Marketing UnLearned

In this episode of Marketing Un:Learned, Ian Jindal talks with Richard Potter, Director of Digital Strategy at Microsoft, and Mrinalini Chowdhary, Director of Strategy and Insights at Epsilon, about unlearning the outdated transactional view of loyalty programmes and rebuilding them around emotional engagement, permissioned data, and AI-driven personalization.

From psychological drivers to agentic commerce, Richard and Mrinalini explore how gamification creates engagement loops and habits beyond the checkout, why loyalty is the permission system that unlocks responsible AI, and what empathy, measurement, and focus mean for leaders redesigning loyalty in 2026.

Mrinalini introduces her journey from banking through startups into loyalty strategy at Epsilon, bringing 15 years of experience in strategy consulting, marketing, and product management. Richard outlines his hybrid role as engineer and business strategist, translating technology shifts into boardroom value for retail and consumer goods clients at Microsoft.

Richard explains that his "digital" title reflects the customer challenge: helping organisations understand what digital means in their operations. The real interest lies at the intersection of ones and zeros with human dynamics - whether in employees or consumers - and how digital experiences mobilise emotional responses while being rationally interpreted by systems.

Mrinalini reframes loyalty as shifting from purely transactional mechanics (sign up, purchase, get points) to emotional engagement. Modern loyalty must be dynamic and adaptive, creating engagement loops through sequential actions that build habits and keep consumers thinking about the brand between purchases, not just at checkout.

Mrinalini unpacks the core psychological drivers that differentiate effective gamified loyalty:

These drivers are individualised - what motivates one consumer differs from another.

Ian references Tesco Media’s co-branded mechanic with Florian Clemens: instead of blanket discounts, customers choose 10 products they haven’t bought recently for a “game card,” then earn rewards by organically purchasing them over several weeks. The customer isn’t bribed - they’re playing, and brands fund the prize pool. This exemplifies the shift from passive loyalty pages to dynamic, habit-forming engagement.

Richard frames loyalty as an inherently irrational, emotional human contract, but one that technology must solve rationally. Algorithms optimise contract dynamics on both sides of the exchange, but trust is fragile. The step-change with foundational models and machine learning is exponential horsepower: marketers can introduce new mechanics, test, fail, and iterate faster and cheaper than ever before. Experimentation is both accelerating and becoming more economical.

Ian raises the strategic challenge: consumers now wield agentic AI that can cut through emotional loyalty and gamification to demand “best deal now.” The retailer’s advantage - massive data, sophisticated algorithms - is now matched by AI in the customer’s hands. Richard acknowledges the compression and hiding of the traditional contact period (website navigation, search indexing, abandoned baskets). Boardrooms are asking how to redeploy capital previously locked in telemetry, armies of analysts, and A/B testing.

But AI is both challenge and solution: rational engines can anticipate agentic commerce and help enlightened boards reorient resources. The key is robust, permissioned data.

Mrinalini describes gamified loyalty as linking campaigns in a cumulative string, tapping into “micro moments” that feel achievable and generate permission-based data. This data becomes a powerhouse fuelling all marketing channels - ROI extends far beyond incremental loyalty revenue into areas impossible to quantify.

Richard underscores this point: loyalty is the permission system for deploying AI responsibly. The virtuous contract transacting explicit value between brand, retailer, and consumer is the foundation for everything organisations want to do with data. Without robust, trust-based permission, AI ambitions collapse.

Ian asks for the top three attributes of tomorrow’s loyalty marketing director.

1. Growth mindset  -  You are at the frontier, redefining this work for humanity (privilege, not terror)

2. Consumer intimacy  -  Never forget it’s all about your consumer; deep knowledge remains relevant

3. Data mastery  -  Don’t obsess over which foundational model; your competitive advantage is connecting your data to all that horsepower

1. Empathy  -  Understand what the customer wants, not just what the client wants (“What am I going to get?” vs “What is the customer going to get?”)

2. Financial & cross-functional knowledge  -  The loyalty director manages a mini-division: marketing, finance, UX, growth strategy

3. Growth mindset (echoing Richard)  -  Essential to tap into everything

Ian asks for a single piece of counsel.

Richard: Measure everything. Infuse telemetry into everything because you are inventing all the time. Measure, learn, iterate.

Mrinalini: Pinpoint your outcome. Identify the one KPI you want to hit - not “increase this, that, and all KPIs.” Every action, change, and iteration must be laser-focused on that single objective.

Richard Potter is Director of Digital Strategy at Microsoft, where he has spent eight and a half years translating technology shifts into boardroom value for retail and consumer goods clients. With a background in engineering, management consulting, and systems integration, Richard bridges business strategy and technology, focusing on consumer intimacy, AI deployment, and the intersection of digital experiences with human emotion.

Mrinalini Chowdhary is Director of Strategy and Insights at Epsilon, bringing nearly 15 years of experience in strategy consulting, marketing, and product management. After starting in banking and pivoting through a series of startups, Mrinalini found her passion in loyalty and CRM programmes, applying her psychology degree to design engagement loops, gamification mechanics, and customer experience enhancements that balance rational systems with emotional drivers.

Microsoft  -  https://www.microsoft.com

Epsilon  -  https://www.epsilon.com

Microsoft PlayFab (gamification platform)  -  https://playfab.com