New Nectar Card. No Brands.

I got my new Nectar card in the post today. The first thing that I noticed confirmed to me that I'm an odd marketing-tech geek type of guy. The big brands who initially sponsored Nectar, notably Sainsbury's, are gone from the card.

My old card had Sainsbury's, Barclaycard, Debenhams and BP logos on the front. My new card is %100 Nectar.

If you're not familiar with Nectar then it's best thought of as a loyalty card. I hand it in when I buy stuff in Sainsbury's or (more commonly) Debenhams, etc, and I accrue loyalty points. In return Nectar learn what I like and I eventually get to trade my points in for free stuff. Along the way I may get special deals where if I buy this or that then I'll get extra Nectar points.

Interestingly, Nectar is also a corporate super affiliate. I can go to the Nectar website and gain Nectar points for shopping at Amazon or iTunes - as if Amazon and iTunes weren't tempting enough. You log into the site using the last 11 digits on your card (as shown in the image here).

Every now and then there's a rumble that Sainsbury's will be leaving Nectar and either doing a loyalty card which is exclusively theirs or ditching the loyalty card concept all together.

I imagine what we have here is a typical affiliate comment - why should I engage in brand building for you? What do I get out of it?