Jenni Romaniuk

“The ‘penetration versus loyalty’ debate The implications of the Laws of Growth are often reduced to a ‘penetration versus loyalty’ debate, where two paths enter the arena but only one will triumph. This is a false dichotomy. In the early days, Andrew Ehrenberg converted this into a ‘penetration-rules’ message as a provocative way to counter the ‘loyalty loyalists’ at the time. It has never been either/or but both, but not equally. Brands grow by having (many) more buyers who buy the brand (a little) more (as outlined in How Brands Grow, Sharp 2010). A simple ‘penetration-rules’ message works in practice because marketing activities that are able to affect very light/non-buyers usually also impact current buyers of the brand. Brand buyers are more likely to notice advertising for brands they use than brands they don’t (e.g., Vaughan et al. 2016). Therefore, reaching the ‘hard to reach’ gets you those buyers and everyone else too. ‘Loyalty loyalists’ are yet to provide convincing evidence that tactics aimed at building loyalty will also result in acquisition/penetration growth. The clear story about how brands grow does not mean it is easy to grow brands. It just means we know what success looks like. It is up to us how quickly we travel down that path, or if we take time and resource-consuming detours. Does that mean we ignore current brand buyers? When a brand grows, loyalty also grows, just at a much lower rate than penetration. This means that understanding the impact of marketing activity on current buyers is also important, because marketing activity has a role in staving off a sales decline (more on this in Chapter 11). A buyer can decrease their brand purchases if there is: preference change – I previously liked it, now I don’t.
A decline in preference is a conscious process and so is easier to pick up via direct questioning (more on this in Chapter 8 on Brand Attitude). memory erosion – I forgot about it.
Memory erosion is a gradual process that happens when memory is not refreshed. This makes it harder to notice or survey, as we rarely remember what we have forgotten (more on this in Chapter 5 on Mental Availability).”
― Jenni Romaniuk, Better Brand Health eBook