Loblaw makes Apple media a PC Optimum perk

Loblaw Cos. is dangling one of the biggest names in digital media—Apple—as part of the benefits of its PC Optimum customer loyalty program.

Canada’s largest food and drug retailer said Thursday that PC Optimum members can now redeem PC Optimum points for monthly subscriptions to Apple TV and Apple Arcade. They also have access to an extended three-month free trial of Apple TV , Apple Music, Apple Fitness , Apple Arcade and Apple News through the PC Optimum app and online at pcoptimum.ca.

Members can unlock one month of Apple TV by redeeming 10,000 PC Optimum points and one month of Apple Arcade by redeeming 6,500 PC Optimum points, according to Loblaw.

With nearly 16 million active members, PC Optimum is one of Canada’s largest and most-trusted loyalty programs. Members receive personalized offers weekly on the products they buy most and can earn points in stores via on-shelf promotions. Last year, PC Optimum members earned more than $1 billion worth of points, Brampton, Ontario-based Loblaw reported.

“We’re always looking for ways to make life more rewarding for our members,” Ryan Markle, senior vice president of loyalty at Loblaw Cos., said in a statement. “PC Optimum already provides rewards on things Canadians need most—food, clothes, health, beauty and gas. Now we’re expanding benefits into entertainment by providing our members access to an extended three-month free trial of Apple services and the ability to redeem PC Optimum points on Apple TV and Apple Arcade.”

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Overall, Loblaw’s retail network encompasses 2,442 stores—including 561 corporate-owned supermarkets under multiple banners, 543 franchised grocery stores and 1,338 Shoppers Drug Mart/Pharmaprix associate-owned drugstores—and generates some 2 billion transactions annually with its food, pharmacy, beauty, apparel and financial services offerings.

Loyalty program competition has heated up among Canada’s “big three” grocers. In late March, Sobeys Inc. parent Empire Company Ltd. said it completed the coast-to-coast launch of the Scene lifestyle loyalty program across Canada, wrapping up its transition from the popular Air Miles program begun last summer. And in late May, Metro Inc. announced a bigger rollout of Moi rewards program, to nearly 900 stores under the Metro, Super C, Brunet and Première Moisson banners in Quebec and all Jean Coutu drug stores in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick.

In a conference call on Loblaw’s fiscal 2023 second-quarter results, Chairman and President Galen Weston cited PC Optimum as a traffic and purchase driver. The program enables Loblaw to target personalized offers and rewards to shoppers.

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“More Canadians are turning to PC Optimum points to fill their carts, with redemption rates climbing,” Weston told analysts in the call (transcript provided by AlphaSense). “We were delighted to see a recent survey that said Canadians are paying more attention to loyalty programs and that PC Optimum is by far their favorite, used an incredible nine out of 10 times.”