Smartphone penetration is high, mobile commerce is mature, and shoppers are accustomed to global standards of digital convenience through the platforms and apps they use every day. 

The commercial pressure on brands has sharpened at the same time. Acquisition costs are climbing across the region, marketing budgets are under closer scrutiny, and the return on broad discounting has thinned. 

That has pushed personalisation, loyalty, and CRM further up the agenda for retailers and marketers looking for growth that doesn’t depend on margin erosion. The brands that can recognise an individual customer in real time, and respond with something genuinely useful, are pulling ahead.

This was the topic of an executive luncheon recently held in Manila by loyalty and AI platform Eagle Eye, customer engagement platform Braze, and marketing transformation consultancy UpStride. 

Where’s the biggest gap between what Filipino consumers expect and what brands are actually delivering in loyalty and personalisation?

“The biggest gap in the Philippines right now isn’t a lack of rewards; it’s the friction of redemption. Filipino consumers expect a seamless experience where value is recognised and applied instantly,” said Aziz Kastoun, Account Executive, ANZ at Eagle Eye.

“Instead, many brands still deliver manual, clunky processes that require the customer to do the heavy lifting at the counter. The real opportunity here is for the brands that move first. In a market as mobile-savvy as the Philippines, the businesses that act now to bridge this gap to real-time personalisation at scale will secure a massive first-mover advantage.”

Shaun Au Yong, Partner at UpStride, said Filipino consumers are some of the most digitally fluent in the region, they live on Shopee, Lazada, TikTok etc, and they’re used to experiences that feel tailored. 

“The gap isn’t that brands here lack ambition. It’s that personalisation depends on five interdependent layers: data, technology, people, processes, and AI readiness, and a weakness in any one quietly drags the other four down. That’s why experiences feel ‘random’ even when brands are genuinely trying,” he explained.

“This is why consumers still get recommendations for fried chicken when all they had wanted was some burgers. The intent and ambition are there; the foundations underneath just aren’t.”

According to Sam Meyer, Area Vice President, Asia at Braze, the biggest gap right now is a trust gap,  and it’s where revenue is quietly leaking out. 

“Our latest Braze Customer Engagement Report 2026 found that 93% of marketing leaders believe AI is helping them accurately understand customer needs,  yet the experience customers are actually having often tells a different story,” he explained.

“Many retailers in this market have leaned on the basics, quick shipping, slick apps,  but convenience isn’t a differentiator anymore. What Filipino customers want now is personalisation that feels genuinely relevant, and a real reason to walk through a door or open an app.”

What does it actually take to make personalisation work at scale, and where do most brands fall short?

While everyone talks about data, the biggest barrier to personalisation at scale isn’t actually a technology decision, it’s internal stakeholder alignment and commitment, said Aziz Kastoun, Eagle Eye. Most brands fall short because their data, marketing, and operations teams are moving at different speeds. 

“To truly succeed, you need a real-time activation layer that ties the entire customer experience together, but that requires an organisational shift. It means moving away from siloed departments and committing to a single, unified goal: recognising and responding to a customer in the milliseconds they are interacting with you,” he added.

Shaun Au Yong, UpStride, agreed, He added most brands fall short because they invest in the most visible layer, usually a newer, shinier platform, while the real bottleneck sits somewhere else entirely. 

“Personalisation at scale isn’t a tooling problem. It’s an orchestration problem across data, technology, people, processes, and AI readiness. Brands that get it right stop asking ‘what should we buy next?’ and start asking ‘which layer is holding us back?’”

For Sam Meyer, Braze, personalisation at scale means breaking away from the old playbook of rigid rules and broad segments, and building something that can actually keep pace with how customers behave in real time.

“At its core, it means treating every customer as an individual rather than a segment. The message itself, the channel, the timing, the offer, even the creative all need to flex based on what you actually know about each person from their own first-party data,” he explained.

AI is moving from predictive to agentic. What changes for brands when that shift hits loyalty and engagement?

We are moving from a world where we ‘target’ customers to a world where we ‘enable’ their agents. Predictive AI told us a customer might want a discount; Agentic AI means the customer’s digital assistant will actively negotiate for the best value, said Aziz Kastoun, Eagle Eye.

“For brands, this changes everything. Loyalty moves from being an emotional ‘vibe’ to being machine-readable value,” he added. If your loyalty rules aren’t simple, digital, and instantly accessible via API, an AI agent will simply bypass your brand for a competitor that is ‘easier’ to transact with. The shift is from persuasion to seamless integration.”

According to Shaun Au Yong, UpStride, Consumer expectations move in lockstep with consumer AI maturity. If a customer is already using AI agents to summarise their inbox, draft their decks, and run their calendar, they will not tolerate a brand experience that still feels like a 2018 email blast. 1:1 personalisation used to be the differentiator. In an agentic world, it’s the bare minimum. 

Sam Meyer, Braze sees this shift fundamentally changes what marketers do, moving from manually setting every rule to designing intelligence that can adapt on its own, in real time.

“Agentic AI means agents start acting on their own, continuously experimenting and learning what actually works for each individual customer, instead of just predicting what might,” he added. “For loyalty and engagement, this means the conversation moves away from vanity metrics like clicks and open rates, and toward the things that actually matter to the business, customer lifetime value, incremental revenue, retention.”

Looking at the best loyalty programmes globally, what’s the one thing they do that most brands in this region aren’t doing yet?

“Looking at the most successful loyalty frameworks globally, the one thing they do differently is move beyond the ‘spend-to-get’ cycle,” said Aziz Kastoun, Eagle Eye. “They focus on lifestyle integration. The best programs don’t just reward you for the transaction; they reward you for the relationship. They look at the customer’s total journey and find ways to add value outside of a simple discount.”

