Have You Ever Switched Brands?
Have you ever switched brands?
Some believe that brand loyalty is going the way of the bag phone. There are 50 ways to leave your lover and one thousand ways to leave a brand.
We heavily rely on rewards programs and discounts to drive, or better yet, buy “loyalty.”
It seems as if a poor product or service experience drives people to switch brands. More than 30% said they changed brands because an organization lied about its products or services. If your brand promise is hyperbole or a bald-faced lie, it will cause people to scatter to other brand options.
Maybe we should be focusing less on loyalty and more on relevance. In this case, messaging is critical to success. You need to make sure your brand and your branding align with why people use your services or buy your products.
So, is your marketing true? Are there real benefits to the user? Do you have a brand promise that you genuinely promise to your stakeholders?
Sure, there are many non-messaging reasons people switch brands, from losing data to poor treatment of employees. But you can minimize some of the loss by being authentic and honest with your marketing.
Brand loyalty may not be as dead as some believe. It may be really sick because of all the hyperbole and lies told in marketing materials.
It takes some deep organizational soul-searching to find your genuine promise. And the easy answer is never the truth.
Poor product experience may appear to be the leading cause of switching brands, but the devil is in the messaging for me.
Mark Mathis III is the chief creative & strategy officer, partner and co-founder of AMPERAGE Marketing & Fundraising.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.