Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Loyalty Beyond the Cart: How United Supermarkets Gamifies Wellness and Engagement
Customer loyalty in the grocery industry is no longer just about discounts and rewards points. It is about creating meaningful connections and offering tangible value in ways that truly resonate. United Supermarkets has embraced this shift by blending gamification, digital engagement, and health-focused initiatives to drive deeper customer loyalty.
To explore this strategy, we spoke with Brenda Garcia, Health & Wellness Manager and Registered Dietitian, and Robin Cash, Director of Digital and Loyalty Marketing at United Supermarkets. Their insights reveal how customer expectations are evolving—and how United is staying ahead of the curve.
Health and wellness are top priorities for many consumers today, especially at the beginning of the year when everyone wants to eat in shape. Most brands realize this and are striving to help customers build healthier habits and become a trusted advisor in their wellness journeys. While some brands struggle with this engagement, united Supermarkets has found a winning formula with their 28-day challenge, which is quite unique. By blending behavioral science and a holistic approach, they're driving substantial change with the help of advocates and strategic partners. It's exciting to see this fresh approach in action, especially those who are passionate about customer loyalty and behavioral economics, like myself. Today, joining us are Brenda Garcia she is a health and wellness manager as well as a registered dietitian and Robin Cash, director of digital and loyalty marketing at United Supermarkets. Thank you both for taking the time to join us today. How are you today?
Speaker 3:Doing well, thank you. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Great First off. Could you give us a brief introduction to United Supermarkets and share your respective roles within the company and some of your previous experiences? Let's go ahead and start with Brenda.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, so United Supermarkets, we have actually four different banners and we are a division of Albertsons and so I am the health and wellness manager for our division and the lead dietitian in the company, so I help to manage all of the health and wellness messaging for all of our guests in our team.
Speaker 1:And now Robin.
Speaker 2:I'm Robin Cash. I'm our director of digital and loyalty marketing for United Supermarkets, Market Street, Amigos, Albertsons Market, Market Street, Amigos Albertsons Market, United Express and all the brands that Brenda and our teams support, and my responsibility is for our loyalty program, from the day-to-day operation to new program development, data and analytics, and I also oversee social media and all of our digital marketing efforts.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, robyn, when you look at customer loyalty and the state of the grocery industry. What is the state of customer loyalty, brand loyalty, in the grocery industry today?
Speaker 2:So I think we all see this in our individual retailers and through different reports. But really what we see is guests. They're looking for value, and value looks different for every guest. Value can look like time savings. Value can look like discounts, looking for best pricing. But we're seeing them looking for value and sometimes what that's resulting in is splitting their shops between different retailers, so shopping more locations, shopping online, where they can price check and really build their basket to the best way for their family. And what we're also seeing is that guests are engaging in loyalty programs that are giving them rewards and discounts on what they're looking for, and that might be fuel discounts that might be their household staples or specialty items. It might be fuel discounts that might be their household staples or specialty items. It might be cash. We see that value theme running through our loyalty trends.
Speaker 1:OK, excellent. And Robin, when you look at United Supermarkets, how they look at customer loyalty, but also health and wellness and some of those initiatives that can impact the customer loyalty program, health and wellness and some of those initiatives that can impact the customer loyalty program Can you tell us a little bit more about these efforts and how they align with understanding the customer's buying habits, interests, preferences and kind of driving engagement?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so among several different ways to grow customer loyalty, health and wellness initiatives are one of those and Brenda's team does a great job in building out programs to create engagement and education. But one of the things we find is that our most loyal guests and those that are shopping most often that truly have that brand loyalty, they're finding value in those health and wellness solutions through what Brenda's team provides and we're seeing increased frequency in overall spend. We're seeing it's kind of that most loyal guest that is engaging and engaging across multiple solutions in our stores.
Speaker 1:Okay, I know United Supermarkets recently reintroduced the 28-day challenge in 2025 after seeing success in 2024. You know what results did you see from the first year that influenced the decision to bring it back, and how have you maybe redesigned it or enhanced it to achieve even greater success this time around?
