In Conversation: Marketers are busy chasing loyalty, but are they growing brands?

From loyalty programmes and performance marketing to AI-powered shopping, marketers have no shortage of tools to engage consumers. However, marketing expert Professor Byron Sharp believes the industry may be spending too much time on the tactics and too little on what actually makes brands grow.

Speaking on Marketing Connected's "In Conversation" podcast series, Sharp, director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and author of How Brands Grow, challenged several long-held marketing practices, arguing that the fundamentals of consumer behaviour have not changed nearly as much as the industry might think.

“The fundamentals about how people buy, that's pretty hard to change,” he said, pointing to the arrival of new media and AI as changes in the tools available to marketers, rather than in the underlying principles of marketing.

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Catch the full interview here:

During the conversation, Sharp cautioned against marketers becoming too reliant on performance marketing, which tends to focus on consumers who are ready to buy. Building a brand, he argued, also means reaching the much larger group of consumers who are not currently in the market.

Another one of Sharp's more pointed observations was around brand loyalty. While marketers often invest in loyalty programmes to encourage repeat purchases, he argued that much of what the industry calls loyalty is simply habitual buying where consumers tend to return to brands they recognise and have bought before, rather than necessarily having an emotional attachment to them.

The big trap that marketers fall into is they think they have to do something extra to get loyalty.

He also questioned whether programmes that slow down the purchasing experience are really helping brands.

For Sharp, convenience remains an underestimated driver of growth, pointing to how queues, stock shortages and difficult purchasing experiences can cost brands sales, even when consumer demand is already there.

The focus on fundamentals, argues Sharp, will become even more important as AI reshapes the industry. Rather than seeing AI as a shortcut to better marketing, Sharp believes its biggest benefits will go to those who already understand the discipline.

“AI is going to unleash amazing abilities for bright marketers, well-trained bright marketers,” he said. “It won't help average marketers much at all.”

His broader challenge to the industry? Stop mistaking marketing activity for marketing effectiveness and become more rigorous about understanding which efforts genuinely contribute to growth.

Also tune in to the full conversation on Spotify:

Tune into the rest of this conversation on your favourite podcast platforms by searching for Marketing Connected. For those who prefer video, catch the vodcasts on YouTube. 

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