BRIEF

$0.01. It may not look like much, but look again. Sure, one cent might not buy you a lot but there’s something arguably more valuable embedded inside that price point. 

And that’s the point — or decimal point, to be precise — because with Australia’s greatest and most ubiquitous loyalty program, Qantas Frequent Flyer (QFF), points are everywhere. You can’t miss them, but you can miss out on them. You just have to know where to look. 

And that was the issue with QFF since its launch in 1987. Due to confusion over its iconic Q Points, Qantas needed a simple and memorable way to rebrand its famous loyalty program as a flexible, accessible and usable currency. 

STRATEGY

With a network of over 3,000 worldwide partners, exclusive privileges and the power to earn more points in more places, QFF — the cockpit of Customer Loyalty Recognition Programs — possessed the enviable cachet of ‘Australia’s Second Currency’. 

But it was somewhat untapped. So first, we had to ‘coin’ a new idiom: Qurrency. 

The portmanteau encapsulated the best of both worlds offered by the next-gen plastic — rolling prepaid MasterCard travel money into a smart chip-enabled QFF card that lets its members pre-load up to nine foreign currencies in virtual wallets and earn Q Points on eligible purchases in Australia, overseas and online.

SOLUTION

And so, Qantas Cash® was minted.

Involving everything from concept development, naming and branding to website copywriting, a smartphone app and SEO, our strategic insights ensured the new-look membership card now had the identity it deserved.

From its departure as Q Points and arrival at Qurrency, Qantas Cash® was developed for frequent flyers as a technology designed to enhanced the user experience whilst truly embodying the card for every journey.

EFFECTIVENESS

As of September 2016, Qantas Loyalty reported a record Underlying EBIT of $346 million — the eighth consecutive year of double-digit earnings growth. 

With five of those preceding standout years occurring since Qantas Cash launched in 2013, it’s fair to say the QFF rebrand played its part. In fact, with revenue up 6.7% to $1.45bn, 2015-16 marked the best full year profit result in the flying kangaroo’s lofty 95-year history.

After program enhancements like Qantas Cash, Qantas Loyalty also achieved record customer advocacy including 3.8% growth in QFF co-branded credit cards, a 44% revenue rise from diversified loyalty businesses, and an increase of 7.8% on redemptions between March 2012 and March 2013.

And with QFF members today numbering 11.4 million (a spike of 26.6% since 2013), the positive results vindicate Qantas’ Transformation program which, since its inception in 2014, has unlocked $1.66 billion in cost and revenue benefits and now see two-thirds of earnings come from loyalty and domestic business.

What’s more, the airline’s investment grade credit rating has recently been restored by Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investor Services…which sounds a lot like a resounding “ka-ching” for Qantas Cash.