Saurabh Agrawal

The through-line

Across everything, Saurabh Agrawal circles one question: does the mechanism a brand builds actually produce the outcome it is named after? He frames the whole loyalty debate as a puzzle rather than a given, observing that "Today brands struggle to drive loyalty with their customers. And one of the easy ways they do is to think about launching a loyalty program," and then asking directly, "does a loyalty program really drive loyalty" [1]. The same instinct shows up when he turns to how businesses are measured, where he is impatient with numbers that look impressive and mean nothing [2], and when he looks at marketing attribution, which he sees as having been made more complicated rather than clearer by the wave of analytics products and companies that have arrived [3].

The second thread is execution and comprehensibility. A benefit the customer cannot understand, or does not know exists, is worth nothing to the customer and nothing to the brand [1]. He tests programs the way an ordinary member would, by trying to read the terms, failing to work out what is on offer, and concluding that the design was never built for a human brain [1].

On whether a loyalty program can create loyalty

His starting position is that brands reach for a program because it is the easy move available when loyalty is hard to earn [1]. He does not treat programs as worthless, but he does treat them as conditional on everything else being right, and he is drawn to the counter-examples: Zara and Walmart succeeding for years without one, Indigo insisting for the longest time that its great experience, great value and on-time delivery were its loyalty [1]. Where he lands is that the decision is situational rather than universal: "it is also the timing when do you need to do and what are the competitive forces" [1].

On competitive forces as the real trigger

His fullest worked example is Indigo. A carrier with more than 60 percent market share that had long refused to show the red carpet went ahead and launched a program last year, and he reads the cause as consolidation: Air India inherited a very strong program in Club Vistara, which became Club Maharaja [1]. The mechanism he identifies is corporate travel, where a large share of airline spend is made by people in jobs whose travel is funded by their companies, so all else being equal they choose the flight that accrues miles, a shift already visible in the US with Delta, Continental and American Airlines [1]. Launching under pressure does not guarantee a good answer, though. He is not a fan of the result, calling it "a very confusing value proposition" [1].

On terms and conditions, and who designs the program

The Flipkart Black and Amazon Prime comparison is where his design view is sharpest. Coming to Flipkart Black with fifteen years of the Amex Black identity in mind, he went to the page, tried three times at 900 rupees, and reports plainly that "I couldn't understand what they're trying to sell for" [1]. His diagnosis of why is blunt: "so it looks like a CFO has written the TNC" [1]. The connection he draws is between the volume of conditions and the underlying intent. A program written to protect a line item ends up unreadable, while a program conceived as a business bet can afford two hero benefits that everybody registers [1].

On over-monetisation eroding the proposition

He extends the same logic to programs that keep adding paid layers. When monetisation is pushed too far, as he sees with MX Player, "the value proposition is under question" [1], and the same risk applies to Amazon Prime as it introduces charges for ad-free viewing on top of the membership [1].

On quick commerce memberships

He is openly sceptical of the memberships proliferating in quick commerce, pointing at Zepto Pass, Blinkit and Zomato Gold being sold at 10, 7, 9 or 12 rupees [1]. His objection is twofold. They are undifferentiated, with everyone offering essentially the same thing at essentially the same price, and pricing the membership that low while still charging delivery fees and surge fees leaves the member unable to see any value at all. In his words it "it's like a abuse of the loyalty program when you are paying for the loyalty program so cheap" [1]. What he wants from the category is a reason: the quick commerce companies "need to really think about why do they have to deliver a program and It's just not for the sake of having it" [1].

On execution, communication and the P&L trap

He accepts that a rich benefit is a real cost and that everyone is managing a P&L, and that a finance-minded reading will treat something like free golf lessons as pure expense [1]. His counter is that the cost only converts into anything if the member actually uses it: "if people use your loyalty benefits they will drive loyalty" [1]. That is why unadvertised benefits are the worst of both worlds, carrying the liability without buying any of the attachment. He also flags the framing question he keeps returning to with clients, whether a program should be judged on business ROI or on loyalty program ROI [1].

On vanity metrics and measuring new business models

He is drawn to the discipline of measuring new-age business models, singling out the chapter on measuring and tracking them as his favourite and saying he has read it four or five times [2]. His own contribution to the vanity metrics list is social: "I think so the other metric which I really get amused is followers" [2]. It sits alongside his interest in attribution, a word he sees as much talked about and considerably more complicated than the number of analytics products on offer would suggest [3].

On how founders learn and place bets

He treats early exposure to real responsibility as formative, noting that the kind of work done in a founder's office is exactly why "founder's office type of roles are very popular today," and characterising that work as important but not urgent [2]. He is attentive to how operators evolve rather than just what they build, summarising a shift from running one company at a time to running several as going "from being a serial you became a parallel entrepreneur," and reading the appeal of that model as optionality: you can choose your battles, and "It gives you freedom" [2]. He is also interested in the timing of category bets, pointing out that TutorVista was conceived before edtech existed as a word, Bluestone before anyone was talking about D2C, and Big Basket before online grocery was a conversation [2].

Takeaways

• Loyalty and a loyalty program are separate things; a program is the easy answer brands reach for when loyalty is hard to earn, and the honest test is whether it actually drives loyalty [1].
• Programs are usually launched because of competitive forces and timing, as with Indigo responding to Air India's inherited Club Vistara becoming Club Maharaja, and to corporate-funded travellers choosing whichever airline accrues miles [1].
• Unreadable terms and conditions signal who designed the program: "so it looks like a CFO has written the TNC" [1].
• Two hero benefits that everyone remembers beat a long list nobody can parse; he could not work out what Flipkart Black was selling even after three attempts at 900 rupees [1].
• A benefit that is never communicated is a cost with no return; the P&L only pays off when members actually use what they were given [1].
• Quick commerce memberships priced at 7 to 12 rupees while still charging delivery and surge fees are undifferentiated and self-defeating; a program should exist for a reason, not for the sake of having one [1].
• Pushing monetisation too hard, as with MX Player or paid ad-free Prime Video, puts the core value proposition itself under question [1].
• Follower counts are a vanity metric he finds particularly amusing, and attribution has been made more complicated by the proliferation of analytics products [2][3].