Speaker 3:Yeah, in 2024,. It was really exciting because we took the challenge and we gamified the experience to help with engagement and learning and that was received really well, not just from guests at one banner, but we were able to take this to all banners, all of our guests and we're in two different states, so we were able to do that and that was exciting. Plus, we got to learn some feedback. What questions did they have? What did they learn from it? What did they want to learn from it, maybe? What content did they have? What did they learn from it? What did they want to learn from it, maybe? What content did they like? What did they want to see more of, less of? It was a great way to partner with our guests to get on their health and wellness journey.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Can you provide us an overview of the 28 Day Challenge? You know what it is and how customers engage with the program and you know also you know you talked about some of the metrics you see regarding kind of the behavior. You know how does it impact and you know emotional loyalty and even support the wellness related goals which everyone has, especially at the beginning of the year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they, everybody does have a goal, and it's not always weight loss.
Speaker 3:Sometimes it's building muscle, sometimes it is sleeping more, sometimes it's just maybe just trying to make better choices all day long on what they're eating.
Speaker 3:But we do know this it takes about 21 days to create a new habit, 28 days to make it a lifestyle. So that's how we came up with 28 days of the challenges, and we did it in the form of different quizzes, articles that our guests could read, recipes, both just documented picture recipes, and videos, covering topics from everything from meal prepping, current diet trends, movement supplements, snacking and meal ideas. So the guests have opportunity to earn tokens and redeem these from prizes and stores. So this was things from savings off a certain basket amount or free items that they might earn, so a free bag of frozen fruit, for example and then, ultimately, we had a grand prize gift card to our stores, which was very popular, our stores, which was very popular. We also partnered this with our Spend 20 Save 5 program, which offered additional savings on some better for you items, and in addition to that, we offered dietician led in-store tours if they wanted to further learn even more about how to meet their wellness goals while shopping.
Speaker 1:Perfect and Robin, do you have any kind of additional insight?
Speaker 2:I mean, brenda really covered it. She and her team really spearheaded our 28-day challenge. The customer engagement was a big part of what we wanted to do. We wanted to make sure that they were able to achieve these challenges. We wanted them to be educational but also useful and something that they can actually complete, and so Brenda's team, I think, did a really great job creating those challenges in a way that anyone can engage in the program in the way that looks appropriate, a good fit for them.
Speaker 1:Okay, excellent, you mentioned this earlier, robin the push for value. We see that in our member community pretty simply as well. We actually have a session being led by, I think, wawa and Cracker Barrel coming up, a member-only session to talk about value from the restaurant perspective and also from the QSR I'm sorry from the fuel perspective, because it is a big, big push, but value can mean different things to different people. Right Can value in the program can be value in private label goods, which we hear a big push in many private label product offerings. Right to compete against EDLPs and also to engage that younger generation. So you know, holistically, what are you seeing in your push to value when it comes to customer loyalty.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Brenda talked about a couple of different components of our program that gave immediate savings value, and that was from the tokens you earn when you completed challenges. We gave a method for them to redeem those tokens into immediate cash discounts that loaded directly onto their loyalty account they could earn free product. And I think it's important also that we don't discount just the value of the educational material that Brenda put out, especially when it's timely in January. What we, you know, are seeing too, is a big push towards own brands. I think every retailer probably would say that Our own brands was part of our spend 20, save five campaign. So when a guest spent $20 in participating products, they saved $5, and own brands was part of that. But we had some great CPG partners that came to the table to help with that too, and so you know, looking for those ways to bring it to tangible savings to our guests is one of the ways that the 28-Day Challenge really helped with that value message for our guests.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I want to kind of loop back.
