What's Brand love got to do with it?

 There is  an ongoing tension between different  viewpoints around pretty much every aspect of marketing  ,and  recently we have been discussing  on Twitter whether  brand loyalty exists(@paulmarkbailey) ,  those who are seemingly always down on our  own discipline(@derekwalker)  and points inbetween.  

I'm concentrating my comments  around  packaged consumer goods as it is my field of useful experience ; if you know or think different from elsewhere do please chip in.

The question of preference vs loyalty  is interesting  because  the debate  highlights  the need to embrace not only the ambiguities of human behaviors and the limitations of data to tell us what not why , but the importance as ever  of context , shared understanding of the marketing lexicon  and at a more  fundamental level the future of the world... or brands anyway. 

To over simplify /  dramatize  : If there's no such thing as brand  loyalty  and by extension   no such thing as brand added value why isn't everyone  just buying the cheapest , usually a perfectly  good enough private label (I'm talking lemonade not luxury look at me status brands )?

The main vectors potentially to this are :

* Consumer indifference and repertoire purchase :    when  consumer brand indifference meets product  parity, you get a risk of  wholesale substitutability.  Strong brands do exist  in my experience even in categories with little  product differentiaton or status , be it eg staple products like cheddar cheese here in Britain and elsewhere in my  professional travels.

*preference vs loyalty: arguably loyalty is a  somewhat loaded, psychological  term which does not belong in debate about  eg prepackaged cheese or toilet cleaner.

'Loyalty is preference'   seemed to be one marker in the debate ,  but I don't think that goes quite far enough. Loyalty  is  a  feature of   (some ) human relationships and for me it goes beyond  a transactional  relationship  which is  what most consumers have with brands; if brand x isn't available  they'll   happily  buy  brand y as we all  know.  Preference  as a concept is unburdened by any sense of obligation to follow through with purchase, unlike loyalty anyway so at a  nuanced minimum it is a more binding notion ? 

I would suggest loyalty  goes beyond logic and reason  and may entail a personal cost ; just ask long suffering supporters of  long term unsuccessful  sports teams. By contrast if a brand of  say mobile phone comes up with an altogether better functional  product  unless the pain of switching is too high it is likely  it will steal users from other brands or systems tied into its ecosystem of eg of apps and software.

*The importance as ever  of context:   

It is not loyalty  if the barrier to switching is too high for consumers, see internet providers , banks , utility providers, such that laws have been introduced  to protect consumer freedom to switch provider. In packaged goods switching  meets the  time pressured repurchase  habit with consumers spending literally only  seconds in front of a typical  or virtual  display shelf to find their usual choices, the vagaries  of negotiated  physical distribution and on shelf  visibility eg pack location and  number of facings, display within category  eg eye level vs top shelf or bottom shelf also play a role ; and  private label  often using  similar designs to leading brands, supposedly not copying as such but using established category ie brand leader  visual design colour  codes ...

*The commercial value of targeting loyalists vs all category consumers. 

Whilst I get and agree with aspects of the  prevailing belief  in the wisdom of targeting all consumers and that penetration is  the key objective , it begs one question  for me which is : what are the consequences  then for differentiaton and targeting  products against specific target consumers and their needs or CEPs?

Look to the cola brands as an example  of  wrestling with the right balance  between  brand campaigns  and brand block dominated  designs  vs  more product specific  approaches. It may  well  be true that consumers of full fat cola will also buy light  variants ( not gonna pick a fight with Prof Byron Sharp am I ..), but  as a traditional marketer I would argue they as products meet different  need states and have different benefits ,even though the consumer profiles  may overlap in the same person at some points , whether it be same person consuming  or as  someone  purchasing for a  family  unit.

Hope this contributes to the debate in some way ; do let me know what you think ...

Thanks again to marketing Twitter for sparking this piece, acknowledgements and attributions  * :Tina Turner; @paulmarkbailey ,@johnnieego,@andywheatley,@clayton_phillip,@derekwalker,@Jonlombardo ,@bruceclarkprof,@keerti007,@AtomicAdMan