Show me your loyalty cards and I’ll tell you who you are. I’ve got Waitrose, plastic and app – the middle-class membership card – and Nectar, although somehow never when I need it. There is Lakeland (middle-age membership), and I am custodian of the household holy of holies, the Go Outdoors card and keyring fob, because if my spouse can’t spontaneously snap up a bargain fleece, he gets twitchy. Space NK has vanished, its emails offering a ghostly digital reminder of a time when I cared about my appearance, and I fell off the Boots Advantage treadmill years ago. Flygskam put paid to Air Miles, and Eurostar is too confusing (non, I don’t know my mot de passe). I have two fully stamped cards for the place I get vegan cakes – those women see me more than my family do – meaning I have earned two free vegan afternoon teas (don’t all rush at once). I’ve been a tenth of the way to a free item of dry-cleaning for years and the ear-suctioning place also has only one stamp on its card (I can’t go through that again, the noise, dear God).
I am a middle-aged, middle-class, slightly deaf woman, full of cake, who has let herself go, but never goes anywhere, with a husband addicted to rainproof trousers: yes, that tracks. It is a bit eerie how much loyalty systems allow brands to learn about us. They see our little treats, unshakable habits and feeble attempts at spontaneity; they could work out when we have a baby, go on a keto diet, move in with someone or split up. That is a wild amount of information.
