Brand loyalty
As brand loyalty the behavior of people is called, resulting in their purchase or exploitation activities primarily on products of a brand guided. Experiences, evaluations and properties are transferred from a very specific product to other products of a brand . Brand loyalty is therefore a consequence of brand trust and brand awareness .
Manufacturers and sales organizations use the phenomenon of brand loyalty through a broad, cross-product group use of certain brand terms to increase sales and brand awareness. Often the company or a previously well-known individual brand is selected from the range as the lead brand and determines the company's marketing strategy.
Brand loyalty can also be created artificially if the range of alternative products of the same type is reduced to such an extent that a comprehensive overarching range is only covered by the company's own brand. This tendency can be observed particularly in the food discount market. In the absence of alternative providers, the consumer can be brought into direct brand dependency.
- A buyer is referred to as completely loyal to the brand if he only uses a single brand for a certain product (see also monoloyance )
- A buyer is considered to be completely untrue to the brand if he constantly changes brands.
Key figures for brand loyalty have been developed in large numbers by modern marketing science in loyalty research and are used in market research :
- Share of the most frequently purchased brand in the total purchase volume
- (Euclidean) distance to the completely unfaithful buyer (the further away from the unfaithful buyer, the more loyal to the brand)
- Guadagni Little Index
- Herfindahl index (brand loyalty as concentration )
- Trade-off between risk aversion and a desire for variety
Especially in markets with strong competition to build a brand-loyal customer base may be the only way to keep market share. This is done by discounts and other incentives for frequent buyers.
Brand loyalty is also an important factor influencing brand equity .
literature
- Bernd Hempelmann, Markus Lürwer: Explanation and analysis of hybrid forms of brand choice behavior . In: Planning and Analysis. Issue 5/2001, pp. 12-18.
- Hartmut Nolte: Brand loyalty in the consumer goods sector. Studienverlag Brockmeyer, Bochum 1976, ISBN 3-921543-45-2 .
- Peter Weinberg: The product loyalty of consumers. Gabler, Wiesbaden 1977, ISBN 3-409-36641-5 .