What loyal women (and men) want: The role of gender and loyalty program characteristics in driving store loyalty

Despite the use of loyalty programs in the retail/service industry is now spread world-wide, marketing practitioners continue to debate whether loyalty programs increase store loyalty. This study aims to examine how two distinct features of a loyalty program namely: innovativeness and perceived advantages drive women's versus men's attachment to the program and loyalty to the store. Our findings show that the perceived advantages of the loyalty program will be more appealing to men, while female customers will more positively respond to the innovativeness of the program. Further, we show that the interaction between the characteristics of the program (i.e., perceived advantages and innovativeness) and gender affects store loyalty through the mediating role of emotional attachment.