Speaker 1:Brenda, you talked about gamification, some of the tokens in driving that habit. I'm a big behavioral science guy. It's pretty much all I read. What are you seeing in that regard? 28 days to make it lifetime, 21 days to make it a habit. But the gamification piece tons of interest right now in gamification, not only from a zero-party data perspective, but to drive that emotional engagement, to get that dopamine rush. Knowing that I'm 20, I'm 21st, I want to be third or second, kind of driving that competitive spirit. What are you seeing from the gamification piece?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that it's always been popular to have a little bit of reward for, you know, meeting some of those goals. And this is just another way that people can feel like, yes, I accomplished something, it's something tangible, to feel like you're accomplishing. Because the thing with um a wellness journey is I always tell people remember it's a marathon, it is, it is, it is not a sprint, and so sometimes in a marathon you kind of get tired and having those little bits of rewards along the way was really helpful. They also had a chance to interact and kind of see what some other guests were doing. They could post pictures of themselves, you know, hey, here we are, you know, going on our walk or exercising or um, share some of their meal ideas or inspire others with their own meal ideas. And it created a community, um community to be able to share accomplishments.
Speaker 1:Okay, excellent, and you spoke a little bit about changing customer habits. We hear a good deal about that in the member community. Customers are changing. How should the brand respond to them in kind? The journey is pretty robust right now. So what are you seeing, or how do you feel your customers are changing?
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things we're seeing and we kind of talked about it earlier in the program is we're seeing customers are starved for time. They're having to make so many choices every day. How they're planning their shopping is changing. How they're accessing weekly ad and comparing specials among retailers is changing. Everything's moving in a digital environment, which just naturally changes behavior.
Speaker 2:The channels are choosing to shop you know we've got guests who are choosing online only versus brick and mortar or shopping between both platforms, finding that omni-channel solution, how they're planning their meals and making decisions that are supporting their lifestyle. Those are just some of the ways that we're seeing that behavior change and we're trying to provide solutions that meet them where they are, and I think our 28 day challenge gave a great way of doing that by meeting that digital guest with some really tangible solutions, but also trying to make it easy. You know, here's one tip a day, or here's one thing a day to learn, to improve, and not 10, right, because they have to make so many decisions, they're doing so many activities, and so I think our 28 day challenge really tried to make that very attainable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Excellent and, Brenda, you spoke to a little bit of how customers are changing. Obviously, health and wellness is front and center for most consumers, at least they say it is right. They want to have that measurable change. How are you seeing customers changing? You talk about the community. What are you seeing from more of a dietician perspective?
Speaker 3:You know, I think everything that Robin said actually translates over. I mean, they are starved for time, and how do I make a healthy meal quickly is always the challenge, and you know, how do I make it budget friendly. So those were two of our main goals in trying to bring some of that to them, because time and money are two of our biggest commodities and they want to know how to invest wisely in themselves, in their body, in their journey. But they still want it to taste good. We all do, and that is another goal is to teach them what they can find in there so that we can support their lifestyles.
Speaker 1:Okay, excellent. And we talked a little bit about as well, gamification, zero party data, tons of new technologies right now in the customer loyalty arena. So we meet every week on different topics and technology is a big one right Making sure it works, it's integrated. Oftentimes you bring on a platform gamification, cdp and it may not be exactly what it was supposed to be right. So when you look at the big push for gamification, new data, how were you able to effectively integrate these games into your customer loyalty program and your customer loyalty accounts?
Speaker 2:So we partnered with TCC Global, used their Loyalty Quest program. Tcc is a great partner that really comes alongside and helps build out a program that's going to be engaging and accessible. They've got a great set of digital tools and so they that platform, that loyalty quest platform brought that gamification element to our program and brought in those quizzes and articles. The photo uploads helped enable those connections into the loyalty account when they did earn their rewards and their discounts, and so we were able to achieve that with that partnership.
