On my way back from the Cannes Advertising Festival a few weeks ago a couple of work buddies and I decided to take a break and take advantage of our European travel to stop in London for a day at Wimbledon. I’m not a giant tennis fan, but I love any opportunity to experience a remarkable event. So it was a no-brainer to cross the channel and splurge on a day at Court 1 in this historic facility. But my “Marketing with Meaning” hat never comes off, dear readers. While enjoying the matches and sipping my new favorite summer drink, Pimm’s, I noticed something that sparked this blog post…

In the program for the event I noticed a full-page ad for HSBC—captured by my iPhone in the photo above. As you can see, HSBC offered free strawberries and cream for its cardholders at the matches. It struck me as a terrific example of Marketing with Meaning, and perhaps a new trend that other brands are picking up on.

Another great example of a brand that is providing added value for its loyal customers is Lexus. I recently had a chance to prepare a presentation for a group of Lexus dealers, and through the process of researching their work discovered how many of these independent businesses are similarly doing special things for their owners. For example, in several major cities around the U.S. local Lexus dealers have arranged for free, private parking for its car owners. You can find this benefit at the BankAtlantic Center in Tampa, at the Texas Rangers ballpark and AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas, and at the U.S. Open tennis championship.

All too often in banking, automotive, or other businesses, current customers get little care and feeding once the bank account is open or the car drives off the lot. In these and many other industries (e.g., phone service, credit cards, cable TV) a vast majority of marketing dollars are put against acquiring new customers. Marketing managers become completely focused on cost-per-acquisition and churn rate, but rarely think about how the easiest sell is the one they’ve already made.

There is tremendous opportunity for brands to win by moving more of their marketing budgets to the benefit of current, loyal customers. Broadly speaking, there are two main benefits of this approach. First, there is almost always an opportunity to sell more products and services to those who are already buying from you. Car makers can convince you to put another one of their vehicles in the garage or upgrade to a new model faster. Banks have an opportunity to cross-sell countless other financial services.

But the second, often-ignored benefit of marketing to your current customers is that it can be a way to impress and win over new prospects. This ad for HSBC naturally advises current cardholders of a special treat, but in doing so it also shows all non-HSBC customers how well this bank treats its own. Similarly, Lexus understands that free, premium parking means that friends will want to ride in the Lexus owner’s car and thus get a free sample of the riding and service experience. And in both examples, the brand has chosen special, high-end events where the prized, highest-income customers attend.

How might you use marketing dollars to benefit your best customers while attracting prized prospects to your side? Or if you are already providing valuable services to current customers, how might you better show prospects what they are missing?

One of most exciting things about the DHI Non-conference last week here in Cincinnati was a session by The Kroger Company, one of our clients at Bridge Worldwide. Through its various banner stores, Kroger is a major player in the retail food business, capturing 10 cents of every dollar spent on food in the United States. The company is not secretive, but it doesn’t go around regularly beating its chest about how it is winning in a very competitive market. In a session titled “Innovation and How to Meet New Expectations for Media Delivery,” RW (Kirk) Douthit and Angie Rose from Kroger shared several nuggets about how they are working to evolve to digital marketing by putting their customers in the center.

The main focus of the discussion revolved around Kroger’s work with its database marketing partner, dunnhumby, to provide personalized messages and offers to its loyalty cardholders. The company has the second-largest database in the U.S., after the Census Bureau. Kirk kicked off the discussion by reframing how Kroger thinks about the loyalty program:

“It’s not about customers’ loyalty to us; it’s about Kroger’s loyalty to its customers.”

This message permeated everything in the company’s session. Kirk and Angie spoke about the company’s use of quarterly coupon magazines (such as the one pictured above) that are personalized for its top shoppers based on their purchase habits. This helps the company drive sales of new products and larger baskets sizes from the 20% of customers who drive up to 60% of total sales.

The Kroger team spoke about how it is gradually embracing digital tools where it makes sense for its customers. They admitted that progress is slower than some customers want, but that it takes time to get things right. And while some shoppers are ready for innovations such as mobile coupons and online circulars, the company still has to provide mailed offers for the many who are not living in the digital future yet.