“While many brands in this region are still focused on subsidising the purchase, global leaders are focused on driving a change in habit and becoming a staple of the customer’s daily routine.”

Shaun Au Yong, UpStride believes brands simply go back to basics. The best programs globally are radically simple, a customer understands the value in a single glance, he explained.

“We see the opposite with a lot of clients in the region: tiers stacked on tiers, points that expire on rules no one can explain, partner mechanics bolted-on for one reason or another. The consumer’s mind space is already overcrowded. The moment a program feels like homework, they switch off, and no amount of clever segmentation wins them back.”

“The best programs are simple, easy and value is immediately understood by consumers immediately. They are almost embarrassingly simple.”

For Sam Meyer, Braze, the single biggest differentiator is that the best programmes are genuinely personalising every interaction, not at the segment level, but at the individual level, and they’re doing it consistently enough that customers actually feel it.

“Rather than leaning on blanket discounts, which erode margin and water down the brand, they use what they know about each customer to make every message land,” he said. “That means factoring in hundreds of signals, testing constantly, and adjusting in the moment.”

“They’re also doing this across every channel, online and offline, which is harder than it sounds: our research found that nearly half of marketers still lack the tools they need to orchestrate experiences consistently across channels.”

A clear message from the room

Across all three speakers, a consistent picture emerged. Loyalty programs that fail to deliver genuine personalisation at scale are losing relevance, and the brands willing to invest in real-time infrastructure, organisational alignment, and simpler value propositions are the ones positioned to benefit. 

This article is written by Aaron Crowe, Head of Revenue, APAC at Eagle Eye

The post Marketing and personalisation experts discuss the next phase of customer loyalty in the region appeared first on MARKETECH APAC.

All these leaders echo the same sentiment that equitable innovation does not happen by accident. It is built intentionally through sponsorship, measurable goals, inclusive product design, flexible work structures and the courage to challenge outdated norms.

Kathy Lu, account manager, client services at Nexxen

International Women’s Day is important to celebrate no matter what industry we are in, it fosters a culture of inclusion, empowering women to speak up and advocate for themselves 

It becomes most poignant in the tech and ad-tech industry, as we are helping to shape the future world we live in. To programmatic media easing the process to selling and buying digital ad spaces, to tools like Meta AI, Galaxy AI ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Apple Intelligence, Claude (and so on and so forth) helping us write better emails and drive better outcomes, advocating for women’s voice amongst the madness is more important than ever.

Equity in innovation means designing systems with fairness, and ensuring AI reflects the diversity and values of the society it serves, where “all are equal before the law”.

I want to look into the future career progression and know I have the rights to equal access, so that women like me can contribute meaningfully without having to justify our presence at every step. 

AI and marketing career pathways

Pip Stocks, founder of the Startup Muse

It’s also important to look at balancing the scales in women’s careers as a whole in the age of AI. AI is removing many traditional entry-level jobs especially the repetitive, process-driven roles that used to be a young person’s way in. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.

The real question is whether we respond with fear or redesign. We need to stop preparing young women for ladder-based careers and start preparing them to build, direct, and collaborate with AI. 

The future belongs to those who can think critically, create value, and use intelligent systems as leverage, not those waiting for permission to enter through old doors.

Diversity fuels innovation

Georgina Ryan, senior sales manager at Nexxen

Whilst I do believe the gender representation gaps are closing, and women are entering the industry in greater numbers, some long-standing cultural and structural challenges remain.

It would be remiss not to acknowledge the disproportionate challenges the gender diverse

community may face on International Women’s Day and the representation of First Nations women in the industry.

International Women’s Day is important to celebrate in the media, marketing and advertising industry as a whole, as it is imperative that women are represented in an industry which thrives on diverse perspectives. 

Gender-diverse teams can challenge assumptions and design campaigns that resonate with broader audiences. Many women still don’t see obvious entry points into programmatic, data engineering, or platform roles. Highlighting female leaders during IWD makes success visible, which helps normalise women in technical and commercial leadership positions, which is a powerful signal to the next generation.

Tipping the scales and sharing the load

Dr Anna Harrison, founder of RAMMP

“Balance the scales” to me means designing systems, at home and at work, where neither side collapses under assumed obligation.

Women are not underrepresented because they are less capable. They are underrepresented because the total system load is uneven. And that load starts at home.

Someone has to make the children’s sandwiches. Someone has to leave early for school pickup. Someone has to carry the mental inventory of who needs new shoes. As long as that remains coded as “women’s work,” workplace equality will plateau regardless of policy. Real change is creating networking formats that don’t default to masculine-coded rituals and teaching our sons to share the load, and make killer sandwiches.

Collaboration vs Compliance

Fabrizia Roberto, fractional CMO and founder of www.fabriziaroberto.com

Women are often encouraged to be collaborative and consensus-driven, until that collaboration turns into compliance. When women challenge assumptions or hold a firm line, they’re more likely to be labelled “difficult” or “uncollaborative”, rather than decisive.

I’ve experienced this firsthand: being seen as collaborative when I agree and uncollaborative when I don’t – in particular when refusing to say “yes” simply to protect someone else’s ego. That’s not collaboration; that’s appeasement. And it’s a standard rarely applied evenly across genders.

International Women’s Day creates space to name these dynamics out loud and to reset expectations. If marketing and tech truly want better outcomes – better products, stronger brands, more sustainable growth – then they need leaders who can challenge thinking, place smart bets and act with conviction.

