This week the retailer drafted in former Tesco Clubcard director Danielle Papagapiou as its head of loyalty to work alongside another ex-Clubcard boss, Andrew Mann, who joined in January as head of insight and customer loyalty.

It feels like a logical, if obvious, tactic from M&S: take the people who ran the most successful loyalty scheme of the past 20 years and get them to sprinkle their magic dust on your own loyalty offer.

It might just work, too.