Beyond brand loyalty: Brand sustainability

Abstract

Historically, measures of brand value have focused on brand awareness, customer brand equity and measured brand loyalty. While useful, these generally provide little visibility for the future of the brand. A new measure, brand sustainability, is proposed, described and illustrated. Drawing on over 1 million responses to online customer questionnaires, over a 10-year period, covering brands in 73 FMCG product categories, we create, illustrate and demonstrate a brand sustainability measure. That measure consists of brand share of preference, a calculation of their average annual growth rate. That is then compared to the consumer-stated no brand preference in that category. Net promoter scores are used to support those calculations. Findings show that manufacturer brands are challenged, not by private label, but by no brand preference in the category. Research suggestions are made on how to develop and use brand sustainability and the impact of that measure on future brand growth and development.

Keywords::

• brand loyalty
• future brand value
• net promoter scores
• no brand preference
• new brand measures

Notes

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Don E. Schultz

Don E. Schultz is Professor (Emeritus-in-Service) of Integrated Marketing Communication, Northwestern University. He holds a BBA from the University of Oklahoma and MA and PhD from Michigan State University. He is also president of the global marketing consultancy Agora, Inc. Don's articles have appeared in numerous trade journals, and he is author/co-author of 26 books. He was the founding editor of the Journal of Direct Marketing, the associate editor of the Journal of Marketing Communications and is one of the co-editors of the International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communication. He holds visiting professorships at Cranfield University in the UK, Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and Peking and Tsinghua Universities, Beijing.

Martin P. Block

Martin P. Block is a Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University, and is currently sector head for Entertainment and Gaming. Martin is co-author of Retail Communities: Customer-Driven Retailing; Media Generations; Analyzing Sales Promotion: Text & Cases: How to Profit from the New Power of Promotion Marketing and Business to Business Marketing Research. He has published in academic research journals, trade publications and has written several other book chapters. He has been the principal investigator on several federally funded research projects and has served as a consultant to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He was featured on the NOVA program ‘We Know Where You Live’. Martin received his BA, MA and PhD from Michigan State University.