How to accelerate change

Bel Lloyd, customer success lead at Amperity

We need to set measurable goals for gender balance, not just in entry-level roles, but in leadership and technical decision-making positions. We also need to Invest in bias awareness and inclusive leadership training so teams understand how to build and nurture truly inclusive environments. This will further encourage businesses and leaders to commit to real action, not just discussion, from inclusive hiring and mentorship programs to addressing bias in how teams and tools are built. 

Ultimately, real change happens when organisations commit to clear, actionable strategies, not just good intentions. And when women support each other to grow, lead and innovate together. 

Change needs proactive energy

Caitlin Stephens, chief of staff APAC at Eagle Eye

Change requires an intentional and proactive approach to ensure women receive access to the same opportunities. Who gets recommended for the stretch assignment? Who gets introduced to the investor? Who gets amplified in a meeting?

One of the most powerful tools I have in leadership is the ability to provide sponsorship, to be someone who highlights and amplifies the talents of women based on their merits and unique perspectives and to back this up with policies, and structures within organisations that aim to remove some of the traditional barriers that can hold them back. Think parental leave, flexibility, Women’s ERGs and our very own “Purple Women” initiative at Eagle Eye, mentorship and leadership development. 

Geoff Main, marketing director/founder at Passionberry Marketing

In marketing, technology and business, 2026 International Women’s Day is not the opportunity for a branding exercise. It poses a systems question.

The logic is straightforward. Fairer systems create better performance. Better performance creates stronger economies. Stronger economies create broader opportunity. And, broader opportunity advances society – for everyone in it.

As Emma Watson put it: “Gender equality is your issue too.” If that’s true, then this isn’t just about intent. It’s about how we hire, source, fund and build.

It’s time we all spoke up about the key issues raised around International Women’s Day, and we had more men contribute to the narrative. Gender Equity is more than a one day social marketing or PR campaign, It is a long term cultural shift that is critical is we want to build progressive systems that in the corporate world, ultimately also build more valuable companies.

The post Marketing, advertising leaders share what career equity looks like ahead of International Women’s Day appeared first on MARKETECH APAC.

The partnership comes as Metro, one of Singapore’s most established retail groups, embarks on a brand and loyalty refresh.

Under the agreement, Eagle Eye will support Metro in delivering core loyalty and promotions capabilities, including reinvigorating the brand’s tiered loyalty programme with new features and functionality designed to position it for future innovation.

Metro has been a retail institution in Singapore for 68 years, operating two physical stores, an eCommerce platform, and a marketplace locally, alongside a presence in Indonesia. The loyalty relaunch forms part of a broader brand refresh, aimed at elevating the programme through more curated rewards, tailored privileges, and an enhanced shopping experience. The updated programme is designed to reward existing customers while attracting new ones.

Through its refreshed loyalty experience, Metro is reinforcing its commitment to both existing and new customers with several new features. These include differentiated and promotional earn mechanics, where the programme retains a traditional tiered structure but now enables promotional earning campaigns that allow customers to boost points during seasonal periods or special windows.

The new programme will also offer a seamless omnichannel experience across in-store and online touchpoints, providing members with greater flexibility in how they earn and redeem rewards.

In addition, Metro is exploring behavioural rewards. This capability would allow the department store to reward customers for actions beyond transactions, such as sharing on social media after attending in-store events.

Powered by Eagle Eye, Metro’s loyalty programme is now flexibly positioned to adopt modern, AI-powered features aimed at driving revenue growth and enhancing customer engagement.

Henry Christian, head of loyalty, marketing and partnerships at Metro Singapore, said for the company, loyalty has always been about relationships, not just transactions.

“As a family brand built on trust across generations, it is important to us that our customers feel genuinely valued for the loyalty they show us,” he said. “The launch of Treasured by Metro marks an important step forward in how we recognise and reward that loyalty, allowing us to engage our customers in more meaningful and personalised ways.”

He added, “We chose Eagle Eye as our loyalty technology partner for their strong retail expertise and customer-centric approach. Together, we are building a smarter, more connected loyalty ecosystem that places our customers at the core and supports Metro’s long-term omnichannel growth.”

Meanwhile, Aaron Crowe, head of revenue for APAC at Eagle Eye, said the partnership with Metro marks a significant step for the company in the region.

“We’re thrilled to celebrate this milestone with Metro Singapore as they reimagine their programme and elevate the retail experience,” he said.

“As retail in Asia continues to evolve at a remarkable pace, this partnership reflects our shared commitment to innovation and our passion for helping businesses stay relevant to their customers. This launch marks an exciting step forward in strengthening our presence across the region,” he added.

The partnership further strengthens Eagle Eye’s presence in Singapore and across Asia, underscoring the company’s momentum in enabling real-time, personalised loyalty and promotions technology across the Asia-Pacific region.

Speaking about the partnership, Tim Mason, CEO of Eagle Eye, said, “We’re proud to partner with such an important institution of Singapore’s retail sector. Metro is evolving at pace on many fronts. It was great to see their recently launched collaboration with Shinsegae. We are excited to support them in their evolution and to assist them with their loyalty programme.”

As part of its expanded tiered loyalty offering, Metro provides four membership tiers with increasing entitlements, including birthday discounts, higher earn rates, free parking, and access to exclusive, invite-only events.

The post Metro Singapore partners with Eagle Eye to revamp tiered loyalty programme appeared first on MARKETECH APAC.

I was recently in Bangkok and Taipei with Eagle Eye CEO Tim Mason, meeting retail leaders and joining panel discussions with representatives from Google Cloud, Airship, Fifty-five, and NTT DATA about the mechanics of AI-driven personalisation.

