Well it matters to me!

How many marketers think that people don't really care what brand of "whatever you sell" they buy or use? Let's challenge your thinking on that on that.

But first think about this for a moment. Have you ever been shopping for something where you have a favourite brand and you can't find that brand? Your spouse says "why don't you just grab that other brand - it's even on sale". You say "No!" Your spouse says "Why does it matter?" and you respond "Because it matters to me!"

My experience has so far been that in every category I've researched there are people who care a great deal, as well as those who don't care at all what brand or supplier they use. Even something as seemingly simple as a brand of hairpins has brand proponents. I grant you it may not be a large number of people who care (in the case of hairpins) but there will be some. And I've seen people who don't care at all in categories where most people do care a great deal.

Why does this matter? It matters because you need to know whether or not people care in your category because whether or not a person continues to purchase from you and how you deal with consumers will need to adapt to people who care and don't care.

People who really don't care which brand they buy or use often switch brands easily (and more often) than those who do care because there is no emotional attachment to the brand. This raises an important point - getting past the ways we use language in marketing. When consultants talk about emotional involvement or emotional components of loyalty/commitment, they are really talking about things related to a brand that we care about. Using a specific brand matters - it is important and this reflects an emotional dimension to loyalty. If you want to ask more questions about emotions to try to determine what sort of emotions are in play that is fine but you only need to ask how important something is to determine whether or not emotions are active in driving brand loyalty.

So how do you manage people who don't care? First understand why they don't care. Is it because they just don't see the category as very important? Or is it because they cannot see any meaningful difference between brands? Or is it even because they like more than one product/supplier in the category and any one of them is acceptable (e.g. it matters that their purchase be one of a small set of acceptable alternatives)?

Now try to influence how people feel by trying to make either the brand or the category more important to consumers. You might not succeed but the effort is probably worthwhile. If you can't succeed you need to manage the brand differently. In most cases you need to manage the brand at the point of sale since consumers who don't care don't look for brand information (e.g. they are not looking for and are less likely to pay any attention to advertising or promotions that are not point of sale). You also need to ensure that your brand is easy to find, always available and easy to acquire. People who don't care switch easily so you can't let anything interfere with their getting your brand.

If you are a service rather than a product the implications are basically the same although there are unique applications. People who don't care can often be habitually loyal - that is they continue to purchase or use without really thinking about it. That is all well and good but it is also potentially dangerous to you. If anything upsets this sort of person they are less likely to complain or give you a chance to fix whatever it is that has upset them. Because they don't really care and feel no real attachment they simply change providers at the first opportunity (so a contract may hold them for a while but that is temporary).

Finally we need to deal with one way some have tried to manage loyalty and that is through the use of "rewards" programs. Many categories and brands benefit from rewards programs but many others do not and some have asked why they don't get benefits. People who don't care about brands in a category or even about the category itself are not drawn to rewards programs and even if you manage to get them enrolled they often don't care enough to try to earn or claim a reward. So, before launching a reward program to encourage loyalty find out why people change providers / brands. It's something you should care about.

The Take Aways

The appropriate response strategy to build loyalty or attraction needs to be based on understanding what is undermining brand loyalty. If brand loyalty is weak because people don't care what brand they use you can manage the relationship by...

1. Ensuring that nothing (availability, price etc.) gets in the way of purchase
2. Relying more on point of sale marketing as this is the only place where consumers are more likely to notice brand information
3. Trying to differentiate your brand (which provides a reason to care)
4. Raise the importance of brand choice overall by increasing the importance of the category itself

The last three points above relate to giving buyers reasons to care.