Ideas for leaders building growth across markets, partnerships and experiences.

Perspectives on the commercial questions that sit between a differentiated proposition and a scalable business, from partnership economics and international growth to loyalty, embedded travel and Experience Capital™.

The aim is not to repeat received wisdom. It is to make familiar problems more useful by describing what is really happening underneath them.

Victoria Wickens Victoria Wickens

Travel and the retail media revolution

Retail media is booming, but some brands are maxing out their owned and operated assets, and ad fatigue is setting in. Travel is the next high-margin vertical to plug in. Discover how embedded travel can enhance your media revenues, drive conversion, and offer better brand alignment than traditional digital ads.

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Victoria Wickens Victoria Wickens

Travel rewards are the loyalty currency that matters

Explore how loyalty programmes across Europe are evolving in 2025. With travel preferences changing and traditional points schemes under pressure, discover how embedding travel can revitalise engagement and boost long-term loyalty.

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Victoria Wickens Victoria Wickens

Travel-as-a-Service: Why It Matters Now

Travel-as-a-Service is reshaping how businesses outside the travel space engage and monetise.

📌 Embed travel in your platform without building a travel company.
📌 Give customers or members experiences—not just discounts.
📌 Unlock new revenue, loyalty, and relevance.

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Victoria Wickens Victoria Wickens

Travel: the loyalty currency of the future?

• Consumer brands who offer premium products in relevant categories can help improve brand loyalty, with experiential travel being called out specifically by McKinsey & Company in their 2024 State of the Consumer report.

• Travel-as-a-service is starting to catch on. Integrating embedded travel into apps and reward systems drives deeper engagement, and commercial opportunity. 📱👩🏻‍💻

If you’re a business looking to get into the business of travel, we should talk! ☎️📧🙋🏻‍♀️

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Victoria Wickens Victoria Wickens

Why the mql is dead and you should focus on ‘mels’ instead

In today’s world of 𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢-𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧-𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠, focusing on Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) isn’t cutting it anymore.

Enter the 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝 (𝐌𝐄𝐋) – a game changer for B2B marketing and sales.

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Victoria Wickens Victoria Wickens

Data is your brand's gold - leveraging your loyalty program to drive business growth and monetisation

Unlock the power of loyalty programs to drive business growth!

Ever wondered how to turn customer insights from your loyalty program into business growth & monetisation? Check out my latest blog post on how zero and first-party data from loyalty programs are transforming the retail industry and why retail media networks are here to stay!

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Victoria Wickens Victoria Wickens

Building Trust and Loyalty in the Age of Transparency: Strategies for Authentic Brand-Customer Relationships

I've been getting stuck back into Simon Sinek's Start With Why, and it got me thinking about the importance of authenticity, integrity and the need for transparency.

As someone who works with brands on building loyalty and customer engagement programs, it got me thinking about the importance of building authentic relationships with customers as a first step, and why trust has to be earned. Consumers are savvy these days, demanding genuine connection and the expectation that the brands they choose to engage with are 'real'.

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About the author

Vicki Wickens is an international commercial leader, strategist and founder of Taking Shape. She writes about commercial growth, partnerships, loyalty, customer experience and the value created through experience.

If an idea here connects with a challenge or opportunity in your business, let’s continue the conversation.