The Importance Of Loyalty

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Different scholars have attempted to define a brand differently. One of the more common interpretations is that a brand is represented by a name, symbol, words, or mark that identifies and distinguishes a product or company, from its competitors (Chernatory, & Dall’Olmo, 1998, as cited in Baines, Fill, Page, & Sinha, 2013). These scholars tend to convey that such symbolic definitions are the key element in maintaining the company’s relationship with its customers and usually reflect customer perception about a product. Fournier (1998) argues that brands could be seen as a relationship partner, and a way to legitimize the brand-as-partner view is to highlight ways in which brands are animated, humanized, and personalized. The scholar also revealed…show more content…
Later, Oliver (1999) argued that brand loyalty involves four phases formed in a progressive manner in the order of cognitive loyalty, affective loyalty, conation loyalty, and action loyalty. Cognitive loyalty refers to the loyalty which is largely influenced by the consumer’s evaluative response to an experience. Here, consumers relatively evaluate the product and its price. Similarly, affective loyalty is a favorable attitude towards a specific brand exhibited through a preference or attraction to that brand but does not always leads to the purchase. Conation loyalty is stronger than affective loyalty where consumers are more likely to shift to the alternative products in case they face frequent service failures. Action loyalty, on the other hand, is displaced through the preference or attraction to a specific brand that leads to…show more content…
In the words of the scholars, hard core loyal consumers are those who buy the same brand all the time, split loyal consumers are those who are loyal to two or more brands at the same time, shifting loyal consumers are those who are loyal to one brand for a period of time, but easily shifting to another brand due to certain advantages offered by the new brand, switchers are those who show no loyalty to any brand, switching the brand with almost any buying situation and habitual loyal consumers are those who have no particular reason to change the brand. The different components of the brand such as a name, symbol, logo, works, mark, or package design that identifies and differentiates it are brand elements (Keller, Parameswaran, & Jacob, 2015). The most common forms of brand elements are brand names, URLs, logos, symbols, package design and slogans. The scholar also explained that in the process of creating a brand, marketers tend to have different choices regarding the number and nature of the brand elements they use to identify and distinguish their

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