The commercial pressure on brands has sharpened at the same time. Acquisition costs are climbing across the region, marketing budgets are under closer scrutiny, and the return on broad discounting has thinned.
That has pushed personalisation, loyalty, and CRM further up the agenda for retailers and marketers looking for growth that doesn't depend on margin erosion. The brands that can recognise an individual customer in real time, and respond with something genuinely useful, are pulling ahead.
These challenges were discussed at an executive luncheon recently held in Manila by loyalty and AI platform Eagle Eye, customer engagement platform Braze, and marketing transformation consultancy UpStride.
In the week of the event, we spoke with speakers from Eagle Eye, UpStride, and Braze about the biggest gap between what APAC consumers expect and what brands are actually delivering in loyalty and personalisation?
Aziz Kastoun, Account Executive, ANZ, Eagle Eye
The biggest gap in APAC right now isn't a lack of rewards; it's the friction of redemption. APAC consumers expect a seamless experience where value is recognised and applied instantly.
Instead, many brands still deliver manual, clunky processes that require the customer to do the heavy lifting at the counter. The real opportunity here is for the brands that move first. In a market as mobile-savvy as APAC, the businesses that act now to bridge this gap to real-time personalisation at scale will secure a massive first-mover advantage.
By the time others catch up to 'real-time,' the early movers will have already captured the lion's share of customer trust and data.
Shaun Au Yong, Partner, UpStride
APAC consumers are some of the most digitally fluent in the region, they live on Shopee, Lazada, TikTok etc, and they're used to experiences that feel tailored.
The gap isn't that brands here lack ambition. It's that personalisation depends on five interdependent layers: data, technology, people, processes, and AI readiness, and a weakness in any one quietly drags the other four down. That's why experiences feel 'random' even when brands are genuinely trying.
This is why consumers still get recommendations for fried chicken when all they had wanted was some burgers. The intent and ambition are there; the foundations underneath just aren't.
Sam Meyer, Area Vice President, Asia, Braze
The biggest gap right now is a trust gap, and it's where revenue is quietly leaking out. Our latest Braze Customer Engagement Report 2026 found that 93% of marketing leaders believe AI is helping them accurately understand customer needs, yet the experience customers are actually having often tells a different story.
Many retailers in this market have leaned on the basics, quick shipping, slick apps, but convenience isn't a differentiator anymore. What APAC customers want now is personalisation that feels genuinely relevant, and a real reason to walk through a door or open an app.
What does it actually take to make personalisation work at scale, and where do most brands fall short?
Aziz Kastoun, Eagle Eye
While everyone talks about data, the biggest barrier to personalisation at scale isn't actually a technology decision, it's internal stakeholder alignment and commitment. Most brands fall short because their data, marketing, and operations teams are moving at different speeds.
To truly succeed, you need a real-time activation layer that ties the entire customer experience together, but that requires an organisational shift. It means moving away from siloed departments and committing to a single, unified goal: recognising and responding to a customer in the milliseconds they are interacting with you.
If you don't have total internal buy-in to prioritise this real-time infrastructure, you aren't personalising; you're just reminiscing.
Shaun Au Yong, UpStride
Most brands fall short because they invest in the most visible layer, usually a newer, shinier platform, while the real bottleneck sits somewhere else entirely.
Sometimes the data model can't support 1:1 decisioning. Sometimes the team structure still treats CRM, loyalty, and MarTech as separate kingdoms and therefore, separate KPIs/OKRs. Sometimes the process to launch a campaign takes six weeks when the moment for the customer only lasts six minutes.
Personalisation at scale isn't a tooling problem. It's an orchestration problem across data, technology, people, processes, and AI readiness. Brands that get it right stop asking 'what should we buy next?' and start asking 'which layer is holding us back?'
Sam Meyer, Braze
Personalisation at scale means breaking away from the old playbook of rigid rules and broad segments, and building something that can actually keep pace with how customers behave in real time.
At its core, it means treating every customer as an individual rather than a segment. The message itself, the channel, the timing, the offer, even the creative all need to flex based on what you actually know about each person from their own first-party data.
Where most brands stumble is that they're still leaning on rules-based logic, manual segmentation and A/B testing, methods that simply can't keep pace with how complex customer behaviour has become.
MIT's GenAI Divide report found that only 5% of AI investments are actually delivering ROI, which tells you most companies have struggled to turn the excitement into real outcomes. And the cost is visible: traditional funnels are breaking, customer acquisition costs are climbing, high-intent moments are slipping by, and retention ends up propped up by discounting that chips away at margin.
A clear message from the room
The response from brands across SEA has been clear: loyalty programs that don't drive genuine personalisation at scale are losing relevance fast. Eagle Eye's platform gives retailers the infrastructure to run real-time, supplier-funded promotions that actually move the needle on customer behaviour, not just points balances.