Rethinking Loyalty: The Importance of Affinity in Marketing

Raja Rajamannar: Quantum Marketing Raja Rajamannar is Chief Marketing & Communications Officer for Mastercard, and president of the company’s healthcare business. He also serves as president of the World Federation of Advertisers. Raja has held C-level roles at firms ranging from Anthem to Humana, and has overseen the successful evolution of Mastercard’s identity for the digital age, from its Priceless experiential platforms to marketing-led business models. Raja’s work has been featured in Harvard Business School and Yale School of management case studies, and been taught at more than 40 top management schools around the world. He is the author of Quantum Marketing: Mastering the New Marketing Mindset for Tomorrow's Consumers*. In this conversation, Raja and I discuss the reality that traditional advertising as we know it is ending. He also invites us to rethink how we’ve traditionally thought about customer loyalty. Instead of telling stories about our brands, we should be doing the work to create stories along with our customers. Key Points Organizations need to engage in permission-based marketing to be credible to consumers. It’s helpful to think about relationships with consumers as affinity instead of loyalty. Most of what we call advertising today is interruptive to consumers and a poor experience. It’s not entirely dead, but certainly heading that way. Invite consumers into unique experiences by making the transition from storytelling to story making. Create experiences that are scalable and economically viable and sustainable. Smaller firms can seek out opportunities to create partnership that will help them make stories that are purposeful. Resources Mentioned Quantum Marketing: Mastering the New Marketing Mindset for Tomorrow's Consumers* by Raja Rajamannar Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes How to Lead Top-Line Growth, with Tim Sanders (episode 299) Serve Others Through Marketing, with Seth Godin (episode 381) Where to Start on Subscriptions, with Robbie Kellman Baxter (episode 484) If You Build It, They Will Come (Dave’s Journal) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic.