Apple took three of the five top positions and Amazon the other two in Brand Keys Inc. Customer Loyalty Leader List 2012. Companies in multiple categories like Apple (tablet, smartphone, computer) and Amazon (tablet and online retail) could be listed multiple times. The list ranks loyalty for the top 100 brands, out of the 598 brands assessed in 83 industry categories.
Rounding out the top 10 on the list are Samsung (tablet and cell phone), sixth and eighth; Call of Duty, seventh; Halo, ninth; and Twitter.
Brank Keys president and founder Robert Passikoff said that there were five primary factors separating the loyalty leaders from the also-rans:
1. Have a better sense of what is driving category: This is different from category to category, because the drivers for smartphones are quite different from the drivers for department stores, said Passikoff. Apple, which led all loyalty leaders in the rankings, understood that design and innovation was the difference market in the tablet category.
2. Work from a category perspective rather than a brand perspective: People use brands to organize categories. For example Call of Duty, seventh on the list, focused on the story telling and interaction of the category.
3. Know where expectations lie: This includes understanding a consumer’s real expectations, not stated expectations. Apple, ranked fifth on the list (computers), understands that its customers aren’t most concerned about price, though a survey of computer users might have price ranked first or second.
4. Stand for something beyond the category: Consumers have to identify with the company, so a campaign like “runs on Dunkin’” (Dunkin Donuts, 17th on the list) helps build an identity that resonates with consumers.
5. Understand consumers: Plenty of ideas get produced “in the lab,” Passikoff says. But any marketing theory or campaign has to work in actual usage. Netflix discovered this when changing its pricing model a couple of years ago.
“There are a couple of things that are going on that are interrelated with the leaders,” Passikoff said. “In order to have any real loyalty, the consumer needs to have some level of engagement with the brand. When people talk about engagement, things like knowledge of the existence of the brand enough is not enough. That’s mid-20th century thinking.”
Passikoff added that simple brand awareness has to be taken as a given in today’s information-rich market. But in order to have truly loyal customers, brands have to be able to key into customer’s emotional values in different categories.
Related Article: State of the Industry: Electing Brand Leaders