In episode 213 of Total Retail Talks, Executive Editor Joe Keenan interviews Brian Venuti, vice president of loyalty and CRM at Luxottica, a leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of fashion, luxury and sports eyewear. Listen as Venuti discusses the loyalty programs across all of Luxottica's brands, the company's efforts to streamline leadership and strategy, and the global collection of customer data across brands. He shares Luxottica's centralized approach to data management, noting that while the individual brands’ loyalty programs are structured in Milan (home of Luxottica headquarters), the flexibility to adapt to local markets in communications and events is built into each program.

Across Luxottica's brands, loyalty members receive special deals as well as early access to new products, exclusive content and invites to local events, and other offerings to make customers feel special. Venuti discusses how the company is working to differentiate itself from the competition through customer communication, personalization, and marketing, identifying the differences in this communication among the company's many brands. He also addresses the uniform performance metrics Luxottica uses to evaluate engagement and CRM for each brand's loyalty program, and his thoughts on where technology in the CRM and loyalty space is headed. This episode was recorded live at CRMC 2019 in Chicago.

At Luxottica, Venuti is the vice president of Global CRM, Patient, Retail Optical, and Sun, responsible for customer and patient strategies across the company's optical and sunglass businesses. Prior to Luxottica, he ran CRM at Etrade, where he oversaw customer experience and channel strategy. His experience includes companies like Sears and Capital One, where he worked to develop segmentation, targeted marketing capabilities and direct response innovations. He was a finalist in the Loyalty and Gamification World Championships. He received his MBA from the University of Virginia.