Think about the number 100. What comes to mind? Completeness? Totality? Your perfect score on that spelling test in grade school?
The number 100 spans the abstract and the tangible. It’s a balance of the material and spiritual worlds. 100 is a combination of mathematical properties, spiritual symbolism, cultural significance, and psychological impact. It’s a “round” number that feels complete and satisfying and is easy to remember.
In math, 100, the square of 10, represents symmetry. Most of the world’s currencies are divided into 100 sub-units. In the U.S. 100 pennies equal a dollar. 100 of those are called a “C-note,” standing for “century.” Which in history is 100 years, used to denote major historical and/or cultural events, 100 a birthday milestone that turns a regular person into a centenarian. In sports, there’s the 100-meter dash, 100 yards in a football field, and is the highest number of points ever scored by one player in a single NBA game (Wilt Chamberlain, 1962). 100 is the number of U.S. Senators (since 1959). In science, 100 is the atomic number of Fermium and the boiling point of water (at sea level).
In marketing and advertising the number 100 is used a lot because it has tremendous symbolic and strategic power. Practitioners use it to convey satisfaction, trust, authenticity, and/or value. A “100% discount” feels like a great deal. “100% satisfaction guarantees” or “100% complete” reinforce product reliability, brand trust, lends brands a no-risk aura, and assures customers they’re getting what they paid for. “100% eco-friendly” taps into the consumer psyche for sustainability, ethical practices and totality. Or high quality, effectiveness, purity, and/or authenticity. All of which have been shown to sway purchasing decisions. “Only 100 available!” communicates exclusivity or scarcity, which motivates consumer decision-making via FOMO – Fear of Missing Out – a trigger for the buy-it-now response.
The number 100 appears in loyalty and reward programs – establishing emotional goals for achievement and rewards. Oh, and marketers, advertisers, and brand-folks love the historical association 100 has with their own milestones. Like years in business, which demonstrates longevity and communicates stability. Also, 100 provides a narrative foundation for creating emotional engagement and buzz – something marketers use to feed the social networking maw.
Then there’s traditional grading. Where 100 represents the highest achievable score. Associated with excellence, mastery, and perfection. Like that perfect spelling test. So, 100 usually represents an ideal.
Usually, but not always.
In this case, the “not always” I’m referring to is our 27th annual Customer Loyalty Engagement Index where 100 is only the starting point. We’ll be releasing this year’s results at the end of January.
The survey is a brand-loyalty grading system.
This year, 81,348 consumer consumers, 16 to 65 graded 1,100 brands in 104 categories. They self-selected the categories where they’re consumers, then assessed those brands for which they’re customers. They “graded” the brands using our independently validated combination of psychological inquiry and higher order statistical analyses (test/re-test reliability of 0.93 with results generalizable at the 95% confidence level) that correlates very highly (0.87+) with consumer behavior, engagement levels, sales, and, axiomatically, brand profitability.
The survey diagnostics identifies four path-to-purchase loyalty drivers for each of the 104 categories. Each driver is different from the others, although all four work together to drive engagement, behavior, and loyalty in the category where they operate. We also measure the expectations consumers hold for each driver, which allows us to understand what and how they see their Ideal for the category.
Those expectation levels are the critical part of predictively measuring loyalty and brand success. I’ve written about that before and if you’re interested, you can read about it here or here or here or here. And yes, I’ve written a lot about expectations because they are that important! But for the uninitiated, a brief precis:
Consumers use expectations as a “brand yardstick” to emotionally and rationally measure how well a brand meets those expectations. The Ideal is, metaphorically, their North Star and literally a leading indicator. Andtheir consumer loyalty is absolutely driven by that measure. Brands that meet expectations get bought and see success. Brands that don’t, well, don’t.
Oh, and if you were thinking you’d just go ahead and ask consumers what they want, you can’t. A real ideal can’t be divined by just asking. Or via a 5-star rating scale. Those are good for the rational stuff, but as that generally accounts for only 20% of the consumer’s decision process, you’re not going to have an easy job “exceeding” (let alone meeting) expectations, if you only rely on only one-fifth of what drives consumers’ perceptions and your brand’s prosperity.
But because categories are different, QED, the loyalty drivers are different, and the expectations are different. (You don’t buy a car the same way you buy a computer or a cola, and you naturally expect different things.) But to understand loyalty, you need to be able to compare the brands and expectations versus those different drivers and different expectations. But, as they’re, well, different, how does one compare different things?
Well, we index those drivers and their expectations levels so we can compare drivers that are fundamentally different. That provides us with a simple and easily understandable reference point that allows us to understand how high “up” really is for consumers for the four different drivers. And for us to do meaningful cross-comparisons. Between different brands, categories, or sectors, showing how loyalty really works. We index driver expectations for the Ideal against a category benchmark of – wait for it – 100. (Thought I forgot about that, didn’t you!?)
The practice of using 100 as an index-base has a long history in research. And marketing, finance, and economics. So, for example, an expectation index of 150 for one of the category drivers of the ideal indicates expectations 50% higher than the category average. And if an individual brand indexes at 125 on that particular driver, it’s easier to see (and measure or at least express) the gap between what consumers truly desire (their Ideal) and what they see a brand (the brand) capable of delivering. All of which makes it much easier to do a very accurate and truly strategic SWOT analysis.
Oh, and if you calculate a weighted average of the four indices – for the Category Ideal and the individual brands in the category – it makes it easier to determine and compare overall loyalty levels. Some simple math, treating the Ideal as 100%, allows you to calculate a “brand loyalty strength.” Parenthetically, you’ll find that any of those correlates extraordinarily highly with positive consumer behavior in the marketplace, sales, market share and, ultimately, brand profitability.
And, because it allows us to identify loyalty hierarchies in each of the categories we track, we’ll be posting the top brands based on their individual, overall category driver loyalty-expectation indices. You’ll be able to find them on the Brand Keys site under “Brand Insights” at the end of the month.
If it’s easier, think of them as getting a 100 on a customer loyalty test.
Only in this case, their success shows up on the brand’s bottom line and not hanging on their mom’s refrigerator!
Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash