, we're definitely time starved, but we're kind of just overwhelmed, right? And so reducing the friction in and of itself helps to bring a little bit of, ah, it might not feel like joy, but it feels like, oh, they saved me, you know, time or they made my life a little bit easier. And then in, you know, seating special, we have a few different sort of ideas around that. One is in the digital experience, just creating these like special micro moments. So, as an example, a couple of promotions ago, we ran, it was called the basket runner campaign. And it was literally you clicking on um different parts of our ecosystem to put them into your basket. We were driving program comprehension of our various partners, and the amount of member engagement in that was unbelievable. Like they had fun playing, they earned a couple of points, they got to fill out a survey, so on and so forth. So, again, those you know, digital exclusives, digital moments that can can create little moments of joy and special. And then our sort of bigger idea is to work with our partners to procure special. So when you go to scene plus racketon, what's the special, unexpected thing that you just go, wow, that's amazing. When you go to recipe brands, so Harveys and Swichel A, you know, is there a scene secret menu item, for example? So we don't want loads and loads. We want, you know, one per quarter to start, but enough of these kinds of moments that people start to say, like, this program is absolutely amazing and it makes me feel good as well.

Jen LaForge 20:49

And you don't need a lot. Um, you're making me think of what Burger King did. And so Burger King just ran this very special unique promo that if you were in within X number of feet of a McDonald's and you downloaded the app, it would pick up your geolocation and you would receive uh this this code or this opportunity to now drive over to Burger King and Whopper for a penny. Yeah. And they went from the 365th app, somewhere in the low 300s, to like number 16 almost overnight. Yeah. And people were having a blast with it. They thought it was unique, they thought it was funny, they liked that challenge. And so with something like that and and those really good ideas, is that what you guys are looking to build out or hoping for? Or was that just so unexpected that it can't be replicated?

Candice Troupe 21:40

No, that's that's exactly the kind of thing. So what what we're trying to do is create that habit, but also create those moments of surprise or special, as I said. So if you you know, the team's been bantering around this idea of trying to convince recipe brands to do a secret menu item. The idea that you Could go into a restaurant and say, like, listen, I want a special Harvey's burger, and because you're a scene member, you get it. That's exactly the kind of thing that we're thinking about. From a partner perspective, you know, when you use your Burger King example, we want to be super responsive to partners. So if there are special ideas that are great for the member, but also help a partner drive business, we're all in for figuring out how we can do that. What we don't want to do is have one every week so that it starts to become wallpaper. We want it to be something that you're anticipating and you're looking forward to, but also kind of surprised at the same time. Again, creating those emotions.

Jen LaForge 22:38

Yes, exactly. You said secret menu. I know one about Dairy Queen, but it's not on the menu. But you can order a cookie jar blizzard from Dairy Queen. And it's not on the menu, but that is a secret item. And I learned it from my son when he was in grade one because his teacher worked there. Ah and so we we always go, and it's a big sense of pride for my son to be able to tell people they have a secret menu item.

Candice Troupe 23:03

In that, we're trying to create that feeling of exclusivity, which is also special, without like we still want to be accessible because we are Canada's loyalty program, right? So there's interesting ways, as you said, to make people feel special when you feel like you're getting something that others aren't able to get.

Jen LaForge 23:22

I love that. There's so much to talk about. So I'm gonna I'm gonna shift this over because I want to talk about Shell. You just launched a Shell that's huge, huge. Um, a lot of work. Uh, I know you've been working around the clock, giving up weekends, vacations, the whole team has been doubled down here. I used in my first episode an example of how I'm very intentional with my uh my stacking of loyalty. And I said that I'm not the type of person that's gonna wait in line for 45 minutes to get gas. That's two cents cheaper here than over there. But gas itself and that two cents cheaper or the rewards on there is such a pull, in particular for consumers and Canadians. Talk to me a little bit about why you think that gas is such a valuable loyalty component to your program.

