By: Marwan Kenawy, Cofounder and CEO, Dsquares

We often witness moments where customers switch brands not because of price, but because a brand reaches them at exactly the right time. A personalised notification, a well-timed reminder, or an offer that feels intuitively relevant can prompt an immediate decision.

In these moments, the shift isn’t driven by cost savings. It’s driven by anticipation. The brand understands the customer’s needs before they consciously act on them.

When a loyalty solution turns data into intuition, and intuition into trust, it moves beyond transactions.

That is the real essence of loyalty.

Today, the word “loyalty” is thrown around so casually that it risks losing its meaning. Too often, it’s synonymous with points, tiers, discounts, and transactional behaviour. But genuine loyalty is not a mechanical exchange. It is an emotional relationship. There’s a vast difference between a customer who returns because your product is convenient, and one who returns because your brand has earned a place in their life. One is routine. The other is attachment, and sometimes even love.

This is where many brands fall short. They build loyalty programmes, but they don’t build loyalty. They focus on what they can give, rather than what they can mean. Yet loyalty is not created when we reward customers; it is created when we understand them. When a brand signals, “We see you, we know what matters to you, and we want to be part of your world,” a customer moves from buyer to believer. Emotional attachment becomes the bridge between a product choice and a sense of belonging.

In an age of rising customer expectations, I believe loyalty must evolve into something more selective, more experiential, and more intimate. Exclusivity, for example, is no longer about scarcity, it’s about relevance. True exclusivity is when a customer feels recognised and valued in a way that is personal to them: a moment curated at the right time, an experience designed around their lifestyle, early access that aligns with who they are and what they care about. When brands create this sense of insider status, loyalty stops being a programme and becomes a feeling.

This emotional dimension of loyalty has a profound business impact. Research consistently shows that brand love, not just satisfaction or habit, is what drives advocacy, repeat behaviour, and long-term value. In other words, people don’t stay with brands because of what they get from them; they stay because of what those brands represent in their lives. And this is where data, when used responsibly and creatively, becomes transformative. Data should not reduce customers to numbers; it should help us understand their motivations, their rhythms, and their emotional triggers. When data leads to empathy, it becomes the heart of loyalty.

From my perspective, the brands that will win the next decade are those that stop treating loyalty as a campaign and start treating it as a community. The world doesn’t need more earn-and-burn mechanics; it needs more spaces where customers feel connected to something meaningful. Loyalty must become part of the brand’s identity, a lens through which it sees, listens to, and interacts with its audience. When brands do this well, loyalty programmes stop being similar; they become unmistakably distinct.

Here in the Middle East, we are standing at a pivotal moment. Consumers in our region are discerning, expressive, and increasingly driven by experience. Yet loyalty programmes often remain stuck in outdated frameworks. I believe the next big shift will be the rise of “luxury loyalty”, not luxury as in price, but luxury as in emotional value. The luxury of being understood. The luxury of belonging. The luxury of being part of a brand’s inner circle. Brands that embrace this philosophy will create loyalty that feels aspirational, not administrative.

The question I always ask leadership teams is simple: “Are you building habit, or are you building love?” Because habit can be disrupted overnight, by a competitor, a trend, or a discount. But love is resilient. Love is forgiving. Love lasts. And as leaders, we have a responsibility to build brands that stand for something, that resonate emotionally, and that invest in loyalty as a long-term narrative, not a quarterly tactic.

At Dsquares, we believe loyalty should not be an add-on or a department; it should be a strategic pillar woven into the brand’s DNA. When brands commit to this, they stop chasing customers — and customers start choosing them, repeatedly, for reasons far deeper than convenience.

And years from now, if a customer walks past your brand and smiles because it reminds them of a moment that mattered, then you’ve built something far more powerful than a loyalty programme. You’ve built a relationship.