Speaker 1:Okay, can you elaborate a little bit more on the kind of the different range of content resources available to support the reward program, especially from, maybe, a health and wellness perspective? You talked a little about articles and quizzes. You know what role do they play in the game? Vacation approach.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think you know, learning in a way where you're guessing thing and you're thinking through thing a little bit different, helps our articles. We try to keep them short, simple, and you know, like we had an article on just meal prepping. Hey, here's some of our favorite tips. These are things that we actually do ourselves and wanted to share in there, and I think also it was kind of fun to do the videos. We had an AI component where they could look at their meal and see if it was actually healthy, and that was kind of a fun way to learn. Like, maybe did it include your vegetables? So we could see. You know, hey, yeah, show us your picture that include vegetables, something like that. And I think it's just a different way to learn from something that maybe seems stale to some people when it's just when you're, when you're just kind of know it or hear it all the time. It's a different way to incorporate personally.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely. And are you doing anything around with regarding measurement? Because I know there's other grocers who tried something similar and some guidance star programs out there, but they really don't look at measurement. They don't prompt them to take pictures or to share pictures, right, To make it more engaging, more emotionally connected, right. Are you doing anything to kind of help them on that? You've lost five pounds, three pounds as well or is it more just focusing on the behaviors and the food and the kind of what they're imbibing?
Speaker 3:We encourage them to have ways to track some of their goals, whether they kept a journal or they used our sincerely health part of the app that we have where they track their goals in there. And we also encouraged them in ways to like you know, hey, if you're walking, whether you're using your you know Apple Watch or your phone or any of those things to track it. We also gave them step counters in some of our stores, so if you shop our aisles, here's how many steps you can count that you're taking. So we gave them very different ways to quantify their goals.
Speaker 1:Okay and Robin. When you look at the success of the program, your customer loyalty, customer experience efforts, what KPIs or metrics are important to you and your team? When you look at the efficacy of your customer loyalty strategy and efforts, yeah.
Speaker 2:So with this program we're really looking at overall program engagement. How many users signed up for it, how many challenges did they complete? How much time did they spend in a session, really understanding what is their total engagement in the program? We're also looking at rewards redemption because we want to help make sure that our users are not only earning rewards but can find it easy to redeem it right. We want them to achieve that value in the store and get that discount, and so we're we're compiling metrics around all of those. We'll be kind of looking at probably other kpis, but those are the key ones for us.
Speaker 1:Okay, Excellent. You mentioned real quick earlier about kind of the in-store component. So the in-store component is very important having someone, a dietician, or to help them either with the program. We see a number of brands wanting to have that in-store component. How does that piece work with your program? Because you mentioned it earlier? Let's know a little bit more about that. How does that piece?
Speaker 3:work with your program, cause you mentioned it earlier, let's know a little bit more about that. So that program, the spend 20, save five. We partner with several programs that they work with our team of dietitians to say, hey, yes, this is a great product that we would love to see people have the opportunity to try, and some of them are, you know, different fruits and vegetables. Some of them are different drinks that might be an alternative to beverages with more sugar. Some of them are, you know, yogurt, proteins. We try and focus on all the different things, things with fiber, things that are plant-based, so we really try and meet the various needs that guests might have, but with an opportunity to try things with some savings.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Okay, personalization is another topic that's very germane to our audience as well. When you look at the kind of the key elements of your loyalty program, sounds like you're doing a great job driving. You know the personalization. How can programs like the 28-Day Challenge? You know further your personalization efforts for United Supermarkets.
Speaker 3:It helps us to tailor some of that content to the various lifestyles that someone might have. We can also look into offering personalized offers and deals. Again, we keep mentioning this, but this is very important to myself and all of us really is that we meet the guests' needs where they are on their journey. Not everybody is in the same place, so I love that we can do this.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:To add something there, mark, and I think we really talked about it, is personalization. You know we built in some offline personalization elements. We often talk about personalization in digital personalized offers, personalized content, but I think the 28-Day Challenge did a great job in really setting up a way to do the challenge in a personalized way, doing it in a way that works for you. If you need a step counter, if you're doing, you know, pedometer versus Apple Watch, if you're journaling versus using an app, I think building in that flexibility to get into meet the guests where they are creates an element of personalization that we don't usually talk about in the loyalty space. We're usually talking about content and offers, and personalization can come across a lot of different channels.
