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Brand loyalty means the degree
to which a consumer
consistently purchases the same brand
within a specific product category.
Companies fight for brand loyalty because
it correlates well with product sales.
It's a great asset for
a brand because brand loyalty decreases
marketing expenses for the company.
Additionally, loyal consumers are usually
willing to pay more for products and
are more forgiving when something negative
happens about the brand, and so on.
In this lecture,
I would like to introduce you a new
way of thinking about brand loyalty.
We have seen in the previous lecture that
positive consumer brand relationships
lead to brand loyalty.
There are both emotional and
functional aspects of a relationship.
You need to understand them first to
see how they affect brand loyalty.
Emotional aspects of brand relationships
reflect the belief that brands have
a personality and that's consumers'
relationships with brands are similar to
their relationships with their friends.
In this context, ego and
self esteem of consumers
are involved in the relationship.
In contrast, in functional aspects of
brand relationship, it involves consumers
evaluation of the concrete utilitarian
aspects of brand performance.
Another important factor that affects
brand loyalty is consumer involvement.
Consumer involvement refers to
the degree of information processing or
the extent of importance
a consumer attaches to a product.
Now, let's try to think about how
emotional and functional aspects of
brand relationships and consumer
involvement may relate to brand loyalty.
Kristin Northelm provides three
types of brand loyalty, and
suggests that brands should
tailor their marketing efforts
according to these three
types of brand loyalty.
Head loyalty, heart loyalty,
and hand loyalty.
You may see how these different loyalty
types can be located onto dimensions with
regards to consumer's involvement,
emotional and
rational involvement with the product.
Head loyalty requires strong
rational involvement.
Consumers exhibiting this type of loyalty
generally have one or more specific
reasons for their purchase decisions,
and they can easily articulate these.
Statements such as I bought this car
because it has the highest safety ratings
or I bought these shoes because they
help me increase my athletic performance
could be examples of head loyalty.
Consumers usually generate head loyalty
to products who's attributes can be
compared with and
be differentiated from other products.
Because consumers are just interested in
the product attributes, companies need to
implement lots of product improvements and
then communicate and promote them heavily.
Competitors seeking to steal
customers exhibiting head loyalty,
generally need to provide a compelling
rational argument for their brand.
Heart loyalty, on the other hand,
requires strong emotional
involvement with a particular brand.
When a customer says, I love my iPhone,
she's exhibiting heart loyalty.
Customers usually have heart loyalty to
products that are consumed in public and
thought to reflect the identity
of the person consuming them.
It's hard to challenge this type of
loyalty because consumer relationships
with the brand is highly personal, and
emotional in nature, and
hence resistant to rational appeals.
Because the product choice is tied
up with the consumers identity and
ego, a competitive challenge to this
choice can even be perceived as a personal
offense to the consumer.
Heart loyal consumers
don't want to be told that
they should switch to another brand.
Brands with heart loyal
consumers continuously need
to demonstrate their consumers that
they hear and understand them.
Hand loyalty does not require high
involvement with the product.
Hand loyalty is habitual,
the consumer is loyal to the product
not because of an emotional or
rational involvement but simple because
of a routine that she has established.
Her commitment to the brand is low, and
her interest in expanding the resources
necessary to search for
a replacement brand is even lower.
This toothpaste is fine,
is a common hand loyalty statement.
The challenge for competitors seeking
to steal hand loyal customers
is to convince them that it is
worth to think about changing.
However, because consumers are low
involvement, they do not actually want to
think about their purchase decisions for
these products.
Hence, it's harder for competitors to
make consumers think about a change.
Consumers with hand
loyalty seek familiarity.
Brands with hand loyal consumers,
try to maintain the habit.
So, product changes should
be very subtle and gradual.
The emphasis should be on maintaining
distribution and product quality.
The challenge with the brand loyalty
approach is that, the skills and
resources the firm needs to maintain
consumers with different types of loyalty
are very different.
Additionally, consumers may start with one
kind of loyalty, and shift to another.
And it may be very difficult
to detect the shift.
If the marketing programs are aimed
at one type of loyalty, and
the consumers in that category shift,
then the result may be a severe loss
to the company,
both in terms of loyalty and sales.
So brands need to examine the way
consumers feel loyal to them and
be prepared to adjust their
activities accordingly.
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