One of the really interesting digital services that Kroger is planning to release soon is the chance to pull up your Kroger shopping history. It’s a way of giving people a digital receipt and something unheard of in the industry to date. This could help people, say, track their spending on pharmaceuticals over the course of the year so that they can be properly charged back against flexible healthcare spending accounts. It’s a great example of how customers can see additional benefit from using their Kroger loyalty cards.

Finally, I also appreciated the Kroger team’s willingness to share how the decline of traditional media is happening faster than digital is ramping up. For example, a staple marketing tool for decades has been the daily newspaper. When sales needed a boost, Kroger has frequently used newspaper ads to drive traffic to stores on specials. But the decline of newspaper subscriptions is seriously weakening the impact of these ads, and there is no digital solution with the same scale impact. It’s another example Bob Garfield’s The Chaos Scenario come to life.

The entire audience really enjoyed Kirk and Angie’s open and honest communication about the opportunities and challenges in digital marketing. By better understanding their world, those of us who serve them can do much more to help Kroger crack the code.

I have spent a lot of time with Delta Airlines lately. Most people would consider that a bad thing. I’ve been on the road quite a bit this year, and already hit the Gold Medallion level of 50,000 miles with just barely half of the year gone by. Flying has become more expensive and more troublesome over the years. But the more I travel lately, the more I’ve been surprised and delighted by Delta and the meaningful services it is bringing to me along the way.

My most recent positive experiences came this week after a trip to NYC. First, I was supposed to fly up Sunday night for a Monday meeting. On the way to the airport, I got a cell phone call from Delta notifying me that my flight had been canceled. The automated voice went on to say I was automatically booked on a flight the following morning, and I received a follow-up email with the information. This is a great service, and a real difference from how the airline world worked just a few months ago. At Delta.com, you can specify how you want to be alerted to changes in flights. It’s great, meaningful marketing – but also something we have come to expect. After all, when a service like Facebook can alert me by SMS when a friend uploads a new photo, I expect Delta to alert me on something as important as a flight change.

My flight the next morning was fine, but somewhat uncomfortable since I was stuck in a middle seat because of the flight cancellation. The next day, however, I received the message above in my email inbox.  As you can see, it is a very personalized note titled “A Cure for a Case of the Mondays,” which goes on to apologize that a Gold Medallion member like me had to be wedged into the middle seat. The note goes on to credit me with 500 Skymiles for my discomfort.

I really can’t remember the last time a loyalty program was so aware of my situation and eager to keep me happy. I am so used to expecting so little – especially from airlines that have a monopoly-like lock on my travel – that this automated effort made my day.

Delta seems to be making some impressive strides toward meaningful marketing in recent months. Aside from my experiences, Joseph Jaffe has a great post about how Delta is connecting with people through a very active Twitter account. Delta has a fairly active blog up that takes readers “under the wing” to “share stories on ideas, changes and our people.” The blog even links to competitors like Southwest in its blogroll. Heck, even Delta’s flight safety videos are drawing attention.

I’m not sure why it took so long for Delta to better utilize its Skymiles loyalty program, or to put a personal face on its brand through social media. Maybe it’s the rising cost of oil and the fact that Delta increasingly has to fight for flyers. It could also be improved software, and even better management.

Whatever the reason, Delta is working some magic on this frequent flyer. I feel like Delta values my business and is on my side as I fly around the world trying to make a living. When I have a choice, it will be Delta all the way, as I feel like the more I fly with the brand, the more it will repay me with great service and other rewards. Meanwhile, I tend to give Delta more benefit of the doubt when it cancels my flight or moves to merge with Northwest. And in this specific flight above, Delta’s great service leads to this positive blog post on a site that is getting as many as 100 visitors per day (thanks, dear readers!). That drives further positive word-of-mouth and stronger search rankings.

And in this specific case of the “middle seat,” all it really took was for someone to write a new rule into the existing loyalty marketing database that Delta has had for decades. All it took was someone to notice and care – which is all we really want as human beings.