Customer loyalty is much more nuanced than points-based rewards programs! Explore five research-backed strategies with real-world examples from brands like Patagonia, Lego, Native and more. You'll walk away with a score of new ideas that you should embrace to drive true loyalty and connection. Lauren Ackerman, VP Client Strategy at J.Schmid will share insights related to customer loyalty and translate them to marketing tactics that will: • Use emotion to move your audience • Build a strong community with social media and in-person events • Refine the customer journey around the points of the purchase – online and offline, from triggered emails to the box experience • Turn error into opportunity by above-and-beyond handling of returns and mistakes • Prove you “know” them with customer journey messaging, personalization, versioning in direct mail and beyond. Register at: https://www.ana.net/membersconference/show/id/MOC-OCT23E6

Private equity firm Atlas Holdings is acquiring The ODP Corp., parent of Office Depot, in an all-cash deal valued at approximately $1 billion. The agreement underscores ODP’s ongoing pivot from retail office supplies toward its growing business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce and distribution operations. Atlas will pay $28 per share for ODP’s 30.08 million outstanding shares. The companies expect to close the transaction by year’s end. That deal comes as ODP’s market value has shrunk from more than $5 billion a decade ago, reflecting declining consumer demand for paper, printers, and related supplies.

For the generations that grew up on Blue’s Clues, mail time is pretty few and far between these days. As a Gen Z/millennial “cusper,” Emily Loof, development and marketing manager at education nonprofit Colorado Youth for a Change (CYC), said she’s pushed for an increased use of direct mail in her current and past roles. Since last year, she said CYC has “about doubled” its direct-mail marketing budget. In addition to seeing increased donations, Loof said she’s also received feedback that indicates younger people may be itching for more things in their mailbox. One person “tagged our organization on Facebook and said, ‘This is so cool. Like, I never get letters from people that I donate to,’” she told us. Given growing data-privacy concerns, clutter in online advertising, and demand for brand authenticity, some marketers we spoke to said the best way to reach younger consumers could be through some good ol’ fashioned snail mail.