Speaker 1:No, you're absolutely right. That's yeah, it definitely is. And especially when you look at kind of the younger shoppers, right. We do a state of customer loyalty next generation customer loyalty report every year and younger shoppers are shaping the future of customer loyalty programs for that next generation offering. They may be engaging differently with the program. You know, what are you seeing in regard to younger customers engaging with, maybe digital rewards or health-focused initiatives or game vacation? What are you seeing holistically?
Speaker 3:Our younger guests are typically very interested in the quick recipe videos. They really want to know about their ingredients. What is in this? They want to know more about lifestyle eating, such as like they're more interested in low carb or quote unquote clean eating, organic. They're not quite to the point where they're interested maybe as much in a heart lifestyle or something like that, unless they're assisting a family member. So they really want to start from a different perspective and that's great and that helps us inspire the gamification elements in this.
Speaker 1:Okay and Robin, what are you seeing from the next generation customer loyalty holistically? How are the younger generations engaging with the program and how are you reaching out to them to increase?
Speaker 2:that participation, although I think they have some great boundaries of where they want to use technology and where they want to, you know, have an analog relationship and they really choose that. Those younger shoppers, though, because they are digitally savvy, they are quick to pick up loyalty programs and engage. They're quick to redeem, they're looking for those values in any way that they can find savings. They're looking for those values in any way that they can find savings, and so just engagement rates are different, because a lot of it, especially as industry is moving towards more technology, that younger shopper is just quick to embrace.
Speaker 1:Excellent, rob. Emotional loyalty is another area of producing finiturist for all brands, right, because everyone knows the stats. They'll spend more, they'll kind of be an advocate for the brand they, you know less likely to leave or a higher share of wallet. So when you look at emotional loyalty, what does emotional loyalty mean to you and United Supermarkets?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for United, you know we're a 109-year-old organization. Yeah, so for United, you know we're a 109 year old organization and a lot of our communities we have been around for some of our guests lifetime and so there's a lot of emotional loyalty because it's this grocery store they grew up with, it's the grocery store that, as their family grows, that they choose. They choose our store. And so there's a lot of, a lot of stories in our communities of you know that was my first job, that was, I remember shopping with my mom in that store and so that emotional loyalty for us comes with.
Speaker 2:I think that the role that we are honored to play in our community, the way we get to support our communities and from, you know, supporting food banks to local arts and organizations, that emotional loyalty kind of comes through those sponsorships and just coming alongside of our guests and again meeting them where they are. We're also in some markets where we may not have that emotional loyalty because the demographics are changing constantly. You know some of our larger Metroplex markets where we don't have those deep 100 year roots. We're developing that emotional loyalty with them through those sponsorships and community outreach and programs like 28 day challenge, where hopefully, what we're, what we're building, is that our guests see our stores as a place they can go for accessible, attainable health and wellness information.
Speaker 1:Excellent, robin, when you look at the the program holistically, what are you most proud of with regard to this, this 28 day challenge? But also, you know, holistically, when you look at the customer loyalty efforts, you have what are two or three things you're most proud of with regard to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for this program, I am really proud of the program the team put together. You know, building out 28 unique challenges for four different brands that are very thoughtful. You know there's a lot of thought into the strategy behind. This week we're going to be talking about fiber. This week we're going to be talking about protein, and building that out takes a lot of effort and a lot of energy.
Speaker 2:I think we did it in a really engaging way. We brought a lot more video to the program this year than we did last year, and so I'm really proud of how we have adapted a program that really started out as an email program I think we emailed very first 28 day challenge years ago was it's like a 28 day calendar of here are the 28 challenges and supported with content, of here are the 28 challenges and supported with content just how the program has really changed over the years to adapt with our consumers. And so you know I could probably talk a long time about all the different ways, but that to me is, I think, the most proud moment out of this program. But then also, as we're really just now starting to get our customer engagement metrics and we're seeing some things that are that are really interesting, that I think we're going to use to guide future programs.