Candice Troupe 24:10

Members have been telling us for years that fuel matters to them. And and of course, the reason for that is for any of us who are commuting or driving on a regular basis, you're filling up once, you know, once a week, once every two weeks, depending on on how far your commute is. So it's a perfect example of a category that members are already using and it's meaningful to their life. The interesting part about fuel is it's totally considered a grudge purchase. So we learned during the launch of Shell that the average Canadian spends 12 minutes at the pump fueling up. So, and in a you know, cold Canadian winter, that's a brutal 12 minutes, right? In a hot summer, that's also a brutal 12 minutes. And it's an expensive part of your budget. So, what we set out to do with Shell and in partnership with Scotia and Tangerine as well was to come up with a really awesome value proposition that was really meaningful, delivered a ton of value, but again, in the simplest of way. And kudos to all of those brands. So Shell has an amazing app, the Shell Go app, that allows you to link everything effectively. Scotia has facilitated for their credit card holders the ability to connect to that app very, very easily. And scene is linked as part of that journey or that process. So the linking process is super, super easy. The value is up to 10 cents CPL. 10 cents off a liter of fuel is worth it, right? Yeah. And once you link, you're done. So once you link, you can fuel up super quickly. You can use your phone number, it's easy, easy, easy, and you're getting that 10 cent CPL every time. So far, members have told us that they absolutely love it. They're noticing that value. And then on top of that, there are a whole bunch of other perks and surprises that you can get in the shell app and when you go into the C store as well. So we're thrilled. The the launch has gone very, very well. Member adoption has been hugely significant. Shell's thrilled with the amount of volume that people are actually putting on the card. So so far, so good. And again, we've delivered on what members want. So it's created an amazing value for them.

Jen LaForge 26:26

That's amazing that you can do that anytime, not waiting for the price to drop or checking gas prices every day to earn it. But gas is something you are going to buy anyways. You have to get gas. It's gonna fill it up. It's not like you're gonna walk to work every day if if you have a significant commute. So why would a gas company need to uh have a loyalty program in the first place?

Candice Troupe 26:48

Few reasons. I mean, every gas provider in Canada has a loyalty program. So just to compete, it's table stakes now. It wasn't that way, you know, 20 years ago. To your point, you're fueling up, but the the difference between whether you go to ESO or Shell is often in the loyalty program. I think Shell's even more special in that they, you know, in the industry they're known for their V power fuel, which is one of the highest grades fuel. I've learned a lot about fuel during this, during this launch. But at the end of the day, the loyalty program can help to be the decision maker on whether you turn left or whether you turn right. And on top of that, Shell is benefiting from the ecosystem effect. So you're earning points all around the ecosystem, but you can redeem those points at a Shell location for either fuel or, you know, for product in the C store. So by joining the program, they're getting access to 15 million members that they didn't otherwise have, a differentiator in our loyalty program, people turning right instead of left to go to shell, the benefit of rewards in the network that are helping them to be able to drive redemption, and access to consumer data that they wouldn't be able to have access to if they were on the row.

Jen LaForge 28:04

We could keep talking about this, but uh a key value prop I want for our listeners is to enable them to get every dollar they can on what they're spending. Um so I'm gonna flip it over a little bit, Candace, for someone who's been in the space for 20 years across so many different uh parts of that broad ecosystem. From the mouth of an expert to our listeners here, can you give us your biggest recommendation on how they can start getting smarter with their loyalty and stacking?

Candice Troupe 28:35

I think um what's funny about Canadians is we like to be part of everything. And the loyalty industry in Canada is one of the most competitive and has had the strongest growth. The average Canadian has 15 cards and wallet, digital wallet, or physical wallet. So we're part of 15 loyalty programs. And as a result of that, we have spread ourselves thin. So my advice to Canadians is if you commit and consolidate, you will get the most amount of value out of the program and then stack every type of value that we're offering to you. All of that value is there to be taken, and it's just really a matter of Canadians focusing in order to be able to get the full benefit of it.

Jen LaForge 29:17

It's like you've listened to all of our episodes, which haven't been released, so I know you haven't, but you're you're resonating in so much of what we've talked about in terms of how unique Canadians are to the importance of friction. Um, so really uh you are a powerhouse in the industry. I can't thank you enough for coming in and having this conversation. I think we're gonna come back and talk to you or someone else at Scene Plus because there's so much to unpack there. But Candace, thank you. If you haven't yet, join the Scene Plus program, uh, get some uh massive points on your fuel um as well as your groceries, and there's so much more, so check them out. And that's it for this episode of SACD. If you found this useful, follow along as we interview leaders shaping the future of retail and learn how value really works behind the scenes. And if there's a topic you want us to unpack, I'd love to hear from you. See you next time.