How consumers are seeking identity through brand choices & loyalty

How consumers are seeking identity through brand choices & loyalty

Branding & PR

Neha Yaduvanshi

Neha Yaduvanshi

283 week ago — 6 min read

The revolution in the marketing industry is strongly influenced by the way a brand promotes itself. Today there are a variety of brands available for consumers to make their shopping experience a fulfilling one. Ranging from economic brands to high-end brands, consumers have a multitude of options available to get associated with a brand.

 

But there is one single thread that is commonly associated with the sale of all brands i.e. an emotional connect with the brand that a consumer develops over time, after several purchases.

 

Let us consider a wonderful example here — say someone who had one or a few bad experiences with an online marketplace won’t go back to their site despite remarkable offers and will switch to some other e-commerce portal. In this manner, the consumer has developed a sense of affection with another e-marketplace as the bad experience was immediately ratified with a new experience and satisfaction from the new platform, and has secretly promised to not to go back to any other seller. This trend of emotional connection with the brand because of great loyalty or customer care behavioural perspective highly influence the choice of the consumer.

 

This act of making a brand a trend takes a lot of deliberation and a powerful message that spreads prosperity, not ambiguity. Recently, a high notch apparel brand apologized for an online ad depicting a black child in a sweatshirt with text reading “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle.” Since this act of marketing spread a racial remark against the people of the black community. The impact of the advertisement was so high that the apparel giant had to remove the image from a very popular fast fashion retailers’ UK site. To maintain and keep their customers intact an apology note too has been delivered fast in the media, a report said:

 

“We sincerely apologize for this image,” the company said in a statement. “It has been removed from all online channels and the product will not be for sale in the United States. We believe in diversity and inclusion in all that we do.”

 

This consideration is not only limited to one specific brand, any manufacturer who goes off beat and showcases anything which is against humanity or human values is criticized heavily. The impact of this kind of negative fame is such that the sales will go down rapidly if the company fails to take action immediately.

 

Let’s look at a similar case that happened at one of the popular yet economic beauty brands in the world. Women all over the world prefer this brand over other facial bars, shampoos and body washes simply because: It’s a world-renowned brand and because of it’s creative pictorial advertisement, consumers trust the brand and are loyal to it.

 

But despite such consumer reach and brand trust, its wrong marketing stunt electrocuted its sales. In October 2017, in a Facebook ad for it’s body wash, a black woman removes her brown shirt and — voilà! Underneath is a white woman in a light shirt. The advertisement sparked a lot of negative fumes following which the brand removed the advertisement from its official page.

 

Crucial factors that make consumers incline towards a specific brand

 

Emotional connect with the brand: One of the prime reasons behind a brand’s intact consumer reach is that using a particular product year after year builds an emotional connection in the heart of the consumers. If we talk about India’s first and most famous fairness cream out there, we observe that there are an infinite number of women buyers who tend to invest in this cream, despite the fact that there so many other options available in the market at the same price.

 

Brand Loyalty: There are few brands in the market that never go out of style despite the competition, because people have the utmost trust in their products. Biscuit companies and multi-purpose ayurvedic product legacy companies are highly popular in the Indian market because of their year-long trust distribution.

 

Good Customer Care services: Another prime factor that comes into action when it comes to brand inclination is how responsive is the brand’s customer care service. If we talk about birth contraceptive pills, there are a range of contraceptive pills available in the Indian market. But a few brands like “I-Pill” are the ones which are sold mostly in the Indian market, only because they have very understanding customer care representatives on the bench with them.

 

Exciting offers and Referral Programs: Consumers find great offers, end of season sale discounts and other such marketing strategies highly magnetic. 

 

Voucher and coupon codes: Many brands associate with banks and online channels and give promotional vouchers for occasions and coupon code which is also a great way to attract customers.

 

Brand’s innovative experiments with advertisements: Advertisements is what makes your brand visible and a great advertisement campaign determines the sales factor for any brand.

 

Quality products, services and values: Last but not least, if the products or services do not hold quality or quantity measures, powerful advertisements or pre-built trust can fall rapidly!

 

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, official policy or position of GlobalLinker. 

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Neha Yaduvanshi

I am Neha Yaduvanshi and I am founder of Vastada Consulting. I am dedicated to- 1.Enabling senior executives to understand the bigger role of an organization. 2.Prepare...