Pearl of Wisdom: Brand Loyalty School

This may seem like an obvious one, but there are actually a couple of simple things brand loyalists could do to keep their favourite small business running. If you really like a product or service, then you should reward the business by helping them grow, or at least not fail.

Not for their sake, dear God no, but so you can keep getting the things you like! Hashtag Selfless.


Accompanying us will be some cartoons from a fantastic 'marketoonist', Tom Fishburne.


Buy their Product Regularly

Firstly, there's something called the Double Jeopardy law which dictates that not only will a small business have less customers than a big business (which is logical), their customers will also buy less from them.

If you look at the products you buy, you will almost certainly notice that you tend to return to bigger brands every so often or most of the time. This is simply because they're generally cheaper and more available to purchase. The best way to support the smaller brands that you love isn't just to buy from them, it's to make an effort to buy from them as often as possible! Double Jeopardy causes the demise of numerous small businesses and it's not hard to counteract.



Participate in Customer Surveys/Feedback

Most businesses conduct market research to get a better picture of how they can benefit you more. They also love love love getting feedback from you, positive or negative! If you have a problem with a brand that you support, tell them. And if you get an email asking you to fill in a questionnaire, do it.

Responding to market research is important if you want to live in a world where products and services are actually GOOD. Steve Jobs has kinda ruined this, because he was famously anti-research. He was a genius, but many businesses are now convinced that he disproved marketing research as being a crucial tool for businesses. 3d televisions were only consumer tested reactively, nobody actually asked consumers if we wanted 3d TVs!

absolootelymail@gmail.com if you have any feedback about this very site ;-)




Tell People

This is really obvious and I suspect all of you already do this. Word-of-mouth is free and one of the best forms of advertising out there. People are more likely to buy a product if it was recommended by a friend and less likely to buy it if they hear something bad about it through their social grapevine.

In the spirit of Word-of-mouth, I'd like to give a shout out to Much Moore who do a fantastic Chocolate & Cookies ice-cream. It's delicious, you should try it.




I've kept this nice and short, relatively, which was hard, because I have so many more ideas and marketing theories that I wanted to discuss! Ah well...