The journey from ritual to loyalty

Blog Roderik Sorbi – Senior Client Consultant

Byron Sharp says that loyalty doesn’t exist. And he’s right. In lots of studies we’ve conducted we see it being a continuous challenge. Yet practice works in a way where marketers are always looking to create brand loyalty one way or another. And the dedication of a marketer that comes in to play to reach that goal. And with good reason. It’s a given that you must look closely at your communication to connect people to your brand. But you can also look at it from innovation how we can reach this goal. You can innovate by looking at the CEPs.

But you can also look at the rituals people have and how to utilise or create them in favour of your brand. Rituals go far beyond creating habits. Habits exist of a pattern of acts which don’t have a deeper meaning behind them. A ritual does have such a meaning. Whether people are aware, of unaware of what they’re doing. It strengthens the emotional feeling people have during that moment of use. It’s more powerful and emotional.

Typical for your brand

An example of a brand that has created a ritual is Toblerone. The way you break off a piece of Toblerone is very typical for the brand. There are even dozens of video’s and discussions online. Take that ritual away from someone, and you give that person legitimacy to switch brands. But the opposite is also true, since you can also create rituals. Such as designing a bottle of shaving cream in a way where the shaving cream can foam against the palm of your hand in an elegant way and can thereafter ritualise the daily morning routine. The insight behind this is that people want to start their day undisturbed and the bathroom moment facilitates that feeling for them. The innovation can broaden this implicit feeling.

Another example is Mona pudding. The dessert that you flip over. Back in the days you had to prick a hole in it, nowadays there’s a tab. You flip the pudding over, pull the packaging upwards and the syrup will fall over. This is also a way of creating a ritual which has become very typical for the brand. It’s something you must cherish because it gives people a sense of connectedness. It’s a special moment everyone looks at, maybe even looks forward to. Something you can be excited about. A feeling people want to experience more often.

Utilising a ritual

Sometimes it’s small, subtle things where packaging can lead to brand preference, a type of loyalty or proposition preference. It’s these elements that are typical for a brand and can ritualise your morning or evening. As a brand, if you can create such a ritual so meaningful to people, it’s all the more important you think about it as a marketer.

If you know as a brand how you can take advantage of these possibly existing and hidden rituals, you can utilise and amplify them in your communication. This way, you will get a much higher recognition of the situation and it can even strengthen the social structures around it. The habit of wiping that last bit of syrup from your plate. Pushing empty dessert containers together. How small the ritual might be, it’s an insight you can polish. A rough diamond, and perhaps you think it’s somewhat odd, but what if you can take advantage of it?

A type of loyalty

To discover and explore these rituals we ask people to send pictures of their rituals, tell their story through storytelling, or sharing what they notice others do when certain rituals happen unknowingly – given that the rituals of others are often easier to recognise. Licking the sauce of your plate is something parents might not be too keen on, but as a marketer you can certainly transform it into something great. If you can utilise it in the right way, it might just give the loyalty a big boost.