Loyalty Players Extend Reach with Catalina Marketing Deals

In the latest move by loyalty firms seeking to cross the online/offline barrier, FreeRide.com, Cybergold, and Gold Points.com have all made agreements with grocery store marketer Catalina Marketing.

Catalina Marketing has points of presence at 13,000 grocery stories across the nation, issuing coupons to consumers at the check-out counter in response to what they have purchased. The company last week forged an alliance with another loyalty marketer — MyPoints.com — in which the two companies took equity stakes in one another and agreed to co-market one another’s services.

The agreement with FreeRide.com calls for Catalina Marketing to leverage its technology, so that as many as 160 million shoppers can automatically earn FreeRide points for grocery purchases in more than 13,000 supermarkets.

The deal with Cybergold involves Catalina’s SuperMarkets Online division. It calls for the two companies to create a co-branded Web page to allow Cybergold members to save money on their weekly groceries. Consumers will receive an instant reward for visiting and printing the special page.

The agreement with Gold Points, which is a division of the Carlson Companies, also involves SuperMarkets Online. The deal gives online shoppers the option to receive special rewards when they shop for groceries using the ValuPage program. For Gold Points, this represents a move online. The program started offline, where Carlson sought to encourage loyalty in its hotel and restaurant chains. Last month, the company announced the fusion of its offline rewards program with its e-commerce venture that will launch in the summer.