How adequate are brand loyalty models?

The road to establishing brand loyalty can be long and winding and over the years various models have been devised to help brands influence the consumers and get them to move further along the path leading to increased loyalty. What a brand aims at, ultimately, is becoming so deeply entwined with the consumers’ lives as to be truly an inseparable part of it – which means creating a strong bond and emotional connection with the consumer, and becoming so relevant in their lives that these will turn into powerful brand advocates.

According to Oliver, brand loyalty consists of three stages: cognitive, affective and conative (behavioural). There appears to be a learning process involved in moving from one phase to the next, as a brand first affects consumers in a more rational way, based on thoughts and beliefs about brand attributes, then in an emotional way, as the brand elicits moods, feelings and emotional responses from the user, whether positive or negative, which will in turn impact willingness to act (i.e. to buy or not to buy). This continuum finds a parallel with the buyer-readiness stages model, where consumers apply a Learn – Feel – Do sequence starting from awareness and knowledge, through to liking, preference and conviction, and finally ending in purchase.

The Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) pyramid looks at the steps that allow development of a brand; these go from establishing brand identity (including identification in a specific category and satisfaction of a need) to brand meaning (through tangible and intangible associations with the brand, e.g. product attributes, imagery, values), to the elicitation of adequate responses to this brand identification and meaning (by means of judgements on the brand and feelings evoked by the brand) and, finally, turning the brand response into an active, deep loyalty relationship (through emotional attachment and engagement).

Aaker’s Brand Loyalty Pyramid outlines five types of consumer behaviour, corresponding to five different types of brand loyalty in increasing order. The goal is to move consumers up from the lower sections of the pyramid to the summit, where connection with a brand is at its most intense. At the bottom of the pyramid are the switchers, who are not loyal to the brand and will therefore opt for one brand or another depending on factors such as availability, promotion and price. Above them are the satisfied users, who purchase a brand because of habit but who would happily switch to a different one if they had to, and one level up are the satisfied buyers with switching costs, who stick to a brand because the costs of switching would be higher than the acquired benefits. Above these are the brand likers, who prefer a brand largely on the basis of emotional benefits they get from the brand in question, but who will also have more rational reasons for their preference (e.g. price or quality). Finally, at the top of the model are the committed buyers, for whom the brand has become tied with their experiences and values.

What these models have in common is the shared belief that, in order to generate and increase loyalty, a brand has to create a powerful connection with its consumers. A positive attitude towards a brand is not enough and it has to develop into a high level of engagement, as the brand has to become an integral part of people’s lives in such a way that no other brand will fulfil the same emotional purpose. Converting more people into this type of consumers is highly desirable as these are the ones who will be most vocal and enthusiastic about their emotional attachment and go on to be successful brand advocates. In the context of brand loyalty, the absolute importance of the emotional dimension over more rational considerations is universally acknowledged, yet what is largely missing from the existing literature is a clear link with market research techniques.

What brands need now is a reliable measurement method which will enable them to identify exactly what stage they occupy on the brand loyalty continuum. Highlighting the practical implications of each step on the brand loyalty scale, creating brand “health checks” and troubleshooting procedures to address any issues and establishing guidelines that should be implemented to take the consumers further along the loyalty path is the next big challenge for brand managers.