Brand Core · Brand Value · Module
Loyalty
Whether people come back, and whether they would defend the choice if a cheaper option appeared — behaviour and attitude, measured separately because they diverge.
The idea
How it works
Repeat purchase and genuine preference are different things and they are routinely conflated. A customer who returns because switching is inconvenient is behaving loyally and holds no loyalty at all, and the difference shows the moment a competitor removes the inconvenience.
Attitudinal loyalty is what survives a better offer. It is harder to measure and it is the half that predicts what happens when the market changes.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Measure both dimensions
Repeat behaviour and relative attitude. High behaviour with low attitude is inertia wearing loyalty’s clothes.
- 02
Ask the switching question
What would it take for them to leave? A precise, small answer is a warning regardless of how long they have stayed.
- 03
Separate lock-in from preference
Contracts, integration and habit all produce retention. Only preference is brand value.
- 04
Track it by segment
Loyalty concentrates. An overall figure conceals the group that is about to leave.
One level in
The components of loyalty
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
High repeat purchase with low preference is inertia, and it ends the moment switching becomes convenient.
The other modules in brand value
Awareness
Whether the brand is known, and whether it comes to mind at the moment a choice is being made — which is the harder and more useful question.
LearnAssociations
What comes to mind with the brand, how strongly, how favourably and how uniquely — the part of brand value that does the actual work.
LearnValuation
What the brand is worth financially, on a stated method, with the assumptions visible — because the number is entirely a function of them.
Learn