Is it better to be loyal or disloyal?

We’ve all heard of the big coffee chains such as Starbucks and Costa Coffee and with their growth over recent years it’s become more and more difficult for the smaller independent coffee shops to compete.

Over in Singapore though a novel approach to competing with these “coffee shop big boys” has just been introduced.

Lots of businesses have a “loyalty card” programme whereby people earn various points each time they spend money with a company. They can then use these points to buy various items with the company.

The giant Tesco supermarket chain for example has one of the largest loyalty card schemes in the UK whereby “Tesco points” can be used to purchase Tesco products. Most international airlines also have loyalty programmes such as Sky team and Star Alliance where the points earned can be exchanged for free flights.

Antic Studios, a creative agency in Singapore has just come up with a new concept and it’s a “disloyalty card”.

The aim is to help a group of 8 smaller independent coffee shops in Singapore develop.

The idea is that an individual picks up a disloyalty card at one of the independent coffee shops. If they then visit the other 7 independent shops they get their card stamped and can then return to the original coffee shop to claim their free drink.

It’s a novel way of smaller companies who are in effect in competition with each other joining together to create awareness of themselves and encouraging people to try them out instead of staying with the big guys.

Smaller competitors working together to create stronger competition against the big coffee chains – a nice idea and well worth discussing over a cup of coffee.