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The study investigates the long-term erosion of repeat-purchase loyalty among consumers who purchase brands in a one-year base period.

The study uses a five-year consumer panel of continuous reporters. We identify brand buyers in a base year, then calculate the proportion that fail to buy the brand in later years. We analyse the top 20 brands in 10 consumer goods categories.

We find pronounced erosion in repeat-buying over the long-term. The proportion of buyers from a base year that fail to buy in a later year increases steadily over time, from 57% in year 2 to 71.5% by year 5. Moreover, we identify brand and marketing mix factors linked to this over-time customer loss or erosion.

The study provides evidence that consumers’ propensity to buy particular brands changes over a period of years, even though those brands continue to exhibit a stable market share. This evidence provides a different interpretation than the literature to date, which has viewed purchase propensities as fixed.

The study finds that store brands and niche brands exhibit lower levels of erosion in their buyer base; that a broad range is associated with lower erosion, and that high price promotion incidence is associated with lower erosion for manufacturer brands.

Loyalty erosion has been reported before (Ehrenberg, 1988; East and Hammond, 1996) but only over short periods. This study examines the phenomenon over five years, confirms that the rate of erosion does diminish over time, and that it is related to category and brand characteristics, as well as marketing mix decisions.

New product introductions, particularly line extensions (LEs), are common in consumer goods categories. Despite their commonality, the success of LEs are not guaranteed. The purpose of this study is to provide brands that introduce LEs a benchmark about what success to expect.

This study investigates the success of 36,994 LEs in each quarter for the first three years after introduction. Four indicators are calculated using consumer panel data to benchmark how long LEs survive (failure rate), how competitive they are in the category (market share) and how they are adopted by category buyers (penetration and repeat buyer rate).

Most LEs survive after the first year, but many cease to exist or perform well in the long term. Around 50% of LEs fail a year after launch, but this failure rate halves once seasonal LEs are removed. Failure rates start to approach 80% after three years. Most LEs do not perform better than existing products. Around three in four LEs have a market share or penetration near or below the category norm. Although this percentage decreases the longer after launch, most LEs are still below the category norm.

These new product success benchmarks provide guidelines to practitioners about what success the “typical” LE will achieve. This research can help guide new product investment decisions because it provides context on what is feasible to achieve.

Four market success measures are used, a departure from past benchmarking research which uses practitioner evaluation on metrics seldom used in practice. The authors provide guidelines about when and how to measure LE and new product success more broadly.

This paper aims to investigate the extent to which temporary price promotions attract people who do not normally buy a brand, and whether buyers change their propensity to buy the promoted brand afterwards.

The study analyses promotions in 18 consumer goods categories in the UK and USA. It calculates the proportion of promotion purchasers that have bought a brand at least once in their last five purchases and the Share of Category Requirements of those purchasers. These figures are then compared to normal-price purchasers.

The study finds the majority of price-promotion buyers already bought the brand at least once in their last five category purchases (average = 77 per cent). This figure is similar to that for normal-price purchases (average = 81 per cent). Average Household SCR to the brand is also very similar for price-promotion purchases compared to normal price purchases. Therefore, promotions do not attract a markedly different mix of buyers. Furthermore, buyer propensity to buy the brand is the same after a promotion purchase as it was before.

A contribution of the paper is that it supports a theory of consumers as cognitive misers, who screen out promotion information about unfamiliar brands. The paper also highlights that in packaged-goods markets, consumers can be generally seen as experienced buyers, who do not learn new information from buying brands they have previously purchased.

The managerial implication is that price promotions must be judged on their immediate profitability. There seems little recourse to the idea they can result in “try it, like it, buy it again later” effects.

While many studies have examined the effects of price promotions, this is the first to explicitly compare the mix of buyers attracted from a price promotion to that which occurs when a brand is sold at normal price.

This study examines the extent to which brand-level satisfaction scores are related to loyalty metrics, controlling for the double jeopardy effect as well as the demographic profile of the brand’s customer base.

The study uses data for brands in three UK financial services categories: banks, car/home insurance, and life insurance. Regression analysis is used to examine the relationships between brand size, satisfaction levels, demographic profiles, and loyalty.

Firstly, the study finds a strong “double jeopardy” association. That is, larger brands have more loyalty, both in terms of behavior and stated preference. Next, brands with higher satisfaction scores tend to have somewhat higher first-preference loyalty, controlling for the double jeopardy effect. There are mixed results in relation to satisfaction’s link to behavioral loyalty. Lastly, aspects of a brand’s demographic profile, particularly in terms of whether it skews towards high-income customers, are associated with somewhat lower loyalty metrics, both behavioral and conative.

The findings represent an original contribution by translating what have been to date principally individual-buyer level associations (between satisfaction, demographics and loyalty) into brand-level relationships that are arguably more relevant to managers who act on this level of reporting.

This study examines the association between behavioral loyalty and satisfaction scores for banks. Past work has generally viewed the link between satisfaction and loyalty to be one way – satisfaction causes or induces loyalty. This study suggests the relationship may not be just one-way, and that current loyal behavior towards banks (measured as using 1, 2 or 3 banks) may be related to satisfaction scores: the more banks used, the lower the satisfaction score.

The study employs large-scale survey data from the UK YouGov panel. It analyses satisfaction scores for 16 banks, from consumers who use either 1, 2 or 3 banks.

Banks receive lower satisfaction scores from their customers who use one other bank, compared to customers who do not use one other bank. Furthermore, users of two banks are less satisfied with either of them compared to users of one, and users of three banks are, on average, less satisfied with each of them compared to users of two.