The conversations reinforced something we’ve known for years but are only now seeing retailers truly embrace: personalisation directly impacts profitability. Discussions around loyalty focused on omnichannel personalisation: what it is from a customer perspective and why it is so important.

Omnichannel is what the business does; it’s the organisational goal

Many retailers are keen to ‘crack’ what omnichannel and personalisation really mean and deliver it. Some find these terms nebulous, but we have long said that omnichannel and personalisation are two sides of the same coin. 

Personalisation is what the customer experiences: how they feel the business serves them as an individual. You have to be in it to win it. Good businesses going forward will be those that personalise experiences for individual consumers. By doing so they stand to sell more and at a higher margin.

Modern loyalty requires a connected approach

Tim opened the Bangkok presentation with a framework that’s guided successful retailers for decades. Loyalty programmes work because they reward the behaviour you seek. Good retailers understand there’s enormous untapped potential in their existing customer base. When businesses describe themselves accurately and adapt to better serve customers, spending increases and frequency improves.

Eagle Eye talks about “turning the “DIAL”—four elements that must work together: Data flows need to be connected and real-time. Insight generation must happen continuously. Loyalty programmes need to recognise and reward customers instantly. Action and execution must connect seamlessly across all touchpoints.

Predictive and generative AI are accelerating personalisation at scale

The world of business-to-consumer is becoming truly personalised on a 1:1 scale. At Eagle Eye, our Eagle AI product already processes 2.8 billion customer interactions every single minute. This number is constantly growing, which improves how retailers connect with their customers at a 1:1 level.

This transformation is making personalisation a key driver of profitability. Retailers are moving beyond basic segment-based promotions to truly individual experiences. Beyond promotions, personalisation is expanding to more attributes across the customer journey – personalised cooking programmes, health and wellbeing tracking, and charitable preferences.

Strong data foundations are essential for powerful AI solutions.

Data was another big topic of discussion during the visit. During the sessions, one of the Google representatives addressed the longstanding challenge of data platforms. For years, businesses have discussed unified data platforms, but many struggle with the question of return on investment.

AI has changed the equation. Rather than treating data platform investment as a massive project that must be completed before delivering value, the panellist suggested a different approach: start small, pick a challenge with significant business impact, run a quick proof of concept, and demonstrate value rapidly. Build confidence, then expand.

This “small steps, fast pace” philosophy came up repeatedly. AI moves too quickly for three-year transformation roadmaps.

Tim shared Eagle Eye’s decade-long journey with AI personalisation.

“We started personalising, using AI to personalise promotions in 2015, so 10 years ago,” he said. “So for 10 years we’ve been developing algorithms to get better and better at predicting what people want to buy and how much they will spend and how much you need to incentivise them by. And we have seven algorithms that work in concert to create a promotion programme.”

Within the last year, Eagle Eye added transformer neural network capabilities on top of its existing algorithms, he said. The impact was immediate.

“The take-up rate of suggested offers has gone up by 20%,” he said. “So it’s pretty amazing, really. That’s like a step change in performance. Using a large language model, it’s basically able to look around corners in ways I don’t even begin to understand, but it clearly does have the ability to see corners.”

The business case for AI-driven personalisation has already been proven. 

Southeast Asia stands to benefit significantly from these demonstrated results achieved globally. Tim shared results from Woolworths Group in Australia, which re-platformed its loyalty business with Eagle Eye. Former Woolworths Group CEO Brad Banducci previously explained the transformation: “Our real-time loyalty platform is a re-platforming of our loyalty business. It’s Eagle Eye, a next-generation loyalty platform that can be instantaneous, can reconcile full history and is not constrained in terms of the offers we can provide or how we can repurpose it.”

Tim also drew on Tesco’s history with loyalty. When Clubcard launched in 1995, Tesco held a 23% market share. That jumped to 33% within a relatively short period.

“Going from 23% to 33% in a market like grocery is phenomenally hard,” he said. “I mean, it just doesn’t happen because it’s much more stable and set than that.”

More recently, Tesco CEO Ken Murphy stated, “We introduced a little bit of personalisation and a little bit of gamification through Clubcard Challenges to over 10 million customers, and that had a great effect. There was a really, really strong response to that.” Tesco achieved its highest market share since 2016 following this initiative.

Being relevant costs less than spraying generic promotions across your customer base.

Getting personalisation right 

At Eagle Eye, we deliver real-time personalisation at scale through promotion execution, handling more than 13,000 API calls per second, managing billions of weekly offers, and personalisation algorithms running on Vertex AI.

The technology exists. The business case is proven. What separates success from failure now is execution and partnership with providers who understand both retail operations and technical infrastructure.

The discussions in Bangkok and Taipei reinforced that we’re at an inflection point. Over the next five years, $2 trillion in revenue will shift to companies that master personalised experiences. The question isn’t whether to invest in AI-driven personalisation. It’s how quickly you can get there.

This thought leadership piece is written by Aaron Crowe, Head of Revenue, APAC, at Eagle Eye.

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT in Marketing 2026, a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for 2026 and beyond.

The post What’s NEXT in Marketing: AI-driven loyalty: Southeast Asia’s $2 trillion opportunity appeared first on MARKETECH APAC.

The solution aims to move personalisation from strategy into execution by enabling retailers to automatically create and deploy individualised promotions at scale, addressing long-standing challenges associated with manual, segment-based retail promotions.

According to Boston Consulting Group, enterprise retailers can generate more than US$100 million in topline impact by scaling personalised offer execution. 

Eagle Eye said its new solution is built to help retailers unlock this value by replacing broad discounts and static targeting with automated, individual-level decisioning.

