SYSTEM // ACTIVE v3.2 / 2026 SF · LV · REMOTE
CASE 01 // LIFETIME LOYALTY ECOSYSTEM
Selected work / Lifetime Loyalty Ecosystem
Case 01 · Ecosystem · 2023 → present

20+ premium membership programs, running on one design and operations system.

Director-led design across brand, UX, physical product, and the operational backbone that holds it all together. Built and scaled at AnyRoad, the experiential marketing platform behind hundreds of brands globally.

Programs scaled
20+
Active premium membership programs across spirits, hospitality, and lifestyle.
Renewal rate
>90%
Annual member renewal across active programs.
Time to scale
<2y
From single pilot to 20-program operational ecosystem.
Revenue / member
$1-3K
Average annual revenue per member across the ecosystem.
Context

The opportunity, in one sentence: connection beats discount.

Most loyalty programs are transactional, cookie-cutter, and easily forgotten. Stamps. Points. Tier badges that nobody cares about. Meanwhile, the brands that earn the deepest customer relationships are the ones that treat membership like a story their fans want to be part of, with tactile artifacts, real access, and a sense of belonging that punches above the price.

The opportunity at AnyRoad was to build the design and operational layer that makes premium, story-driven membership repeatable. Not a templated SaaS feature, but a system flexible enough to launch a national heritage spirits program one quarter and a boutique craft society the next, without losing the soul of either.

"Loyalty isn't bought, it's felt. The system has to make that feeling repeatable."
My role

What I owned, what the team owned, what AnyRoad delivered.

— I owned

Strategy, system, and direction.

  • Design strategy across product, brand, and experience
  • System architecture and modular design framework
  • Brand experience direction for each new launch
  • Multidisciplinary team leadership
  • Hands-on production and code when needed
  • Stakeholder alignment with AnyRoad and clients
— Team owned

Disciplinary depth.

  • Creative Director on brand identity
  • Senior UX Designer on flows and member dashboards
  • Principal Brand Designer on visual systems
  • Senior Design Researcher on insight and validation
  • Webflow Developer on production
  • Copywriter / Digital Strategist on voice
  • Marketing / Acquisition Manager on launch
— AnyRoad delivered

Platform and partnership.

  • The underlying experiential platform
  • Business strategy and program economics
  • Direct client relationships
  • Operations, fulfillment, and member support
  • Data infrastructure and reporting
The strategic shift

From one-off launches to one repeatable system.

Year one was custom builds, every program rebuilt from scratch. By year two, we'd separated the brand layer from the operational backbone. The result was faster launches, premium individuality preserved, and an actual design system instead of a library of one-offs.

— BEFORE / 2023

Custom builds. Every time.

Each program rebuilt the wheel: bespoke flows, ad-hoc components, isolated brand expressions, redundant ops. Slow, expensive, inconsistent.

Custom flow
One-off ID
Ad-hoc ops
Bespoke email
New stack
Manual fulfill
— AFTER / 2024 →

One backbone. Many brands.

A modular system underneath, with the brand layer customized on top. Repeatable launches. Consistent member experience. Operational leverage.

Brand layer (per program)
Identity · Voice · Storytelling · Visual System
Shared system layer
Member Journeys · UX Patterns
Enrollment · Stripe · Memberstack
PassKit IDs · Klaviyo · Airtable
Fulfillment · Concierge · Ops

The single most important design decision was deciding what stays brand-specific (identity, voice, the tactile welcome kit) and what becomes system-shared (enrollment, dashboards, member IDs, ops). That separation is the entire reason 20+ programs run on a coherent backbone instead of 20+ separate codebases and design files.

Growth · 2023 → 2026

From pilot to ecosystem in three years.

2023Pilot
First custom program launched
20246 brands
System emerges. Modular framework in place
202510 brands
Operational maturity. Pace accelerates
202620+ brands
Ecosystem footprint. Cross-category proof
The ecosystem

Eight components, one system.