Speaker 1:Okay, and Brenda, when you look at the campaign, what are you most proud of?
Speaker 3:Well, health and wellness is an important pillar for us, and so being able to bring this information to others, to help inspire maybe just what's for dinner or what's their next step in their journey, and to be part of that journey, that wellness journey, able to bring it to them in a way that is easy for them and accessible, is a very big accomplishment that we've been working on and very proud that we were able to do that with the great team that helped pull this together.
Speaker 1:Brenda and Robin, thanks for those wonderful responses. Great to see what you're doing pertaining to customer loyalty and the 28-Day Challenge, but now we have our quick fire segment. We like to keep these two short responses. One word or a short phrase, or I get in trouble with the content team, and I never want to be in trouble with them. So let's go ahead and start with you, brenda. What word or short phrase do you use to inspire others?
Speaker 3:You, do you.
Speaker 1:You do you okay. What is the least favorite word that others use you're not a big fan of.
Speaker 3:Diet.
Speaker 1:There you go. What excites you at work?
Speaker 3:Getting to be part of someone's health and wellness journey.
Speaker 1:And what do you find tiresome at work or at home?
Speaker 3:Dusting.
Speaker 1:Is there a book that you've read that you'd like to recommend to colleagues or friends and associates?
Speaker 3:Wow, there's many, there's so many. I don't have just one Depends on what they're looking for.
Speaker 1:OK, excellent. Is there a profession other than the one that you're currently in that you may like to try?
Speaker 3:In another way I would love to be an interior designer.
Speaker 1:OK, what do you enjoy doing that you often don't get the time to do Hiking.
Speaker 3:We don't have a lot of mountains around here.
Speaker 1:Okay, who inspired you to become the person you are today?
Speaker 3:So many people. I would definitely say my parents and my husband were a big part of that.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what do you typically think about at the end of the day?
Speaker 3:Time with family.
Speaker 1:Okay, and how do you want to be remembered by friends and family?
Speaker 3:Caring Perfect, and now.
Speaker 1:Robin, what about you? It's your turn. What word or short phrase do you use to inspire others?
Speaker 2:You've got this.
Speaker 1:Excellent. What excites you at work?
Speaker 2:I love that I get to find digital solutions to problems.
Speaker 1:Okay, what do you find tiresome at home or work?
Speaker 2:Oh, I've got young kids Just getting through the day some days.
Speaker 1:Okay, is there a book that you have read that you like, that you'd like to recommend to book to colleagues?
Speaker 2:You know I'm with Brenda on this one. There's so many different things. I tend to ask what they're interested in before I could make a recommendation.
Speaker 1:Okay, and is there a profession that you would like to attempt?
Speaker 2:If I ever had the chance, I think I'd love to be a florist attempt.
Speaker 1:If I ever had the chance, I think I'd love to be a florist. Okay, excellent, and well with young kids. I'm sure the answer is going to be interesting here?
Speaker 2:What do you enjoy doing that you often don't get the time to do? I would love a chance to just sit down and watch a movie all in one sitting.
Speaker 1:Okay, and who inspired you to become the person you are today.
Speaker 2:My parents, my grandmother was a big influence in my life.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what do you typically think about at the end of the day?
Speaker 2:Usually thinking about what's happening the next day.
Speaker 1:Excellent, and how do you want to be remembered by friends and family?
Speaker 2:Oh, I want to be remembered as the person who cared, who just loved on people.
Speaker 1:Brenna and Robin, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us today. It was a pleasure speaking with you about your 28-day challenge and how to be looking at personalization and emotional loyalty. We look forward to hearing more from you and your team in 2025.
Speaker 3:Okay, great Sounds great. Thanks, Mark.
Speaker 1:Also thank you everyone else for taking the time to listen today. Make sure you join us back every Thursday for our next edition of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty series. Until then, have a wonderful day.