People care less about brands

We love to believe that people love brands.

Marketers have been banging on for decades about "lovemarks" and similar ideas, that try to capture the idea that consumers are somehow brand loyal, for decades.

It's also common thinking that a certain kind of person is naturally attracted to just one brand alone - based on an alignment of values and personality traits with the stated values of the brand.

But these notions are bullshit.

Research done by Prof Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute in Australia demonstrates empirically that consumers actually think about, and care very little, for brands.

Brand loyalty is less useful to the long-term success of a brand than we assume it to be.

Normal people pay very little attention to brands at all and most are not consciously loyal to any one brand in a category.

Because of this and that there are far more "light buyers" and "non-buyers" available to a brand at any given time than marketers would normally care to admit, aiming to constantly acquire these new customers is a better strategy than one intent on trying to get loyal customers to buy more frequently.

It's not that loyalty doesn't exist, but a brand's scope to effectively influence the buying behaviour of loyal customers tends to follow rather predictable patterns and are not as controllable than what we would rather them to be.