Why Habit beats Loyalty every time

A lot has been made of the concept of loyalty in marketing, but in recent years we've found out how much of an illusion this really is.

 

Kodak would have believed they had a lot of loyalty, so would have Nokia. Their marketing departments probably had great presentations that provided a comprehensive description of exactly how much loyalty they had. Unfortunately, they were probably using the wrong definition of loyalty.
 

The real definition of loyalty is:

Would a current consumer pay more, or suffer an inconvenience to continue to trade with you?

In 99% of cases the answer is no, they will not pay more, or suffer an inconvenience, so you don't have loyalty.

 

You have people that like you, certainly, and they probably have some emotional investment in your brand, but will this goodwill they have towards you withstand a better offering at a cheaper price?

This is being bluntly demonstrated by the disruption taking place across a multitude of industries, if a cheaper or easier alternative is offered, brand loyalty is exposed as a myth.

Habit on the other hand is much more resilient. If you have an automatic connection in the fast-thinking system which dominates most people’s behaviour you will be difficult to disrupt.

If you’d like to hear more about this get in touch and we can chat about Bell Kennedy’s Hooked process which builds the protection of habit around your brand.