Abstract:
Brand Loyalty on the part of the customers can be truly termed as a great asset of the particular brand. This is because, Brand Loyalty induces the customers to repurchase the same Brand Product even by paying higher prices and also generates new customers through recommendation of the existing loyal customers.
Brand Loyalty refers to that extent of commitment on the part of the customers which induce them to repurchase the same brand product, each time they require a product of that category. When Brand Loyalty to a particular product is present among the customers, in spite of availability of several brand products of the same category, they stick to their specific brand.
So, it is not at all surprising that, gaining Brand Loyalty is the ultimate aim of any Brand Marketing Strategy of any business house.
Brand Loyalty on the part of the customers helps a particular Brand to hold substantial volume of market share in a consistent manner. This in turn generates profit. Apart from this direct positive impact of Brand Loyalty, there are other indirect impacts too.
The customers who are not Brand Switchers and prefer to remain loyal to a single brand, recommends that particular Brand Product of their choice to other people. The advocacy and recommendations of these loyal customers increases the number of prospective customers for the particular brand.
However, the extent of Brand Loyalty differs. Depending on the extent, the loyal customers are sometimes categorized as Hard Core Loyal Customers and Soft Core Loyal Customers. Generally, the people who always stick to a single Brand Products are referred as Hard Core Loyal Customers and the people who are loyal to products of particular two or three Brands are known as Soft Core Loyal Customers.
But, one thing should be mentioned here that, repeat purchase of a particular Brand Product does not necessarily imply Brand Loyalty. It is possible that the customer is buying that Brand Product repeatedly because of some constraints like scarcity of feasible substitute products. In such case, the behavior of the customers are termed as Spurious Loyalty.