Powered by AI and machine learning models running on Google’s Vertex AI, Personalized Promotions creates, allocates and executes tailored discount offers for each shopper, aligned with customer preferences as well as retailer objectives and budgets. 

Eagle Eye added that this approach improves return on promotional spend, reduces operational workload and supports customer acquisition, reactivation and long-term engagement.

“Retailers have long struggled to connect meaningful personalisation with real-time execution at scale,” said Cedric Chereau, vice president EMEA and managing director EAI at Eagle Eye. 

Chereau further explained, “With Personalized Promotions, we’re giving them the ability to deliver truly individual offers with the speed, control and budget discipline required for modern retail. It’s the next evolution of our AI Personalisation Science, and it unlocks enormous commercial and customer value.”

Eagle Eye elaborated that the solution also enhances collaboration between retailers and supplier brands by providing individual-level attribution, audience insights and performance reporting. 

This allows consumer packaged goods brands to measure incremental sales impact more accurately while opening new opportunities for supplier-funded promotions.

Personalized Promotions joins Eagle Eye’s broader AI Personalisation Science suite, which includes Personalized Challenges and Smart Rewards, and is designed for enterprise retailers, grocers, convenience store groups, and CPG brands seeking scalable, omnichannel personalisation.

The post Eagle Eye unveils ‘Personalized Promotions’ to boost retail offer conversion appeared first on MARKETECH APAC.

The company has promoted Caitlin Stephens to chief of staff for APAC and Aaron Crowe to head of revenue for APAC. 

Stephens will oversee regional operations, while Crowe will drive revenue opportunities across the fast-expanding market.

Former APAC vice president Jonathan Reeve has transitioned to regional sales director for Australia and New Zealand, a shift designed to deepen Eagle Eye’s focus on its strong ANZ pipeline, where it already works with several market-leading brands.

The moves come as Eagle Eye’s APAC business surpasses $10 million in revenue, supported by recent contract wins with major names including Central Group and Metro in Southeast Asia, and Transurban, Viva Energy and Z Energyin Australia and New Zealand. 

The company also works with Endeavour Group and Woolworths Group, backed by a regional team experienced in delivering large-scale loyalty programmes.

Reeve said the new structure enables sharper market focus, “There’s a massive opportunity in Australia and New Zealand. The clients we work with are doing very well and are seen as the pioneering leaders, so we’re seeing strong interest in our platform.”

The company also works with Endeavour Group and Woolworths Group, backed by a regional team experienced in delivering large-scale loyalty programmes.

“This allows us to capitalise over the next couple of years as more businesses look to move to a fully digital model. Previously, when I was looking after all of APAC, I was stretched, whereas now this ensures we can fully focus on our ANZ opportunities over the next couple of years,” Reeve explained. 

He added, “The team are loyal to the business, and that helps us a lot as we’re looking to bring on new clients because clients know they’re going to be working with experienced professionals who know what they’re doing.”

Stephens said she was excited to continue working alongside a deeply committed team.

“Together we have built a truly market-leading offering that’s transforming how brands engage with their customers,” she said. “With the expertise of our people, clients and the support of Jonathan, Aaron and the wider business, I’m excited for what’s ahead as we take Eagle Eye’s growth in APAC to the next level,” she said. 

Crowe said the promotion reflected Eagle Eye’s strengthened commitment to the region.

“On a personal level, it’s a wonderful opportunity, but more importantly, it represents our Eagle Eye’s deep commitment to the APAC market,” he said. “I’m excited to empower our talented local teams and strengthen our partnerships, implementing our organic and inorganic plans, to deliver on this next phase of growth in the region.”

Eagle Eye continues to see rising demand for its AI solutions, building on its work with major global brands such as Carrefour and Tesco, as real-time personalisation becomes increasingly central to loyalty strategies. 

The company recently launched Smart Rewards in APAC—a real-time loyalty solution capable of processing complex calculations in under 150 milliseconds.

The firm has also expanded its regional presence with new hires in Singapore and Thailand to support its next phase of growth.

The post Eagle Eye promotes APAC executives as regional growth accelerates  appeared first on MARKETECH APAC.

These executives also believe the right technology partner is critical for making a meaningful difference in delighting customers and achieving business objectives.

During the recent 2025 Asia Pacific Loyalty Conference, several senior executives from major Australian and New Zealand companies shared insights about loyalty industry trends and their experiences working with one of the world’s leading loyalty providers, Eagle Eye. Their perspectives reveal both the evolving landscape of customer loyalty and what they value most in technology solutions.

The event featured presentations and expert panel discussions exploring themes including artificial intelligence’s influence on business operations, building meaningful customer relationships, and tailoring experiences to individual needs. Loyalty program customers acknowledged these key AI and data trends whilst also emphasising the importance of loyalty’s fundamental principle: delighting customers.

Efficiency with AI adoption

Speaking to some of the broader loyalty trends, Bronwyn Barbarel, who serves as loyalty, customer experience & brand marketing leader for New Zealand fuel service and convenience station operator Z Energy, said there were some really interesting efficiency gains the loyalty industry stood to benefit from thanks to AI and data.

“However, I think we need to be really careful that we’re not looking for technology to solve things. We actually still need to make business decisions and really clear business goals rather than have technology drive our decisions about what we’re doing,” she said.

“There’s some really neat efficiencies but we need to be driving that from a business point of view first.”

Barbarel also pointed out that it was important to stay focused on creating emotional connections with customers.

