As I was browsing on Facebook the other day, I realized my friend got an official VIB (Very Important Beauty Insider) welcome kit including a VIB member card in the mail from Sephora. VIB STATUS MEMBER CARD?!?!? (I thought), how come I don’t have one? So I went on the website, logged in and did some research. Apparently anyone who is a Beauty Insider (a free reward program they offer) who spends more than $350 a year automatically gets upgraded to VIB status. Taking a closer look at my emails, I realized that I was in fact an official VIB member as well. This is the email I got:

After I realized I was actually a member, I felt kind of offended that I didn’t receive the VIB loyalty card as well. So I went on the Beauty Talk (Sephora’s online forum) and found a thread of conversations with people who came across the same situation.  Here a few clips of what people had to say:

After reading this, I completely understand the situation (correct me if I’m wrong). Sephora’s digital marketing team decided that personalization was the way to go with their loyalty cards.  With all their customer’s past purchases tracked, they can generate an algorithm that determines which discounts, coupons, gifts, and advertisements would be most effective to the individual customer. Don’t get me wrong, Sephora has amazing marketing in the social world, but what confuses me is personalization all the way from deciding who gets the VIB loyalty card?

As you can see, personalization is great.  You can target different customers with different promotions and earn greater conversions. However, things could get sticky when fans are able to talk and share with each other on a global scale. Some may realize they are not offered the particular promotion that they want (as you can see from some of the clips), and some may decide to share their dissatisfaction to the world (me).

But then again, I love Sephora, so if they decide to send me a (late) VIB loyalty card now, I”ll accept it and forget about the past —- loyal advocate.