Customer Loyalty Marketing in 2026: Give Your Biggest Fans a Dedicated Space

Customer loyalty marketing is the practice of building dedicated experiences, spaces, or content specifically for a brand's most engaged customers, rather than applying the same generic rewards structure to everyone. In 2026, the brands getting the most out of loyalty are the ones treating their biggest fans as a distinct audience, not another line item in a points program.

A few major retailers made a similar move this year, and it points to a shift worth paying attention to. Foot Locker and Nike opened a store in Los Angeles co-designed with local community leaders, built around a neighborhood rather than a product line. A European retailer opened what it calls the first dedicated store for women's football, treating the sport as its own market instead of a section inside a bigger one. Adidas launched pet apparel branded for individual football clubs, extending fandom to something owners hadn't been able to buy before.

None of these are new products so much as new spaces. Each brand looked at a specific group already inside its customer base and gave that group something built just for them, rather than folding everyone into the same generic loyalty program.

That idea travels well outside retail.

What This Looks Like for Restaurants and Hospitality

Most loyalty programs treat every regular the same way: same point system, same generic reward. A restaurant or hotel sitting on a genuinely loyal customer base has room to do more. A dedicated evening or series built around the guests who show up weekly, rather than a blanket punch card, turns a loyalty program into something that feels like it was actually built for the people using it. The Adidas example above is really an extension play: identify a segment already engaged, then build something specific for them rather than pushing them toward the same offer as everyone else.

What This Looks Like for Property Management

Apartment communities are full of built-in fan groups that rarely get treated like one. Pet owners, remote workers, young professionals, families with school-age kids: each is already a defined segment with its own habits and needs, similar to how Foot Locker and Nike built a store around a specific neighborhood's actual use cases (a gym, a resource center, creative workspace) instead of a generic retail floor. A resident event series, an amenity space, or a communication track built around one of those groups does more for retention than a newsletter that speaks to everyone in the same voice.

What This Looks Like for Coaching

A coaching business often serves one broad audience with content that has to work for all of them at once. The Foudys example is instructive here: rather than treating women's football as a subcategory of football, the retailer gave it its own identity entirely. A coach with a large enough audience can do the same with a niche inside their client base, a specific program track, community, or format built for one segment rather than stretched to fit everyone.

Customer Loyalty Marketing: The Common Thread

The retailers behind this shift are not just adding new products. They are asking who their most engaged customers already are, and building something that treats that group as worth a dedicated effort rather than another line in a general rewards program. That is a strategy question as much as a creative one, and it is exactly what Two17 Marketing's team works through with clients when a loyalty program or content strategy has started to feel like it is speaking to no one in particular.

Inspired by an innovation spotted on TrendWatching.com.

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FAQs

What is "fandom unbundling" in marketing?

It describes brands building dedicated offers, spaces, or content for a specific, already-engaged customer segment instead of a single generic loyalty program meant to cover everyone.

Does this only work for retail brands?

No. The underlying idea, identifying an engaged customer segment and building something specific for it, applies to restaurants, hospitality, coaching, and property management just as well as it does to product retail.

How is this different from a standard loyalty program?

A standard loyalty program usually applies the same reward structure to every customer. This approach starts by identifying a specific group within the customer base and building an experience, space, or content track around what that group actually wants.

Where should a business start if it wants to try this?

By identifying which customer segment is already the most engaged, whether that's frequent diners, long-term residents, or a niche inside a client base, and asking what a dedicated (not just discounted) experience would look like for that group specifically.