“…It’s all about emotional connection and creating those dopamine hits and that lovely moment about leaving on a high. All of those things that when you get deep into the detail of delivering a program, you forget that it’s not about the bits and bites and the connecting and the integrations; it’s about creating that emotional connection,” she said.

“For us getting that reminder coming here this year has been really helpful at a time when we’ve just launched four months ago. [After] getting it out there now it’s about making sure you get that emotional connection between our customer service reps and our customers.”

Brendan Woodward, senior manager, customer rewards and partnerships at Australian multinational road operations company and toll road operator Transurban, agreed that AI was a major trend but was particularly excited about its operational benefits.

“It’s a cliché but definitely AI. Specifically the agentic AI. I am excited about being able to offload a lot of the manual processes that my teams perform onto agents,” he said.

“I think we have a little ways to go before it’s really going to help us save a lot of time, but I’m looking forward to a year or two from now when they are ubiquitous.”

Andrew Stewart, head of digital customer platforms at Australian petroleum company Ampol, said his company had observed that customers particularly valued immediate gratification.

“Customers value something happening in front of them. That’s probably what we’ve noticed the most. Our program allows them to come into the shop and realise a treat or a benefit right away. They’re buying whatever they want from the shop, [and] we’re giving them a treat straight away if they’ve earned it,” he said.

“I think that’s what they really value.”

Janelle Gostelow, a former senior executive at Australian fuel distribution company Viva Energy Australia, said AI presented opportunities to free up teams for more strategic work.

“I think the jargon word at the moment is AI of course, and I’m seeing a lot of use cases for AI. But interestingly I think my view on AI is a little bit different to some of my peers. What excites me about AI in particular is what it’s going to release my team to work on,” she said.

“Instead of spending time on tasks that are repetitive, they can spend time on the exciting things about their jobs that they really love, like the creative elements, the campaigning, how we connect better with customers; that thinking piece [where there’s] a human element. I can get rid of all the boring things that are about setting things up and administrative tasks from their day.”

AI Customer Loyalty Platform Brands Recommend

The executives highlighted several key business challenges that Eagle Eye’s platform addresses for their organisations.

Bronwyn Barbarel said Z Energy needed a configurable platform that could adapt to their needs without requiring constant coding.

“It’s been really interesting for us. We needed to look for a platform that could work with us in a configurable way rather than something that we had to code ourselves everytime. What’s been awesome is we’ve put it through its paces to see how far it could stretch [and] how deep it could go before we chose it,” she said.

“What it allows us to do is get an offer in front of our customers at the right time with the right offer. We’re really at the beginning of it all and I can’t wait to really put it through its paces.”

Brendan Woodward said the platform excelled at managing points programmes and transaction processing.

“It’s fantastic if you want to run a points program. It will ingest all of your transactions and it will ensure that the right customers receive their points, provide a full audit log, and you can set up any type of points offer that you want to, plus a whole bunch of other types of offer mechanics that aren’t necessarily points offers,” he said.

Andrew Stewart said Eagle Eye was essential infrastructure for Ampol’s loyalty operations.

“Eagle Eye is the glue that is holding our loyalty technology in place. It’s slotted into our technology ecosystem, it’s our offer orchestration engine, it’s the key to delivering what our customers are wanting,” he said.

Janelle Gostelow said the platform provided consistency in complex loyalty environments.

“For our business when I was working at Viva, they were very important to us in terms of providing consistent loyalty adjudication for our customers in what was a very complex loyalty ecosystem that had lots of rules [and] lots of products,” she said.

Standout Results from AI Deployment

The executives also shared some of the standout results and benefits of their experiences working with Eagle Eye’s performance.

Bronwyn Barbarel said speed to market was crucial for Z Energy’s transition away from the Flybuys programme.

“For us the speed to market is the big thing. We had a burning platform, we’d chosen to go for our own program rather than third-party loyalty, we had our trusted partner in New Zealand that we wanted to continue with so we needed to know that we could integrate really well with that. But we knew that [our previous provider] Flybuys was closing,” she said.

“We needed to get into market quickly and we worked with Eagle Eye to understand how they would integrate with our existing platform; [which included] Salesforce for our data side of things, our existing platform that Invenco does for our outdoor payment terminals, and TQ for POS (point of sale).”

“That allowed us to get that speed to market by bringing in Eagle Eye to work purely in the orchestration stuff for us,” she said.

Brendan Woodward, whose organisation is still in the implementation phase, praised the collaborative experience.

“We are in the implementation stage, so we’re going to launch our program next year … but working with their team on the implementation itself (a lot of implementations on different platforms), it’s been quite a good experience working with Eagle Eye and their team,” he said.

Andrew Stewart said Ampol was exceeding all its loyalty programme metrics thanks to the platform’s real-time capabilities.

“We are hitting every single metric that we set out as what we wanted to get out of a brand new loyalty program. We’re smashing those metrics. Eagle Eye gives us a real-time solution,” he said.

“Our customers are standing in front of our site staff and we’re serving them immediately and Eagle Eye is allowing that to happen.”

AI-First Solutions the Future of Loyalty

When asked why they would recommend Eagle Eye over other solutions, the executives cited factors including proven scale, flexibility, and ease of deployment.

Bronwyn Barbarel said the company’s track record with major retailers was a key deciding factor.

“We looked at the market, we looked at our existing provider for loyalty, [and] we looked at other providers we already had that might’ve been able to stretch into loyalty. For us it was finding someone who had credentials in loyalty and were doing things at a large scale,” she said.

“We’d seen what was happening from a Tesco and Woolworths point of view, we could see the number of transactions that could happen and go through. We chose it because we knew that anything we were thinking about in the future that we had plans of, we knew they had already done previously.”

