Lowes Foods Signs Agreement with Alliance Data for Promotional Campaign in 75 Stores

Lowes Foods, a U.S. regional supermarket chain owned by privately-held Alex Lee, has signed an agreement with Alliance Data Systems Corporation's LoyaltyOne European-based BrandLoyalty business.   

Alex Lee, based in Hickory, N.C., is a diversified holding company with two primary food distribution and retail operating companies servicing North and South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Lowes Foods has nearly 100 stores.

BrandLoyalty specializes in transactional and emotional loyalty, creating immediate changes in consumer behavior through promotional campaign-driven loyalty programs. Focusing on shorter-term promotional loyalty programs (12-20 week periods), BrandLoyalty generates real-time customer engagement in both traditional and digital channels, say company officials. By analyzing market spending trends, tailored offers are created for clients by identifying local consumer patterns against the retailer's data to identify specific target segments within the customer base. This approach enables BrandLoyalty to customize promotional programs to engage key client customer segments and drive marketing return on investment.

As part of this agreement, BrandLoyalty will manage a promotional campaign in 75 Lowes Foods stores in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. For every $10 spent at Lowes Foods stores, customers will receive one stamp (traditional or virtual) at checkout, good toward VIVO kitchen knives, knife blocks and cutting boards. The Lowes Foods promotion runs until Feb. 26, 2017. 

"BrandLoyalty's continued expansion of its global footprint, from Europe and Asia, and now to Africa and the Americas, reinforces its position as a loyalty marketing industry innovator and solution provider to the high-frequency grocery sector," says Bryan Pearson, president of LoyaltyOne. "This agreement with Lowes Foods builds on BrandLoyalty's foothold in Canada with programs at leading grocery banners including Sobeys, Metro and IGA, its successful pilot with a U.S. regional grocer earlier this year, and represents a significant step forward toward establishing a more expansive presence throughout North America."

"As BrandLoyalty continues to identify and penetrate high-potential markets such as the United States, strategic decisions like our recent appointment of Jill Blanchard as president, BrandLoyalty USA, will strengthen our approach in the highly competitive grocery sector," says Philip Spanton, chief executive officer of BrandLoyalty. "This agreement with Lowes Foods, and an aggressive business development strategy focused on delivering measurable results for grocers throughout the United States, should further contribute to our overall growth strategy targets."

Formerly president and chief executive officer of Spar Group, Jill Blanchard brings years of retail knowledge and insight to BrandLoyalty and more than a decade of market-sector experience from working in senior roles at global information and measurement company Nielsen.