Why do consumers switch brands Needs and expectations must be monitored constantly

Why do consumers switch brands?
Needs and expectations must be monitored constantly
ver since farmers began burning identification marks on their animals thousands of
years ago, branding has been an integral part of commerce. In more recent times,
as manufacturers were able to offer a wide selection of products either locally,
regionally or globally, having a brand to distinguish their wares from something similar
made by a competitor became important.
E
As more brands appeared within the same market sector and when competitors’ quality
improved, standard advertising methods were found to be lacking and the concept of
brand management was born. Procter & Gamble was at the forefront of creating and using
this market strategy with the foundation, in 1931, of a brand management department in
which a team was devoted to reflect on every feature of a single brand.
This team was responsible to study data from each market to understand target consumers
and offer them a functional and emotional value. Over time, if the brand proved to be good,
consumers perceived it as superior value to its competitors and they would pay more for it.
Since then, brand management has helped many companies to outshine their rivals.
Success in the market was determined by understanding the consumer better than the
competitors did, and this required the brand management team controlling a complex
system, including coordinating different activities between marketing and manufacturing
departments, research and development, advertising, promotion and distribution.
Companies began looking for new branding strategies to distinguish themselves from
competitors, which led to USA television advertising executive Rosser Reeves developing
the unique selling proposition, suggesting that “Differentiation is one of the most important
strategic and tactical activities in which companies must constantly engage”.
Brands became something more than just a product
With intensive competition between companies who were prepared to advertise heavily to
showcase their offerings, brands became something more than just a product, becoming
more like a contract between the company and customers. And if a consumer believed a
company was “in breach of contract” either by underperforming or not delivering on what
was promised – in other words the brand lost trust – the consumer could elect to take his
or her custom elsewhere. Hence, the need for the reasons and likelihood of “brand
switching” to be understood.
In a exploration of the antecedents of brand switching among consumers and the impact
on companies, Dr Osama Sam Al-Kwifi of the Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Saudi
Arabia, and Dr Zafar U. Ahmed of the Lebanese American University, Beirut, demonstrate
that brand switching is influenced by different factors based on the product/service/
industry concerned, and there is no single model to cope with the complexities of this
DOI 10.1108/SD-08-2015-0129
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situation. Furthermore, there is evidence that factors behind brand switching behavior can
be different across the product lifecycle, once it is launched to market and during the utility
stage. This means that consumers’ perception of a brand could vary from the early
technology adoption stage to the point of fully exploring its capabilities.
Importance of tracking social networks and discussion boards
As attractive brands live and die by the will of market consumers, companies must
constantly collect information about consumers’ behavior and culture and develop a map
for building a better brand, one that is alive and moving based on learning consumers’
needs and expectations. For example, when Apple introduced the “iPhone” brand, it was
the most attractive smartphone in the market, causing significant consumer switching from
other brands including Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Later, Samsung continued to
learn more about consumer tastes and needs, which helped it launch a more attractive
brand, “Galaxy”. Samsung differentiated its smartphone with different features, big screens
and a successful marketing strategy through which it offers different options of brand new
smartphones targeting different consumers, including low-end smartphones for the
developing world.
The study demonstrates that research on brand switching should continue to investigate,
across different industries, and using numerous factors, the influence of various factors on
consumer behavior toward replacing a brand. Although many managers claim they have
the knowledge of how to make their brands attractive, in reality they have to conduct
frequent market research analyses to learn from competitors and consumers. Managers
should not rely on their existing knowledge to predict how to make an attractive brand
because research shows that consumers and suppliers claim different perceptions of the
determinants of brand switching. Determining what makes a brand attractive is therefore a
critical matter when defining the appropriate strategy to prevent market share from eroding.
Exploring issues from diverse perspectives
Al-Kwifi and Ahmed (2015) propose a continuing exploration of the influence of online
technology, such as social networks and discussion boards, to monitor how consumers
describe and discuss their personal experience with a brand: how they utilize it daily, how
it adds value, what they like and dislike about the brand and what features they would like
to see in future products. Such information represents an excellent source of new ideas to
improve brand value as well as to discover the reasons why competitor brands might be
more attractive to consumers. This interactive tracking system has proved to be highly
efficient for certain industries, such as the hotel and tourism sectors, in which users are
asked to provide feedback.
Many companies are tracking this information about their own and competitors’ brands to
enable them to develop strategies that improve their brand image in the market. These
tracking systems are a good source of information about consumers’ interest in and ideas
about most products and services. For high technology products, however, where the rate
of technological change is high and technology standards are difficult to determine,
defining consumers’ optimum preferences is a challenging task: preferences change
constantly while each product represents a unique feature that might achieve different
objectives. Therefore, selecting the optimal preferences for products requires collecting
As attractive brands live and die by the will of market
consumers, companies must constantly collect information
about consumers’ behavior and culture.
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VOL. 31 NO. 11 2015
Although many managers claim they have the knowledge of
how to make their brands attractive, in reality they have to
conduct frequent market research analyses to learn from
competitors and consumers.
information from multiple sources and defining the most critical product features that would
make the brand attractive to consumers.
Given that brand switching behavior is a dynamic and complex process, it is important that
future research explores this issue from diverse perspectives and introduces new
approaches to interpret this behavior.
Comment
Keywords:
Consumer behavior,
Brands,
Brand switching,
Perceived value,
Product features
This review is based on “An intellectual journey into the historical evolution of marketing
research in brand switching behavior – past, present and future” by Al-Kwifi and Ahmed
(2015). In addition to exploring the advancement of brands throughout history and the
development of brand-switching literature, the authors emphasize the need for continuous
exploration of consumers’ preferences to create and sustain attractive and desirable
brands.
Reference
Al-Kwifi, O.S. and Ahmed, Z.U. (2015), “An intellectual journey into the historical evolution of marketing
research in brand switching behavior – past, present and future”, Journal of Management History,
Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 172-193.
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