To start, can you please tell us a bit about your professional journey and what led you to your current role as CEO of Eagle Eye?
I’ve had over 30 years’ leadership experience in the grocery and retail industries, with a strong background in strategic marketing and customer loyalty. I was the deputy CEO of Tesco from 2010 to 2012 and held a number of senior roles in the Tesco Group including CMO from 1995 – 2006. In this role, I was responsible for the launch of Clubcard and Tesco.com, which was a very early pioneer of loyalty and something I’m still deeply passionate about today. This 30-year journey at Tesco led me to join Eagle Eye, a SaaS company focused on delivering omnichannel personalisation at scale for the world’s leading retailers. I recognised the opportunity for technology the business had built to change the way marketers could treat their customers in a way that they wanted to be treated. Continuing the conversation of delivering personalisation at scale, Sarah Jarvis, communications and propositions director at Eagle Eye and I co-authored the 2nd edition of Omnichannel Retail: How to Build Winning Stores in a Digital World, which was published in September 2023.
Eagle Eye’s new partnership with Ecrebo is set to enhance personalised marketing at the point of sale. What makes this collaboration such a strategic fit for Eagle Eye and your retail partners?
We are thrilled to partner with Ecrebo to deliver targeted point of sale marketing at the till. This new partnership combines both companies’ capabilities to power personalised and real-time ‘smart messaging’ for enterprise retailers around the world. We both share several leading retail customers including Morrisons, Waitrose, Loblaws and SoutheasternGrocers, making this partnership a strategic fit for all parties.
What are some of the biggest challenges retailers face today when it comes to customer engagement at checkout, and how does this joint solution help overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges retailers face today when it comes to customer engagement at checkout is that they are unable to execute “marketing in the now”, capitalising on the incredibly valuable and critical post-purchase moment. Through this partnership, Eagle Eye and Ecrebo are solving this challenge supercharging retail marketing at checkout by providing the capability for retailers to switch on the ability to personalise that moment in real time; whether that be to thank the customer for shopping, to drive the next visit or to share come.
At-the-till marketing is a proven method of increasing customer engagement and delivering effective promotions. By joining Ecrebo’s POS marketing technology with our AIR platform’s advanced real-time personalisation capabilities, we can drive exceptional value for our retail partners around the world.
From your perspective, how does “smart messaging” at the point of sale shift the dynamics of omnichannel marketing?
Customer expectations have shifted dramatically since the early days of loyalty programs, with three big changes really standing out:
First, today’s customers expect real-time responses. We live in a 24/7, ‘always-on’ world, and businesses have to keep pace. When we launched Clubcard, we had 13 weeks between statement mailings to turn data into insight and action. Now, that window has collapsed to just seconds. If a customer takes an action – adds something to their basket, checks their app, walks into a store – they expect the brand to recognise and respond in the moment.
Second, personalisation is no longer a differentiator, it’s actually a baseline expectation. Segmentation and broad-brush marketing don’t cut it anymore. Customers want communications, offers and rewards that are truly tailored to them, and they’ll quickly move on if they don’t get them.
And third, omnichannel is now simply how the world works. When we launched Clubcard, the store was the only customer touchpoint. Today, the same customer might shop in-store, on Tesco.com, via the app, or through third-party partners – and they expect a seamless, consistent experience across all of them. Businesses need to present a united front, wherever and however the customer chooses to engage.
Smart Messaging is a response to all three of these customer needs, enabling seamless, personalised and real-time experiences at scale, at exactly the moment it matters most.
With loyalty playing a growing role in retail strategies, how do you see this integration influencing program adoption and engagement?
The Eagle Eye x Ecrebo partnership unlocks a host of compelling use cases. This includes incentivising loyalty program sign-ups and app downloads, issuing personalised product or category recommendations, increasing engagement within loyalty programs and developing a new revenue stream by enabling suppliers and third party partners to deploy marketing campaigns via the receipt.
The partnership also opens new retail media opportunities. How significant is this as a revenue stream for retailers moving forward?
Our partnership opens up a powerful new chapter for retail media. By combining Ecrebo’s in-store and receipt-based targeting capabilities with Eagle Eye’s digital personalisation and loyalty infrastructure, retailers can now create a truly unified retail media offering — one that spans physical and digital channels.
This is hugely significant. Retail media is no longer just an incremental opportunity; it’s becoming a core, high-margin revenue stream for modern retailers. What makes it so compelling is the ability to activate first-party data in a way that delivers value for the shopper, the brand and the retailer.
