Creating Brand Loyalty

One of the greatest challenges for brands today is how to create brand loyalty, externally from customers and internally from employees. Breathe’s MD Andrew Cook discusses how alternatives to cash bonuses can be innovative incentives to motivate customers and staff.

Building loyalty is similar to creating consumer promotions - cash isn’t always the biggest incentive. If you understand what drives people’s aspirations a tactical combination of offers and experiences can be a real winner because the memory has the propensity to last longer than the cash.

For example would an employee be more motivated by a night for 2 at a movie premiere mingling with the stars or the £400 equivalent in their pay packet?

The phrase “money can’t buy” has become a much misused catch phrase within the promotions sector in recent years and actually loses sight of the real challenge. The irony is money can buy what appears unobtainable, the real challenge is knowing where to go to buy the unobtainable and ensuring it compliments your brand.

For an incentive scheme to work you have to make sure:

  • The audience buy into it
  • Encourage everyone to take part
  • The prize or offer being provided is appealing to everyone. For a large pool of people look at a variety of rewards as no two people’s motivations are identical.
  • There is an immediacy in the reward i.e. don’t offer a trip for 2 to a festival in October if the reward is won in January because the long wait will diminish the appeal. Also the winner should not have additional costs i.e. if you offer a trip for one they will still have to pay for someone to go with them.
  • The mechanics need to be clear and simple to avoid misinterpretation.


The key to a successful long-term incentive program is to create and maintain a high level of interest. However, if it is too long it becomes laboured, interest levels drop, and people become de-motivated and ultimately reject it.

Spread rewards over a period of time - incentives that are targeted periodically are more effective in driving success. Monthly rewards work well as a trade incentive, ensuring a constant level of sales and a reduced risk of losing revenue in the short-term. Underpin this with several mini incentives over a 4 week period and you have a much stronger incentive.

The solution to longer-term loyalty incentive schemes is to develop a program that motivates and rewards performance both in the short and long term. A system of smaller prizes on a more targeted basis for the top performing staff with an overall target aimed at the most successful person of the year keeps a scheme ‘alive’ securing that all important long-term loyalty.

Getting all elements of an incentive scheme right is imperative. Using a specialist to either manage the whole scheme or just certain parts can ease the work load on you and make the difference between an average scheme to one that creates a real buzz. From the outset decide which stages you need specialist help with,  whether it’s establishing the objectives and advising on potential formats, running the program, or just providing the solutions and fulfillment of rewards. Ensure that whomever you use is flexible, understands your objectives and will work alongside you.

Published by Breathe on Tuesday, May 4 2010.