Barbarel also praised the support her team received.

“That really made the difference for us. Then, how the pricing worked, how the team would come and help us build. We’ve had amazing people come and work with us. Coming to New Zealand to help us build, that’s been all-in and really awesome,” she said.

Brendan Woodward highlighted the platform’s flexibility in handling diverse offer types and membership structures.

“Flexible. I threw hundreds of different offer types at them and they were able to handle them all, I also like the flexibility in the way that you can set up the membership constructs. We are looking to have a family or household membership construct but also an individual membership construct that sits underneath that. Eagle Eye was able to facilitate that as well,” he said.

Andrew Stewart praised the platform’s maturity and ease of implementation.

“They’ve got a great name globally [and] a very mature product. The real key thing was every single requirement we put in front of them, they tick the box without having to do code changes. It all clicks, really easy to work with,” he said.

Janelle Gostelow emphasised the deployment advantages of Eagle Eye’s architecture.

“I think it’s the ease of deploying Eagle Eye. Because it is a loyalty specialty system, and it’s a headless design system; you can interface it quite easily with all your other systems, and it’s really very good at doing that quickly,” she said.

“They’ve got an AI-first methodology in how they do those deployments.”

The post Here’s what’s next for customer loyalty trends in energy and transport appeared first on MARKETECH APAC.

These statements were of particular prevalence during the recently held 2025 Asia Pacific Loyalty Conference, run by the Australian Loyalty Association. At the event, loyalty companies, brands, retailers, customers and more met for learnings, discussions and networking around the current state of and future of the loyalty industry.

The future of personalised experiences in the age of AI

The future of personalisation is exciting in the age of AI, but understanding customers at a 1-to-1 level is no small feat. However, experts are confident that this space will only get better as technology advances. 

For Chris Johnston, director for regional partnerships for Braze, data is the fundamental piece of the puzzle that can prove challenging to wrangle and utilise.  

“The challenge is making sure you’ve got all the data in real-time available to understand customers and what their needs might be,” he said. 

“Then it’s the ability to connect that customer no matter what channel they’re on, or where they are in their journey in engaging with your brand, to deliver moments of relevance to them. It’s also about going beyond messages for segments to true one-to-one, so every individual gets their own unique experience.”

Johnston points out that in his opinion, Foxtel is one brand doing this really well.

“We’ve just released a great case study where [Foxtel are] working with OfferFit, which has recently been acquired by Braze; it’s a decisioning engine. Through a combination of OfferFit and all those decisions and cross-channel delivery means they have something like three million-plus potential messages and versions that go to each individual customer at any point in the journey,” he said. 

“They’re using that to get people to keep engaging with their platform once they’ve subscribed. They are a fantastic example of where personalisation needs to get to.”

Jonathan Reeve, ANZ regional sales director for Eagle Eye, echoes the sentiment about hyperpersonalisation and AI, specifically noting how AI can take on the “heavy lifting” of data analysis to make this level of personalisation affordable for most businesses.

“What AI can enable you to do is to do the heavy lifting of all the analysis to come up with truly hyperpersonalised offers, where the product is personalised to you, the reward is personalised to you and also what you need to do to get the reward is personalised to you,” he said.

Nik Laming, founder and CEO of Loyalty ConnectOS, said he could see the influence of AI “all over” the industry, from the ability to deliver hyperpersonalisation to speeding up campaign execution . He notes that while AI could potentially be a “double-edged sword” for his resourcing business, he is generally optimistic about its impact.

“I think generally it’s not really a concern, it’s exciting,” he said.

Karl Deitz, head of customer strategy for Tall Bob, confirms that hyperpersonalisation is a major trend in mobile messaging, with brands now going deeper into smaller, more targeted segments. This approach of sending “less but better” messages leads to higher conversion rates because the communication is more relevant and personal.

“It’s going deeper and deeper into the history of buying patterns,” he said, explaining that hyperpersonalisation goes well beyond just a first name, factoring in things like recent product purchases or behaviour from the last year.

Gamification and omnichannel innovation

Gamification and omnichannel experiences are two additional discussion points that loyalty experts are regularly excited about. These strategies move brands beyond simple transactions to create more engaging and seamless customer journeys.

Susan Walsh, former director of operations (Loyalty) for Loyalty & Reward Co, defines a truly seamless omnichannel loyalty experience as one where a customer is automatically recognised regardless of the channel, be it digital, mobile, virtual, or in-store. 

“It could be card-linking, it could be a mobile number, whatever is identified it is done so across all channels and creates no friction,” she said. 

“This also means the fabulous team on the floor needs to be fully engaged in the loyalty program too. It isn’t all on the customer!”

For Jonathan Reeve, the biggest challenge for many omnichannel businesses is finding a way to digitally connect with customers in physical stores.

“Creating a digital connection online is relatively simple but finding a way to connect digitally with customers in your stores, that for us is the secret to a great omnichannel experience,” he said. 

“Where we’re really seeing the world going now is businesses that are able to engage in real time as customers are shopping in your physical store. That’s what sets great omnichannel apart.”

As for gamification, Reeve said Eagle Eye is observing it taking the world by storm, and that the Australian market is starting to adopt well also. 

“I think it’s turning loyalty programs from being quite transactional into something that’s more emotionally engaging, because people just love games,” he said.

Reeve added that UK grocery chain Asda, an Eagle Eye client, was achieving huge success with games. 

The future of loyalty is…

What do loyalty experts think of when they hear the term, ‘the future of loyalty’? Depending on their own interests and customers, the answer tends to bounce around some common themes, with a couple of surprises.

