Why Do Businesses Have Sophisticated Models For Media Investment But Rely On Spreadsheets For Far Bigger Customer Decisions?
Media optimisation has become an established analytical discipline. Customer management, with its much broader commercial scope and complex interactions, has not. Now that businesses have invested heavily in customer data infrastructure, why aren’t they building the models to make better decisions?
Why Ryanair Prime Failed: The Modelling Gap
Ryanair Prime launched in March 2025 and closed eight months later. It attracted 55,000 members who paid €4.4 million in subscription income and took more than €6 million in fare discounts. Prime did not fail because customers behaved unexpectedly. It worked exactly as it was designed to work, which is a different and more uncomfortable cautionary tale. The risk was visible in Ryanair’s own data before launch, and was either not modelled or not acted a upon.
Choice Architecture: The Sunk-Cost Effect And The Power Of Enrolment
Every loyalty programme begins with a decision to join — a seemingly small act that triggers powerful psychological and economic forces. The sunk-cost effect turns that moment of effort into momentum, creating commitment before rewards even start.
Digital Twins and the Rise of Decision Intelligence
When NASA engineers faced problems during the Apollo missions, they could not simply experiment on a spacecraft hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth. Instead, they relied on corresponding systems on the ground to understand what was happening, evaluate potential responses and anticipate the consequences of different decisions before acting. The principle was simple but powerful: if you can create an accurate representation of a complex system, you can explore possible futures before making changes in the real world.
Loyalty Economics: Shaping – And Then Re-Shaping – Habit for Maximum Return
Early experience defines a customer’s long-term pattern — but that’s only half the story. Once behaviour stabilises, incentives can be used not to maintain the habit, but to disrupt it deliberately and steer value in more profitable directions.
Why Pricing And Loyalty Strategies Should Be Formulated Together
Service industries live and die on repeat behaviour. A single transaction is rarely profitable; value emerges through renewal and habit. Yet most firms still separate the levers that shape that behaviour. Pricing belongs to finance; loyalty sits with marketing; promotions sit with sales. The result is predictable: prices move one way, incentives another, and customers learn that value is arbitrary. The truth is simple: pricing, promotions, and loyalty are three expressions of the same behavioural contract. They should be designed as one system.
Run Your Customer Decisions Like An F1 Team
There is a reality many businesses need to face. Customer value propositions decisions often worth tens of millions are made on gut feel, simple modelling of first order effects or long testing cycles that all impact real world return. There is a lot to be learned from F1.