Friday August 1st 2008

It's no more than self delusion to set as your marketing objective the aim of "increasing brand loyalty". Brand loyalty is little more than a function of the period of data collection and rarely a reflection of true consumer behaviour influenced by the marketer.

Dr Stephan Buck, that most learned and informed leader of what was then AGB, the premier operation in continuous consumer panel data, was the first researcher to identify the delusion of brand loyalty. Even the most frequently bought brands are bought infrequently. Washing powder is only bought 5 times a year, on average. So an improvement in brand loyalty would be achieved by getting consumers to buy your brand three times rather than twice per annum - hardly a recipe for strong brand development.

He went on to identify the repertoire of brand purchasing, highlighting the increasing role of supermarket brands. Taken as a whole, the number of consumers who were 100% loyal was infinitesimal.

So if the data collection period was (say) just three months it would be perfectly possible for everyone to be 100% brand loyal to one or another brand. But that would be a totally meaningless construct. If the data collection period was across a year, then almost 0% of consumers are brand loyal; an equally meaningless construct.

We have followed the lead he gave and developed this work further using a variety of data sets across many markets. The conclusion remains sound. The marketer is best served with strategies designed to maximise brand trial, all focused on attracting the maximum number of consumers to buy once, not through gimmicks and unfulfilled promises but with relevant attractive messages firmly rooted in the brand's benefit proposition.

The consumer knows more about the use of brands than does any marketer. So she/he will decide if they want to buy again and it is they who determine brand loyalty, not the marketer.

The best returns come from marketing techniques designed to maximise trial. Marketing programmes designed to develop brand loyalty are doomed to failure