Food
The partnership will see AirAsia BIG, the loyalty program for AirAsia and the Tune group of companies, leverage on ZAP’s platform to allow BIG members to earn and redeem points from daily purchases at physical stores with just a mobile number.
Based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Tune Labs was launched last April 2015 as a startup incubator and accelerator program aimed mostly at the Southeast Asia region. Its goal is to identify, fund and nurture early stage companies in the travel, finance and retail sectors.
The advanced AirAsia BIG loyalty program will be launched in the third quarter of this year tartegeting over 100 partner establishments in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia before expanding to neighboring countries in Southeast Asia. Partners will include restaurants, services, and retail shops in commercial centers.
AirAsia BIG has over 17 million members across the Asia-Pacific region and was recently named Loyalty Programme of the Year at the 2016 Loyalty & Engagement Awards.
AirAsia BIG CEO Eddy Leong said customer loyalty is a large part of AirAsia’s success and the joint venture is part of their retail strategy.
“ZAP is the tech partner to help AirAsia BIG achieve our goal of having loyal customers earn BIG points and redeem for their flights faster and easier than ever, by rewarding members’ everyday life,” Leong said.
According to ZAP CEO Dustin Cheng, the partnership will fast-track ZAP’s expansion through the region.
“The joint venture allows us to leverage on millions of AirAsia’s customers,” Cheng said. “Our goal in ZAP has always been to empower merchants of all sizes with an easy-to-use loyalty and CRM platform.”
Founded in 2012, as a mobile number-based loyalty program for brick-and-mortar merchants, ZAP is one of 26 digital tech startups funded by Kickstart Ventures Inc, a wholly-owned venture capital subsidiary of Globe Telecom Inc.
ZAP today caters to over 300,000 members and works with close to a thousand partner establishments within Metro Manila in the Philippines.
Kickstart president Minette Navarrete said the ZAP co-founders have the high energy and agility to expand across the region, and the joint venture capitalizes on AirAsia BIG’s scale and ZAP’s growth momentum.
“AirAsia and the Tune group of companies are among Southeast Asia’s success stories, with an ethos we truly admire. The ZAP founders have proven their ability to effectively drive customer and revenue growth, and adoption of a technology platform in a high-touch retail environment,” Navarrete said.
