Brand Loyalty Dynamics — China'S Television Brands Come of Age

Abstract

This article reports an analysis of purchase records over three years that was designed to test the extendibility of previous findings for brand loyalty and switching in the new context of China. It shows that Chinese consumers are most likely to switch brands of television when they buy a new set, and generally switch to larger, growing brands, a pattern common to other markets. This research is a substantive addition to our understanding of marketplace dynamics as revealed by brand performance measures (BPMs). It reveals the evolution of the underlying structure of the Chinese TV market and highlights its changes—largely the growing domination of big local brands. This change is reflected not only in switching, but also in loyalty figures that show Chinese consumers becoming more loyal as the market stabilizes. The conceptual implication of this study is that loyalty modelling can be contextualized for marketplace dynamics. The management implications are that small sets of survey data can be usefully employed to reveal underlying market structures. This is especially helpful in data-poor markets and categories.