How Can I Deliver High Value Experiential Rewards with the Budget I Have?  

By Pren Munian, CEO of TLC Worldwide APAC

Today, brands understand their customers better than ever before. With ever-advancing technological progress – especially in the realm of AI – marketers can personalize communications at scale, predict behavior, automate campaigns, and optimize performance in real time.

Yet despite having more data, tools, and insight than ever before, loyalty remains one of the hardest metrics to influence.

At the same time, marketing leaders are being asked to achieve more with finite budgets. Gartner's 2025 CMO Spend Survey found that 59% of CMOs don't believe they have sufficient funds to deliver their marketing strategy – and there’s immense pressure to create more value from every penny invested.

So, how do you deliver rewards that feel genuinely valuable without significantly increasing your budget?

Consumers today spend most of their daily lives connected. We work online, shop online, socialize online, and increasingly rely on AI to help us make decisions.

​​But psychologists are increasingly exploring how this shift is changing human behavior. Rather than rejecting technology altogether, people are becoming more intentional about how they use it. Growing interest in digital detoxes and healthier screen habits reflects a broader desire to rebalance life online with meaningful real-world experiences – a shift that's making authentic experiences more valuable than ever.

Major book retailers like Barnes & Noble and Waterstones are experiencing a resurgence, opening new stores as consumers rediscover the pleasure of browsing physical books and spending time in bookshops instead of buying online. At the same time, Netflix is investing in immersive “Netflix House” venues where fans can eat, play, and experience their favorite shows in person. Amazon also continues to expand its physical retail footprint alongside its online business. In other words, even the companies that spurred the digital age recognize that people still crave places and experiences they can't get through a screen.

So what does this mean for brands eager to drive deeper customer engagement?

While discounts and points sometimes influence what people buy in the moment, it's meaningful experiences that leave a lasting impression and shape how consumers feel about a brand.

Think about it. You probably don’t remember the last time you saved 10% on something you bought, or how many points you picked up during that transaction. But you easily remember a great dinner, a family day out, a weekend away, or a live concert.

Because if there’s one thing we absolutely know, it’s that experiences create emotion, emotion creates memories, and memories are what builds brand connections.

And according to Forrester's 2025 Total Experience research, organizations that successfully connect brand experience with customer experience significantly outperform their peers in growth, customer retention, and advocacy.

Experiential rewards are often perceived as something reserved for premium brands with premium budgets. And when immediate commercial pressure hits, it's easy to default to what feels familiar – tactics like discounts, cash offers, sweepstakes, or bonus points.

But creating high-value rewards doesn’t always require a bigger marketing budget. The key is understanding the difference between cost and perceived value.

Consumers don't judge a reward by what it costs a brand to provide – they judge it by what it's worth to them. A $10 discount is worth exactly $10. By contrast, an exclusive dining experience, a hotel upgrade, or a travel benefit can feel much more valuable to the customer – even if it costs the brand considerably less than its face value to deliver.

That's the difference between cost and value. And it's why experiential rewards allow brands to compete on emotion rather than price.

So, instead of asking, "How much does this reward cost?", marketers should ask, "How valuable does this feel to my customer?"

By combining consumer insights with carefully curated partner ecosystems, brands can give their customers experiences that feel highly valuable while remaining commercially sustainable.

Take Kinder.

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Kinder worked with TLC to turn childhood dreams into real-life experiences, giving kids the chance to live out their dream careers for a day across more than 500 partner locations in France.

The campaign delivered a 5.7% uplift in sell-in and 6.4% uplift in sell-out, while creating memorable family experiences rooted in Kinder’s brand values of joy and imagination.

The same principle applies in entirely different cross-border sectors.

In the UK,  VodafoneThree  recognized that loyalty isn't built through occasional surprises but through consistent, everyday value. So, they introduced weekly £1 barista-made coffees across thousands of independent cafés. The reward became part of customers' routines – a small ritual that people genuinely looked forward to rather than another offer sitting in an inbox.

The result was a significant uplift in engagement and industry recognition at the 2026 International Loyalty Awards.

In the US,  Tommy Hilfiger  wanted to bring customers back into stores and incentivize loyalty program sign-ups during Black Friday – so they rewarded qualifying purchases with a $250 travel credit for the festive season.

The program delivered an 86% increase in sales and generated 16x ROI, with almost a third of qualifying purchases coming from new loyalty members.  All without the heavy discounting that erodes brand equity.

And in the Philippines, ride-hailing platform MOVE IT replaced regular discounts with a gamified experience where every fifth journey unlocked opportunities to win travel, entertainment, and lifestyle rewards.

The campaign generated an 80% conversion rate, with over 2 million website visits and 44% of participants completing more than two rides – proving that relevance often outperforms price.

AI will continue to transform our lives, as both consumers and marketing professionals. It’ll help brands become faster, more efficient, and better informed, enabling marketers to develop a deeper understanding of customer behavior, personalize communications, and optimize campaigns at a scale that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

But while AI is changing how we market, it doesn't change why people connect with brands. In fact, it means most consumers want to connect more.

Today’s key challenges are still how to create relevance, shape brand perception, influence behavior, and build the genuine emotional connections that lead to lasting loyalty. At the end of the day, while AI can predict behavior and hyper-personalize interactions, only real experiences can create real emotion.

The pressures facing marketing teams aren't going away. Budgets will continue to be scrutinized, AI will keep redefining customer expectations, and competition for attention will become even more intense. Against this backdrop, success won't necessarily belong to the brands spending the most – it'll follow the ones creating the greatest perceived value.

Especially in this digital world, people may forget the discount they redeemed or the points they earned, but they'll always remember the experiences that made them feel something.