Loyalty can't die
Nielsen recently announced that “disloyalty is the new black.” Great sentiment, except that loyalty never was in vogue. Their “staggering” survey results show that “only” about 9% of people say they’re brand loyal.
The thing is, decades of data show that brand loyalty lives more in marketer’s heads than in shopper behavior. Most people have a set of brands they switch back & forth between based on sales, availability, flavors, and other normal things. Once in a while, they even try something new.
There’s a small minority who actually do only buy one brand all the time. But a) lots of them are only buying once this year (or quarter or whatnot), so they are de facto “loyal”. And b) lots of them won’t be “loyal” next year.
A 2014 study analyzed the habits of thousands of US & UK shoppers for up to 13 years and across 26 grocery categories. (source: https://bit.ly/33264h5) By several measures, “loyalty” hasn’t plummeted; in some instances it went up. What was clear, however, was that “loyalty” is the exception, and brand switching is normal.
Disloyalty's not the new black. It's always been in style.