Brand Loyalty. A Marketing Paradox?

Brand loyalty. The holy grail of branding, marketing, and advertising. It is believed to be the byproduct of building deep connections and meaningful relationships between customers and their beloved brands.

Once you earn your customers’ loyalty, then you can count on it to defend or even increase your brand’s market share. Let’s face it, we have all heard this many times before. Loyalty is the metric that is believed to predict growth. It even determines many CMOs bonuses.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

It makes sense. Loyalists will always buy your brand. And they will only buy your products. If you play your cards right, they may even tell their friends about you. They will become your brand evangelist.

Sounds logical. In fact, it is part of many accepted brand models. So it must be true. Or is it?

Professor Byron Sharp, Director of Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at University of South Australia and the author of How Brands Grow uses data and scientific method to challenge some of these long standing myths and marketing beliefs.

Can too much focus on brand loyalty be in fact blindsiding us to what really matters?

Please don’t misunderstand. Loyalty is great. It is an important metric. The problem is, in the world of brands, customers have a hard time staying loyal. At least, not in the traditional sense of it.

In reality, customers are loyal to a collection of brands which includes not only your brand but also your competitors. They are what Sharp calls “polygamous.”

So perhaps as marketers, we should not be putting too much emphasis on loyalty. Maybe, as Sharp recommends, the focus should be on building a greater share of mind and visibility. This is because the key to brand growth, according to Sharp, is in expanding market penetration. In other words, building presence.

Watch the following TEDx video from November of 2010 and share your thoughts and reactions in response to Sharp’s theory of brand growth.

• How much do you agree or disagree with his point of view?
• What part of his theory really resonates with you?
• What do you find surprising about his claims?
• Do you think his views are dismissive of the market dynamics brought about in the age of social marketing?

References:
Sharp, B. (2014). How Brands Grow. What Marketers Don’t Know. Victoria, Australia. Oxford University Press.

TEDxAdelaide (Producer). (2010). Byron Sharp: The Science of Marketing [YouTube]. Available from https://youtu.be/d3Or0FkiIa0