Brand Loyalty, Blogging and Contact Lenses

I have a recent experience with Brand Loyalty that I want to share.

For many years I have worn contacts and my eye doctor always subscribed the J&J Accuvue lens. Recently I changed eye doctors for convenience and insurance purposes and my new doctor subscribed a lens that provided more oxygen and would be better for my eyes. Long story short, I was not happy with this lens so my doctor put me in another brand.

During my trial of different brands, I had the opportunity to meet with our client at J&J who owns the Accuvue brand and most recently launched the Oasys brand. My company, Biz360, tracks trends and issues in the eye care industry as well as specific brands such as Vistakon's Oasys and their competitors. As I was discussing his needs in building awareness around the Oasys brand, I felt exposed in the brand of lens I was wearing at the time... A loyalty of reciprocity I value.

After 3 visits, my doctor finally gave me a sample of the J&J Oasys lens. Ironically, I felt it best met my needs. I have subsequently met with my doctor and we mutually decided this was the brand for me. Why did it take 3 attempts to get her to recommend this lens? It was clearly the winner in my eye comfort and overall experience.

I write about this because I wonder, did my loyalty to J&J drive me to this conclusion or did I truly experience more comfort with this brand? I believe I was objective through the process, as if I was part of a market research project. But, why did it take my eye doctor 3 tries before she recommended the Oasys brand? Did the other manufacturers offer higher margins? Spiffs?

The relevance here is brand loyalty. For whatever reason you feel an affinity to a specific brand, you will select that brand due to your loyalty. Depending on your personality and influence in your social circle, you could also effect others decision to select that brand. If that loyalty is broken due to product quality, customer experience or unreasonable pricing, that's when you turn a promoter to passive - or worse to a detractor. This may be the case with Shel's posting of United Airlines recently.

People attach to brands, your experience with the brand will move the barometer from these key loyalty measures. Mining blogs offers organizations the opportunity to get unfiltered feedback on brand loyalty that can guide strategy and effect future growth.

Are you listening? I expect my colleagues at J&J are....