• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.87-115
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• 2012

Introduction: In these days, a loyalty program is one of the most common marketing mechanisms (Lacey & Sneath, 2006; Nues & Dreze, 2006; Uncles et al., 20003). In recent years, Coalition Loyalty Program is more noticeable as one of progressed forms. In the past, loyalty program was operating independently by single product brand or single retail channel brand. Now, companies using Coalition Loyalty Program share their programs as one single service and companies to participate to this program continue to have benefits from their existing program as well as positive spillover effect from the other participating network companies. Instead of consumers to earn or spend points from single retail channel or brand, consumers will have more opportunities to utilize their points and be able to purchase other participating companies products. Issues that are related to form of loyalty programs are essentially connected with consumers' perceived view on convenience of using its program. This can be a problem for distribution companies' strategic marketing plan. Although Coalition Loyalty Program is popular corporate marketing strategy to most companies, only few researches have been published. However, compared to independent loyalty program, coalition loyalty program operated by third parties of partnership has following conditions: Companies cannot autonomously modify structures of program for individual companies' benefits, and there is no guarantee to operate and to participate its program continuously by signing a contract. Thus, it is important to conduct the study on how coalition loyalty program affects companies' success and its process as much as conducting the study on effects of independent program. This study will complement the lack of coalition loyalty program study. The purpose of this study is to find out how consumer loyalty affects affiliated brands, its cause and mechanism. The past study about loyalty program only provided the variation of performance analysis, but this study will specifically focus on causes of results. In order to do these, this study is designed and to verify three primary objects as following; First, based on opinions of Switching Barriers (Fornell, 1992; Ping, 1993; Jones, et at., 2000) about causes of loyalty of coalition brand, 'brand attractiveness' and 'brand switching cost' are antecedents and causes of change in 'brand loyalty' will be investigated. Second, influence of consumers' perception and attitude prior to joining coalition loyalty program, influence of program in retail brands, brand attractiveness and spillover effect of switching cost after joining coalition program will be verified. Finally, the study will apply 'prior brand preference' as a variable and will provide a relationship between effects of coalition loyalty program and prior preference level. Hypothesis Hypothesis 1. After joining coalition loyalty program, more preferred brand (compared to less preferred brand) will increase influence on brand attractiveness to brand loyalty. Hypothesis 2. After joining coalition loyalty program, less preferred brand (compared to more preferred brand) will increase influence on brand switching cost to brand loyalty. Hypothesis 3. (1)Brand attractiveness and (2)brand switching cost of more preferred brand (before joining the coalition loyalty program) will influence more positive effects from (1)program attractiveness and (2)program switching cost of coalition loyalty program (after joining) than less preferred brand. Hypothesis 4. After joining coalition loyalty program, (1)brand attractiveness and (2)brand switching cost of more preferred brand will receive more positive impacts from (1)program attractiveness and (2)program switching cost of coalition loyalty program than less preferred brand. Hypothesis 5. After joining coalition loyalty program, (1)brand attractiveness and (2)brand switching cost of more preferred brand will receive less impacts from (1)brand attractiveness and (2)brand switching cost of different brands (having different preference level), which joined simultaneously, than less preferred brand. Method : In order to validate hypotheses, this study will apply experimental method throughout virtual scenario of coalition loyalty program if consumers have used or available for the actual brands. The experiment is conducted twice to participants. In a first experiment, the study will provide six coalition brands which are already selected based on prior research. The survey asked each brand attractiveness, switching cost, and loyalty after they choose high preference brand and low preference brand. One hour break was provided prior to the second experiment. In a second experiment, virtual coalition loyalty program "SaveBag" was introduced to participants. Participants were informed that "SaveBag" will be new alliance with six coalition brands from the first experiment. Brand attractiveness and switching cost about coalition program were measured and brand attractiveness and switching cost of high preference brand and low preference brand were measured as same method of first experiment. Limitation and future research This study shows limitations of effects of coalition loyalty program by using virtual scenario instead of actual research. Thus, future study should compare and analyze CLP panel data to provide more in-depth information. In addition, this study only proved the effectiveness of coalition loyalty program. However, there are two types of loyalty program, which are Single and Coalition, and success of coalition loyalty program will be dependent on market brand power and prior customer attitude. Therefore, it will be interesting to compare effects of two programs in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.89-111
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• 2012

Coalition loyalty programs, loyalty cash-back programs that enable their members to accrue and redeem points at a wide-range of affiliated outlets, are emerging. In a coalition loyalty program, unlike in a single-brand loyalty program, points accrued from one outlet can be redeemed in other outlets which even may be of other brands than the very one where the points were from. However, in spite of such systematic characteristic of coalition loyalty programs, there is only little research on the effect of the program. The present study is aimed at examining the difference between the effects of a coalition and a single-brand loyalty program in terms of acquisition and retention of customers and tries to provide strategic implications for a firm to run a loyalty program. We classify purchase conditions into two types-acquisition vs. retention. Then we compare the effects of a coalition and a single-brand loyalty program on the purchase intention, under both the acquisition and the retention conditions. The result shows that the effect of the coalition loyalty program is stronger than that of the single-brand loyalty program under the acquisition condition. On the other hands, the single-brand loyalty program is more effective than the coalition loyalty program under the retention condition, at least for the minor brand.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.91-109
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• 2011

Loyalty programs are everywhere these days, and among them, coalition programs, where a hub company makes a network of participating companies and users can collect and use points in a large number of participating shops, are in increase. There is little research on the coalition loyalty program. Using the case of OKCashbag, the first and biggest coalition loyalty program in Korea, this study examines whether success factors of single operator program are relevant to coalition programs. This paper contributes first by turning attention to an unexplored area of coalition loyalty programs. By offering an opportunity to reflect on success factors of both single operator and coalition programs, it will help practitioners in loyalty programs to develop innovative loyalty programs using increasingly sophisticated data collection capabilities of IT.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.165-180
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• 2013

Using long-term panel data of OKCashbag, this study analyzes whether learning effect influencing in effectiveness of coalition loyalty program exists. We found that there is learning effect in the behavior of loyalty program customers, and discovered that learning effect appears more greatly in using (redeeming) behavior than accumulating behavior. The authors also found a long-lasting structural changes in the pattern of point redemption after a major marketing activities associated with the act of using points. The results of this research can contribute to suggest direction to the future researches to examine differences of learning effect according to demographic (gender, age, region, ect.) and transactional (frequency or scale in point accumulation and redemption etc.) characteristics.