With our combined capabilities, we’re helping retailers monetise every touchpoint, from the checkout to the app, with intelligent, relevant offers that enhance the customer experience. That’s the sweet spot and it’s where we see retail media heading next.
Looking beyond the tech, how do you personally approach driving innovation and strategic partnerships at Eagle Eye?
At Eagle Eye, we live by the “golden rule”: treat others the way you wish to be treated. It sits at the heart of everything we do – from how we treat our internal teams and our customers, to how we build new solutions and form strategic partnerships to drive innovation.
When looking for complementary technologies that enhance the overall value we provide to our retail customers, we continue to follow the Golden Rule. What innovation can we deliver to reduce time to value and help our retail partners treat their customers the way they wish to be treated?Which is exactly what our partnership with Ecrebo delivers.
What advice would you give to retail leaders who are looking to future-proof their customer engagement and loyalty strategies?
Future-proofing loyalty starts with recognising that today’s customers are not only more informed, they’re more empowered. They expect value, relevance, and respect for their time and attention. To meet those expectations, businesses need to act on three key fronts:
First, invest in the right foundations. Loyalty can’t be an afterthought or a siloed initiative. It needs to be weaved into the fabric of the business, backed by the CEO, and supported by connected data, technology and teams. That includes investing in real-time, API-based platforms capable of delivering personalisation at scale across every channel.
Secondly, put the customer at the centre. The best loyalty strategies are designed around customers’ lives, not internal structures. That means using data to understand customers deeply and act with relevance. The goal should be true to create a real value exchange with your customers, not just another “earn and burn” proposition.
Lastly, make the digital ecosystem an enabler of the physical experience. The phone should be an integral part of the in-store journey, from finding products to unlocking personalised offers to earning rewards instantly. When the digital and physical work together seamlessly, loyalty can really become a living, breathing part of the customer experience.
In short, future-proofing loyalty means building for flexibility, powered by real-time data, driven by AI, and guided by what customers genuinely care about.
Finally, any closing thoughts on what this partnership signals for the future of retail marketing and the evolution of customer interaction at checkout?
What excites me most about the future of marketing is how personalisation is evolving, both in sophistication and scope. Today, personalisation is still largely focused on promotions and rewards. But we’re on the cusp of it extending into so many more facets of the customer experience. Think personalised guidance around health and nutrition, style and fashion advice, sustainability preferences – even personalised ways to save time or reduce waste. That’s the direction we’re heading.
It’s a huge opportunity for retailers to go beyond transactional loyalty and truly become partners in their customers’ lives. When done right, loyalty becomes less about “points for purchase” and more about knowing the customer, helping them, and adding value in meaningful, personalised ways. That’s what builds long-term emotional loyalty.
And that’s why I’m so energised by what’s next with Smart Checkout absolutely being a part of this. Personalisation at this level puts the retailer firmly on the side of the customer – where all great customer experiences begin.
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Tim Mason, Chief Executive Officer at Eagle Eye
Tim Mason is CEO of Eagle Eye Solutions Group Plc. He has over 30 years’ experience within the grocery and retail industries. Previously, Tim was Deputy CEO at Tesco from January 2010 to December 2012. He held a number of other roles within the Tesco Group between 1982 and 2012 including CMO for Tesco and CEO of Fresh & Easy LLC.
About Eagle Eye
Eagle Eye is a leading SaaS and AI technology company enabling retail, travel and hospitality brands to earn the loyalty of their end customers by powering their real-time, omnichannel and personalised consumer marketing activities, at scale.
Eagle Eye AIR is a cloud-based platform, which provides the most flexible and scalable loyalty and promotions capability in the world. More than 850 million personalised offers are executed via the platform every week, and it currently hosts over 500 million loyalty member wallets for businesses all over the world. Eagle Eye is a certified member of the MACH Alliance and is trusted to deliver a secure service at hundreds of thousands of physical POS destinations worldwide, enabling the real-time issuance and redemption of promotional coupons, loyalty offers, gift cards, subscription benefits and more.
The Eagle Eye AIR platform is currently powering loyalty and customer engagement solutions for enterprise businesses all over the world, including Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Waitrose and John Lewis & Partners, JD Sports, Pret a Manger, Loblaws, Southeastern Grocers, Giant Eagle, and the Woolworths Group. In January 2024, Eagle Eye launched EagleAI, a next-generation data science solution for personalisation, already being used by leading retailers worldwide including Carrefour, Auchan and Pattison Food Group. Web – www.eagleeye.com
