DunnHumby's role in launch of Clubcard 'exaggerated'

Former Tesco Clubcard chief Grant Harrison has set the record straight over DunnHumby’s role in the design and launch of the Clubcard loyalty scheme, insisting that media coverage in the run-up to the programme’s 30^th anniversary has “made me spit up my tea”.

Back in 1993, Harrison led the team which investigated the potential of loyalty cards – after being briefed by then head of marketing Sir Terry Leahy – researching programmes across the world and coming up with the proposal.

He then hired Evans Hunt Scott (now Havas CX Helia) and DunnHumby to work on the scheme, which was eventually rolled out in 1995, following trials.

However, in a post on LinkedIn, Harrison – who now runs his own consultancy – has finally taken issue with what he calls “a bunch of fake reporting about Tesco Clubcard over the last 30 years”, adding “I wasn’t going to say anything, but f*** it, I’m just sick of, shall we say, ‘exaggerations’.”

He explained: “No, DunnHumby did not design Clubcard. But they did a great job of data analysis. I brought them in to help us when they were a team of about 16 people – most especially because I got on so well with Simon Hay – who marshalled his team to deliver for us.

“They did some good work in the first 6 months around customer recency, frequency and value analysis which segmented people into groups like couples, families, weekly large shoppers – giving us at Tesco a better understanding of our customer base.”

Harrison goes on to explain how Clubcard was designed by a very small team – himself and a few others from marketing and only (Tesco’s) Reza Samsudeen for the trial – and a very solid team in IT.

However, when it came to external help there were a number of suppliers, including ID Data, which made the personalised Clubcards for the trial period; BPC, which transformed its printing business to deliver personalised mailings and coupons; and Siemens Nixdorf, which worked with Tesco’s IT team to ensure the card scanning worked.

Harrison continued: “EHS did superb direct communications and Lowe Howard-Spink did super TV ads. The list goes on – I’d love to hear from people I worked with from back then and have not mentioned here (due to faulty memory!).”

And when it came to the design of the scheme Harrison explained: “It came from a Tesco board who wanted to push competitive boundaries and from Terry Leahy who fixated on customer-driven change.

“It culminated in a memo to me from the then marketing director David Robey, through Fiona Mason. It came from Green Shield Stamps decades before and it came from me visiting supermarket retailers in the US and Sweden to see what you could do with a customer database linked to a loyalty programme.

“To explain this simply, Tesco Clubcard was a natural extension of core Tesco DNA. Built with an aggressive Tesco team and fantastic suppliers across UK operational and creative industries.

“But you need to understand this: it was successful because of Tesco’s DNA – Clubcard was true retail – very detailed, very focused on rewarding shoppers and their families. In the end, you could say that it ended up bringing UK’s families’ DNA into the minds of all Tesco staff so that Tesco could deliver better for them.”

In response to the post, former EHS chief Jon Ingall, who worked on the Clubcard account before co-founding Archibald Ingall Stretton, said: “Well said Grant. I’m also rather sick of reading how Edwina Dunn single handedly invented Clubcard. From my memory I don’t even recall her being particularly involved but why let the facts get in the way of a good story.”