What Does It Take To Create A ‘Loved’ Retail Brand?

A new study carried out by Energy PR (amongst over 100 top marketeers), – has identified what it takes to create a ‘great’ brand, and what is needed to be a ‘loved’ brand. 

Thanks to Energy PR‘s research, ‘love’ for a brand has a huge impact on customer’s loyalty to a retailer, as well as their likelihood to recommend it to others.

People who ‘love’ a brand, are three times more likely to recommend it and will tolerate that brand making twice as many mistakes before taking their custom elsewhere. According to the ‘Brand Love’ report, a retailer that is ‘loved,’ can mess up up to five times and still keep its customers’ loyalty. 

According to the marketing experts, contrary to popular opinion, being original isn’t that important when it comes to greatness.  Despite the success of innovative retailers such as Apple and IKEA, only 17 % of marketers think that uniqueness is important, and just 1 in 10 (11 %) believe a brand’s greatness is determined by its level of innovation. 

Instead, they argue that the key ingredients for greatness are trust (60 %), and how a brand makes a consumer feel (58 %). These out-perform even practical considerations such as customer support (34 %), and value for money (33 %).

But even if a brand achieves ‘greatness,’ this is no guarantee that it will be loved, according to the Brand Love report.  To be ‘loved,’ involves a greater level of intimacy: over half of the marketers studied suggested that a loved brand is aligned to customer’s values (55 %), and it must be a part of their life according to 42 %. 

Over a third (38 %) went further, adding that such a brand needs to be closely tied with the customer’s identity.

Interestingly, the list of brands that marketers feel 100% committed to is dominated by the larger retailers, with Amazon, Tesco, Asda, Apple and Nike all appearing in the top 10. However, the ‘Brand Love’ report also identifies intriguing quirks of consumer behaviour which retailers must consider. 

Firstly, many could be mistaking apathy for loyalty as, according to the study, consumers are incredibly apathetic – and willing to tolerate an average of two mistakes from even an ordinary brand before being compelled to shop around. This passivity could be enabling a lot of inferior customer service to go unpunished.  

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The flip side is that once such passive customers are eventually lost, winning them back will be incredibly difficult.

‘Brand Love’ also identifies a ‘recommender gene,’ which some people simply do or don’t have, and which will overrule how they feel about a brand. For instance, even among the consumers who love a brand, 10 % will still not recommend it (or any other). 

Contrarily 30 % of people who are not that committed to any brand will still happily recommend brands to others, with H&M and Apple amongst those most likely to be recommended.

When it comes to the most common mistakes brands make on the path to greatness and love, these centre around neglecting the feelings of customers by focussing solely on new customers (58 %), forgetting current customers (54 %), being inconsistent with messaging (28 %), failing to understand customers properly (28 %) and not being authentic (27 %).

Louise Findlay-Wilson, the Managing Director of Energy PR, which conducted the study commented:

A key take away from our research is that the best brands aren’t necessarily great innovators, but, if you read between the lines, they are all great communicators…a consumer may tolerate a retailer they love messing up, but they won’t tolerate it neglecting them in favour of new customers. That’s a massive betrayal of that all-important trust. That’s why great communications remain key.’

The brands the 100 top marketers love the most are:

  1. Apple
  2. Nike
  3. Adidas
  4. Sky
  5. Samsung
  6. L’Oréal
  7. Amazon
  8. E.on
  9. Tesco
  10. Asda

You can find out more about Energy PR here.