Studying Brand Loyalty pattern....an understanding

There are two end results expected out of the study – measuring loyalty across the three product categories (Consumer durables:cellphones, services:Cellular & courier, and FMCG: Soaps & Shampoo)and learning how to measure it.
Acker says,"The brand loyalty of the customer base is often the core of a brand’s equity. If customers are indifferent to the brand and, in fact, buy with respect to features, price and convenience with little concern to brand name, the brand needs to reassess its stand. It’s not a good sign for the brand equity. If, on the other hand, they continue to purchase the brand even in the face of competitors with superior features, price, and convenience, substantial value exist in the brand."

Well said. So, what are the reasons that make the customer buy and re-buy again and again the same brand? What do they expect? What things they like about the brand? What could be the factors that may create a cognitive dissonance in the customers’ minds and how the brand’s approach should be to decrease that dissonance? What creates that attachment? All these broadly stated questions are to be answered in order to get a wide picture of the brand loyalty. But we need to keep one thing in mind that even if there are some common reasons, factors & answers to these questions, these brand loyalty patterns will, in most cases, vary from product to product and category to category.

Brand loyalty is qualitatively different from other major dimensions of brand equity in that it is tied more closely to the use experience. Many of the customers even don’t know that they are loyal to a brand but they even don’t want to know what other brands are available. They buy the same brand again and again sub or unconsciously. We can see what wonders loyalty can do. Remember one ad of Eveready prompting people by saying – “Give Me Red”. Doesn’t it prompt you also to say that line once? If yes, the job of marketer is done. Now it’s the use experience that will do the rest of the job for creating loyalty.

Moving on these grounds the findings of the study are as follows:

Consumer Durables (cell phones)
Type of Loyalty found – Mostly Habitual buyers and few Committed.
Major Reasons of loyalty – Great features, good functionality.

Services
Type of Loyalty found – Switchers, Habitual Buyers
Major Reasons of loyalty – Better network coverage, connectivity, good offers, & customer care.

FMCG goods
Type of Loyalty found – Habitual Buyers (no reason to change) > Satisfied,(with switching cost) > committed
Major Reasons of loyalty – Extensive ad campaign, easy availability, Functional benefits, match with the aspiration.


I am not giving the detailed findings now. But there was a lot to learn from the exercise.

Trying to make my learning curve steeper............will get back again with more learnings.......