The results will help managers and researchers better understand satisfaction scores. For example, part of the reason why a bank obtains low satisfaction scores could be that it has a large proportion of dual or multi-bank customers. Next, knowing that satisfaction scores differ according to the number of banks currently used may contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the link between satisfaction and future loyalty.

The study is highly original in proposing a novel hypothesis relating to bank usage and how it relates to satisfaction scores.

This paper aims to investigate factors associated with higher or lower television audience retention from one programme aired sequentially after another, referred to as lead-in audience retention. Lead-in is a primary determinant of television programme audience size.

The study models a series of factors linked to lead-in audience retention, such as rating of the second programme, genre match and competitor options. The hypothesised relationships are tested across over 1,000 pairs of programmes aired in the UK and Australia, using multivariate linear regression models.

The study finds the factors consistently related to significantly higher lead-in audience retention are the rating of the second programme in the pair and news genre match in programming. Factors consistently linked to lower audience retention include the rating of the initial programme and the number of competitor options starting at the same time as the second programme.

The findings help television networks understand drivers of lead-in audience retention. Knowledge that can be used to inform the design of tailored marketing plans for programmes based on schedule, timing and adjacent programming. Further, the findings help advertisers and media buyers with scheduling television advertising to achieve reach or frequency objectives.

No previous studies have comprehensively combined all four factors driving lead-in audience retention into a single model. The testing across multiple markets adds to the robustness of the findings. In particular, the discoveries about the impact of competitor network activities and genre build considerably on past research.

The aim of this study is to identify why some brand buyers are satisfied, but are not necessarily loyal.

Based on prior literature, this study posits and tests nine potential reasons for why some satisfied buyers are loyal, and others are not. The factors examined are: distribution intensity, familiarity, popularity, customer satisfaction levels, category experience, variety-seeking, service design fit, satisfaction advantages (consumers having higher satisfaction for one brand versus others) and loyalty advantages (consumers showing higher loyalty for one brand versus others). The authors use the context of food retailing, focusing on the fast-food industry in the State of Kuwait.

The authors find that approximately 70% of fast-food brand users are satisfied, but only 28% of those satisfied users can be classified as highly loyal. While overall, the study finds satisfaction is positively correlated with individual-level buyer loyalty, analysis also finds that brand popularity, overall customer satisfaction levels, experience, variety-seeking, satisfaction advantages and loyalty advantages are factors that explain why many customers are satisfied, but do not have high levels of loyalty.

This study makes a novel and original contribution in assessing a broad range of factors that help explain why many satisfied buyers are not necessarily also loyal. The findings will assist managers to contextualize their firm’s performance on satisfaction and loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to examine what happens to key brand performance metrics as brands change in market share, in the context of packaged goods. The metrics are: penetration—the number of buyers a brand has; and loyalty—measured as purchase frequency (PF) and share of category requirements (SCR).

The study utilizes 24 data sets in 17 packaged goods categories in three emerging markets: China, Malaysia and Indonesia. The authors examine changes in penetration, loyalty and SCR in the context of volume and value market share change. In addition, the authors examine whether initial price point and price movements influence the results.

The primary finding is that market share change is accompanied by a greater change in penetration than in any other metric. This finding is very consistent across categories and countries. The relative importance of the two loyalty metrics varies by country. SCR was a stronger factor in Indonesia, while PF was stronger in Malaysia. Analysis indicated that pricing strategy (initial price and promotional depth) did not alter the main pattern of results, suggesting the results hold for brands with different price levels and tactics.

Irrespective of circumstance, to grow in value or volume market share, brands should aim to grow in penetration, while the importance of changes in specific loyalty measures depends on market conditions.

This research extends past research on brand growth to the very different economic, geographic and cultural conditions of three crucially important emerging markets. Its main value lies in recommendations on how much to invest in building the size of the customer base vs consumer retention.

There is increasing managerial and academic interest in understanding behavioural loyalty to private label (PL) brands. A widely used behavioural loyalty measure is share of category requirements, or “SCR”. This study aims to examine why some PLs enjoy higher levels of SCR compared to others.

The study models consumer purchase data using the well-accepted NBD-Dirichlet model to identify the circumstances in which PL brands exhibit higher (“excess”) or lower SCR than expected.

The study finds four factors linked to excess SCR for PLs. They are: higher share of overall category sales accounted for by the PL within the retailer's stores, higher penetration of the category by the retailer, low relative price of the PL, and lastly, lower average purchase frequency for the category overall.

While the study uses 13 product categories, its geographic scope is limited to the UK. Further research could examine how the findings generalize to other markets.

The study is original in that it identifies factors that are linked to behavioural loyalty toward specific PL brands. The findings will help marketers in brand management and retailing to understand and contextualize brand performance metrics for PL brands.

This study responds to the call of Fader and Hardie for more research on buyer behaviour toward stock keeping units (SKU). This paper aims to examine whether different SKU‐based product variants appeal to buyers with different demographic characteristics.

This study examines the product variants (such as size, formulation, type) of a range of brands in six consumer goods categories. The authors calculate and compare the market share of each variant within each demographic group. If a variant has a higher market share within a specific demographic group than the overall average, this indicates segmentation at the product variant level.

The findings show that there are many differences in the market shares of product variants among different demographic groups of buyers. The largest differences are found extensively within the age and employment status variables.

Functionally different product variants tend to draw different demographic‐based segments of buyers, which has not been previously shown.