Every program runs on these eight surfaces. The brand layer sits on top; the operational backbone runs underneath. Each component is designed to be reusable, themeable, and operationally lean.

— Lifetime Loyalty Platform The shared backbone
— 01

Brand Identity

Naming, brand mark, positioning, visual identity, voice, and copy for each membership.

— 02

Digital Enrollment

Custom Webflow + Memberstack + Prefinery logic for forms, plans, invites, and automation.

— 03

Gifting & Fulfillment

Design and vendor ops for premium welcome kits, quarterly bottle shipments, and ongoing benefits.

— 04

Member Dashboard

CMS-powered member home: RSVP systems, referral tools, benefit tracking, and concierge entry points.

— 05

Referral System

Custom code to generate, store, and validate referral codes, tracked in real time across programs.

— 06

Membership IDs

Brand-themed Apple Wallet and Android passes. Member name, ID, and plan visible at a glance. Auto-issued on enrollment, auto-revoked on cancellation.

— 07

Event Experience

On-site activations, private tastings, custom RSVP flows, and surprise-and-delight moments.

— 08

Operations & Support

Behind-the-scenes systems for member comms, shipping ops, retention workflows, and concierge service.

The system in practice

Three programs. Three tiers. One operational backbone.

Out of 20+ programs, these three show how the same system supports programs at different tiers (different price points, different cadences, different member audiences) without rebuilding the platform underneath. Same scope shipped on each; the brand layer carries the tier-appropriate execution.

— Exemplar 01 / Heritage tier

Heaven Hill Society, the heritage-tier program.

Heaven Hill is one of the largest independent family-owned distilleries in the country. The membership program needed to feel as serious as the brand, with the operational depth to match the scale of national distribution.

The system shipped the full stack: brand identity, member application and onboarding, welcome experience, member portal, allocated quarterly releases, digital ID, event access, and the ops backbone behind it. Same scope as the other two exemplars; the brand layer carried the heritage execution.

Members
[#]
Annual fee
$[#]
Allocations
[# / yr]
Notable
[Insert]
Heaven Hill · Hero
Member home
Welcome kit
Digital ID
— Exemplar 02 / Craft tier

Key Collective, the craft-tier program.

Castle & Key is one of Kentucky's most beautiful distilleries: a restored historic estate with a craft bourbon program and a clientele that expects hand-finished detail. The membership had to feel boutique, not platform.

Same backbone as Heaven Hill, completely different soul. The brand layer carried the craft execution: wax-sealed welcome letters, embossed coasters, custom packaging, and a member experience that reads as bespoke. The system handled enrollment, dashboard, IDs, and ops; the brand layer handled the feel.

Members
[#]
Annual fee
$[#]
Allocations
[# / yr]
Notable
[Insert]
Castle & Key · Hero
Welcome kit
Wax-sealed letter
Member portal
— Exemplar 03 / Lifestyle tier

Made South, the lifestyle-tier program.

Made South curates premium goods from across the American South. Different category from spirits, different audience, different fulfillment cadence. And the proof point that the system isn't a spirits playbook. It's a premium membership playbook.

Same enrollment patterns, same dashboard logic, same digital ID system. The brand layer carried the lifestyle execution: curated quarterly boxes instead of bottle allocations, different storytelling, different rhythm. Underneath, the same backbone the heritage and craft programs run on.

Members
[#]
Annual fee
$[#]
Cadence
[Quarterly box / # items]
Notable
[Insert]
Made South · Hero
Member home
Curation kit
Email journey
System spotlights

Three deep dives into the most distinctive surfaces.

The story above is the why and the what. These are the how. Each spotlight lives on its own page and goes deeper into a single surface where the system has to do real, constrained design work.

Spotlight 01 · Identity & Redemption Read deep dive
Society

One identity-and-redemption system. A growing ecosystem of brands.

A digital wallet pass plus a staff-side scanner that turns one QR into check-ins, pour redemptions, and bottle pickups. Auto-issued on enrollment, auto-revoked on cancellation. Replaced manual paper pickup lists across every brand and gave them their first real reporting on member behavior.

PassKit · Webflow · Apps Script · Airtable · Zapier Read →
Spotlight 02 · Acquisition Coming soon

Enrollment, waitlists, and tier-based plan logic.

The application flow that turns interest into paid membership: invite-only mechanics, referral codes, waitlists, and Stripe + Memberstack tier logic working as one acquisition system.

Webflow · Memberstack · Stripe · Prefinery · Klaviyo Soon
Spotlight 03 · Habitation Coming soon

The member home, where the program lives.

The CMS-powered member dashboard pattern: RSVPs, referral tools, benefit tracking, allocated releases, and concierge entry points, designed once and themed across 20+ brands.

CMS · Dashboard · Multi-brand · Concierge Soon
— A moment that defined the work
"When the first program launched, the concierge inbox filled with thank-you notes. Not for the bourbon. For being invited to join the journey."
Outcomes

What the ecosystem actually delivered.

Programs scaled
20+
Premium membership programs running on the shared system.
Renewal rate
>90%
Annual member renewal across active programs.
Time to launch
~50%
Reduction in launch cycle versus pre-system custom builds.
Revenue / member
$1-3K
Average annual revenue per member across the ecosystem.
The roster

20+ programs, all on the same operational backbone.

The full roster of brands and societies this work has shipped for. Most run the full membership program; some run a minimized bottle-club framework on the same system underneath.

American
Whiskey Forum
American Whiskey Forum
Membership · Spirits
Camparino
Bitter Club
Camparino
Limestone Branch
The Branch
Tarnished Truth
The Cavalier Club
Wanderfolk Spirits
The Compass Club
Heaven Hill
Connoisseur's Circle
Catoctin Creek
Cornerstone Club
Dragon's Milk
Dragon's Milk
New Holland
Log Still Distillery
The Fifth District
Log Still Distillery
Nearest Green
The Fifty-Six Society
Lux Row Distillers
The Front Row
Made South
The Gracious Plenty Society
Tennessee Hills
The Helix Society
Tennessee Hills
Leiper's Fork Distillery
The Hillsboro Society
Castle & Key
Key Collective
LALIGA
LL12: The LALIGA Club
J. Rieger & Co.
Private Stock Society
The Reserve
The Reserve
Bardstown Bourbon
Transformers
Transformers
Hasbro
Andalusia
Andalusia
Bottle Club · Spirits
Catoctin Creek
Catoctin Creek
Bottle Club · Spirits
Cedar Ridge
Backpack
Cedar Ridge Backpack
Bottle Club · Spirits
Lux Row
One Lux Row
Bottle Club · Spirits
Remus
Remus
Bottle Club · Spirits
Rock Town Distillery
Rock Town Distillery
Bottle Club · Spirits
Wenzel
Wenzel
Bottle Club · Spirits
On reflection

What I'd scale next.

What I learned.

The hard part of premium loyalty isn't the visual identity or even the product. It's the operational backbone. Members can feel the difference between a program that runs on a system and one that runs on heroics. The design work that mattered most was the work that made operations invisible.

The other lesson was about the brand layer. Premium brands won't accept a templated experience, no matter how efficient it is. The system has to feel custom even when it isn't. That's a design problem, not a product problem, and it lives in the small details: the welcome moment, the voice of the concierge, the texture of the kit.

What I'd scale next.

Three next moves are all on the table. First, productize the Lifetime Loyalty platform itself as a SaaS layer that brand teams can self-serve into, turning what's currently a managed-service offering into a product. Second, expand into adjacent verticals beyond spirits (hospitality, sports, culture) where the same operational backbone applies to entirely new program categories. Third, move members from brand-by-brand portals into a single member-facing app that holds every program they belong to, making the ecosystem visible to the people inside it.

Each of these takes the same backbone that's been built and pushes it in a different direction. The work that's shipped is the foundation; the next stage is what gets built on top.

Next case study

LL12 x LALIGA: turning fan culture into membership pipeline.

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