Customer Loyalty Thought Leader Partners With Aimia

Aimia to sponsor, contribute to Loyalty Truth blog

MONTREAL, May 14, 2012 /CNW Telbec/ - Aimia, Inc. is pleased to announce its affiliation with Hanifin Loyalty LLC whereby Bill Hanifin, a recognized leader in loyalty marketing, payment systems, and technology, will serve as Consulting Practice Leader for Aimia.  Aimia also will sponsor and contribute to Loyalty Truth (www.loyaltytruth.com), a leading source of independent insight in loyalty marketing, customer strategy, and customer-centric marketing edited by Hanifin, who is also principal blogger.

"In this new era of mobile, wired, and socially-connected consumers, brands need to get 'ahead of the transaction' to be successful. Bill brings a wealth of experience to his role and will help Aimia lead the way in developing content, consulting tools, and innovative research that helps Aimia's clients build strong, profitable and sustainable relationships with the next generation of best customers," said Rick Ferguson, Aimia's Vice President of Knowledge Development.

In his role as Consulting Practice Leader for Aimia, Bill will provide support for Aimia clients around the globe. He will also contribute content, serve as a spokesperson and drive intellectual property development to Aimia to accelerate its growth as a global leader in loyalty management. He will be a key member of Aimia's Knowledge Development team.

"Loyalty Truth is dedicated to understanding how legacy customer loyalty models must evolve to meet the needs of today's digital consumer. Aimia's recent US and UK Millennial Surveys exemplify the course that Aimia is charting to redefine Loyalty Marketing for the next decade. This partnership reflects our joint vision to establish new standards helping global brands to understand how consumers make purchase decisions and to influence profitable consumer behaviors," said Hanifin.

Hanifin will continue to post and source posts from recognized thought leaders in the Loyalty Marketing industry, including Ferguson and Tom Rapsas. Rapsas is a tenured Creative Director in the direct and loyalty marketing industry and has been a contributor to Loyalty Truth over the past several years.

About Aimia  Aimia Inc. ("Aimia"), is a global leader in loyalty management. Aimia's unique capabilities include proven expertise in delivering proprietary loyalty services, launching and managing coalition loyalty programs, creating value through loyalty analytics and driving innovation in the emerging digital and mobile spaces. Aimia owns and operates Aeroplan, Canada's premier coalition loyalty program and Nectar, the United Kingdom's largest coalition loyalty program. In addition, Aimia has majority equity positions in Air Miles Middle East and Nectar Italia as well as a minority position in Club Premier, Mexico's leading coalition loyalty program and Cardlytics, a US-based private company operating in merchant-funded transaction-driven marketing for electronic banking.

Aimia is a Canadian public company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: AIM) and has over 3,400 employees in more than 20 countries around the world. For more information about Aimia, please visit www.aimia.com.

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/aimiainc.

About Hanifin Loyalty LLC Hanifin Loyalty is a US based marketing agency focused on delivering Customer Strategy and Business Intelligence solutions. Living at the intersection of data-driven marketing, payment products, and marketing technology, Hanifin Loyalty transforms thought leadership into practical marketing plans which can be successfully executed in market.

Bill Hanifin is the publisher of the Loyalty Truth blog, a founding Member of the Customer Strategy Network, serves as North American Contributing Editor for The Wise Marketer, and is a member of the Retail Wire Brain Trust. He also serves as Advisory Board member of Badgeville, a global leader in Gamification and Zavee.com, a social shopping network.

SOURCE AIMIA

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