When Does a Customer Relationship Actually Begin?

Most companies say young people matter. The question is when they start treating them as customers.

That is why I find Tesco's latest move with its Clubcard loyalty programme interesting. The British grocery chain is opening the programme to 16- and 17-year-olds. They get their own member prices, can collect points and start using Clubcard in everyday life, even if registration still goes through a parent or guardian.

It may sound like a fairly small change. From a branding perspective it is considerably larger. Because when does a customer relationship actually begin?

Plenty of companies still behave as though it begins when people turn 18, receive their first full-time salary, or are deemed to have enough spending power to be worth the effort. Until then, teenagers are welcome to follow the brand on TikTok, know the products and perhaps put them on a wish list. But the relationship itself starts later. That is a strange way to think.

Habits begin much earlier than that. So do preferences, brand relationships and the sense of which companies "are for me". A 16-year-old who starts shopping independently, takes responsibility for some of the household buying, or simply stands in front of the fridge on the way to school is already a consumer. Perhaps not the wealthiest consumer in the household. But two years pass quickly. Tesco seems to have understood this. By letting teenagers into Clubcard, they are not only offering discounts. They are giving them a place of their own inside the brand's ecosystem. The young customer starts using the app, learning how the points work, looking for member prices and building a habit around Tesco. That is where it gets interesting.

Loyalty is rarely created on the day a company decides a customer suddenly matters. It is built much earlier, through small experiences repeated often enough. If someone has already used a brand for years by the time their own finances start to grow, competitors face a very different task.

This applies far beyond groceries, of course. Fashion, beauty, sport and lifestyle brands talk constantly about Gen Z and even younger consumers. Meanwhile, a great many loyalty programmes, customer journeys and CRM systems are still built around the adult, established customer. Young people get the communication, but not always the relationship. And that, I think, is where many miss something. Because the question does not need to be: how do we get a 16-year-old to spend as much as possible? That would also be a fairly dull ambition. The better question is: how do we create a relationship that feels relevant right now and can grow with the customer? It might involve membership, events, early access, community, educational content, personal recommendations, or the chance to start making choices within the brand. For premium brands it need not involve discounts at all. Access, knowledge and belonging can be far more powerful. What matters is that young people are not treated as an anonymous future audience the company intends to start caring about later. They are already here. And they are watching. They notice which brands understand their world, which ones speak to them as people, and which ones mainly try to sound young because the marketing department has decided it is time for a campaign.

This is also why decisions like these belong early in the brand work. When we at BBMB work with start-ups and growth companies, we like to discuss audiences before the loyalty schemes, campaigns and communication plans are finished. Because the audience shapes far more than the advertising. It shapes the product, the service, the experience, the tone of voice and, ultimately, the kind of relationship the brand is able to build.

Tesco already has an enormous Clubcard system. Opening the door to 16- and 17-year-olds is hardly a revolution. But the principle is worth considering. Companies spend a great deal of money finding new customers. Sometimes it might be smarter to start getting to know them a few years earlier.