“The future of loyalty is joyalty moments of magic,” according to Adam Posner, CEO of The Point of Loyalty, This sentiment was also shared by Braze’s Chris Johnston, who also borrowed to joyalty term to highlight the importance of delivering magic “at every customer engagement on their terms.”

According to Susan Walsh, “The future of loyalty is sustainable, mutual value-driven fun!”, she said, while also noting that versatility would be critical though times of change.  

For Jonathan Reeve, the future of loyalty might be summed as being ‘real-time’.

“This ties into AI,” he added. “We really think that AI is going to enable more and more in-the-moment loyalty experiences as you’re shopping, as you’re browsing. That’s where we see things going in the next year or so.”

For Kim Walsh, managing director for Australia at TLC Worldwide, the future of loyalty is all about using data to create memories, not just discounts.

“The future of loyalty is really, really harnessing data and creating memories, not just discounts and not just a sea of sameness. You need differentiation,” she said.

Nik Laming sees the future as undeniably positive. He simply stated, “The future of loyalty is bright, most definitely.”

The post From ‘belongings’ to belonging: Here’s what APAC experts say what’s next for the loyalty industry appeared first on MARKETECH APAC.

The platform enables retailers to deliver precisely targeted rewards at the moment of purchase, processing loyalty calculations faster than a Google search.

Eagle Eye, which works with brands including Endeavour Group, Woolworths and Z Energy, said Smart Rewards empowers retailers to offer personalised experiences across all channels while maintaining speed and accuracy at checkout.

Eagle Eye’s Australia and New Zealand regional sales director, Jonathan Reeve, said, “Too often, current loyalty systems can’t keep up, but Eagle Eye’s new Smart Rewards lets retailers deliver truly personalised offers and points in real-time, right as the basket is being scanned.”

“In a matter of milliseconds, Smart Rewards identifies the customer, analyses their basket items, delivers a personalised reward, and updates their digital wallet instantly,” he added. 

“For customers this means a faster, smoother and more rewarding experience; for retailers it provides a smarter, more connected way to boost customer lifetime value and drive same-day offer redemption,” Reeve asserted. 

Eagle Eye CEO Tim Mason said, “Retailers today need the ability to recognise customers instantly and apply the most relevant rewards in real-time, regardless of where the transaction takes place. With Smart Rewards, retailers can create personalised shopping experiences that feel immediate, consistent and scalable across every interaction.”

Built with an API-first architecture, Smart Rewards delivers consistent loyalty experiences across in-store, online and mobile channels as part of Eagle Eye’s cloud-based Smart Checkout suite.

The post Eagle Eye launches Smart Rewards for real-time loyalty, omnichannel retail appeared first on MARKETECH APAC.

The partnership aims to redefine customer engagement across global retail, travel and hospitality sectors aiming to execute over 1 billion personalised offers weekly to solve some of the retail industry’s critical challenges. 

Powered by Cognizant’s deep industry expertise and global engineering capabilities as well as Eagle Eye’s API-first and AI-powered loyalty and promotions platform, the collaboration aims to address stated challenges by enabling faster deployment of cutting-edge loyalty and personalization solutions.

Caitlin Stephens, Eagle Eye chief of staff of APAC shared, “We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with Cognizant. This partnership aims at collaboration between Eagle Eye’s AI-powered loyalty and personalisation technology Cognizant’s global delivery capability and deep industry expertise, we will be able to deliver scalable solutions to the world’s leading enterprise retailers – fast, enabling them to capitalise on the promise of true personalization,” 

Notable benefits of the industry partnership are as follows:

● Faster time to value: Cognizant’s implementation expertise combined with Eagle Eye’s MACH-certified platform capabilities aim to accelerate the delivery of scalable loyalty and personalisation solutions.

● Industry-specific optimisation: Tailored solutions for grocery, retail and hospitality sectors, leveraging Cognizant’s domain knowledge and Eagle Eye’s flexible architecture.

● Advanced analytics integration: Cognizant’s Gen AI capabilities aim to enhance Eagle Eye’s infrastructure for hyper-targeted campaigns.

● Omnichannel experience: Seamless integration of Eagle Eye’s digital platform with store operations, martech and cloud infrastructure help enable a personalised, real-time experience for customers at every step of the journey.

● Data security and compliance: Integrating Cognizant’s AI and Analytics (AIA) capabilities with Eagle Eye’s infrastructure provides an industry-leading approach designed to support adherence to data privacy regulations through encrypted data handling and audit trails.

According to ANZ CEO of Cognizant Rob Marchiori, “Eagle Eye plays a strategic role in Cognizant’s broader retail ecosystem, bringing together leading solutions to deliver end-to-end capabilities at scale and speed for clients,” 

He added, “Building on successful joint engagements across Australia and New Zealand, the global expansion of this partnership strengthens our ability to deliver AI-powered loyalty solutions designed to help retailers embrace the future of shopping, enhancing service interactions, maximising customer loyalty, and meeting evolving customer expectations.”

On the other hand, Hugo Harris, consumer leader at Cognizant ANZ shared excitement over unlocking the full potential of personalized loyalty, “By combining Cognizant’s deep expertise in retail consulting and digital transformation with Eagle Eye’s industry-leading solutions, we’re helping retailers shift from legacy loyalty systems to a platform that enables hyper-personalized, real-time marketing powered by AI, that aims to drive top line growth and operational efficiency. Together, we’re delivering future-ready solutions that integrate seamlessly with retail systems to enhance customer loyalty and engagement.”

The post Eagle Eye, Cognizant partner to transform retail loyalty with real-time personalisation at scale appeared first on MARKETECH APAC.