In some ways Australian surfwear brand Rip Curl’s loyalty program is typical. For every dollar they spend, for example, members of Club Rip Curl earn 100 points toward future purchases.

But here’s how this loyalty program, as its participants might put it, is totally rad: Participants also earn points when they go surfing, collecting 200 points for every wave they catch, provided they’re wearing a Rip Curl Search GPS Watch, which logs waves ridden.

“We’re so excited about being able to reward customers for what they love doing best—getting out and enjoying the waves,” Michael Scott, chief customer officer at Rip Curl, said in a case study of the loyalty program.

Zsuzsa Kecsmar, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Antavo Loyalty Cloud, the London-based loyalty platform that partnered with Rip Curl on a new loyalty program in 2022, told Retail Brew that she’s advocating for brands to expand beyond “old school, more transactional loyalty” (which Antavo also calls “rational loyalty”), namely giving points only for purchases.

Rather, brands should also reward for what Kecsmar calls “emotional loyalty,” which encompasses other more familiar non-transactional actions for which brands are providing loyalty points, including referring friends, watching sponsored videos, and writing product reviews.

Keep reading here.—AAN

As customers purchase “all the trimmings” this Thanksgiving, there’s one ingredient they’ll be looking to cut out: inflation. Walmart and Aldi both announced this week that they will be offering lower and even “pre-inflation” prices on their Thanksgiving offerings.

Aldi is promising an “inflation-busting holiday meal” for 10 people at less than $47. The discount grocery chain cited research that prices across the industry are up 50% from 2019, and committed to coming in below that pre-inflation benchmark.

Walmart, meanwhile, promoted an “inflation-free” holiday meal from now through December 24. The retail giant touted that its Thanksgiving meal serves eight people at $7 per person, and features 29 items, including a whole frozen turkey, Hawaiian rolls, gravy mix, and multiple canned vegetables.

Keep reading here.—AV

This will be the winter of AI.

There seems to be an avalanche of artificial intelligence (AI) news these days. From retail and tech giants Walmart and Meta, to search giant Google.

“We’re introducing a transformed Google Shopping—rebuilt from the ground up with AI,” wrote Sean Scott, VP and GM Consumer Shopping, in a company blog post October 15.

Scott said Google has paired its Shopping Graph, which has 45 billion product listings, according to Google, with the company’s AI models to “transform” the online shopping experience with a new, personalized shopping page rolling out in the US over the coming weeks.

Plus, Scott said it is using AI to speed up and simplify shoppers’ search for items and show them more relevant products.

Keep reading here.—VC