Brand Loyalty in the UK Sportswear Market

Abstract

This study investigates brand loyalty and other brand performance metrics in the UK sportswear market. It utilises consumer purchase data kindly provided by Taylor Nelson Sofres. The study finds that empirical regularities discovered by Andrew Ehrenberg and colleagues apply to sportswear brands – including iconic brands such as Nike and Adidas. The main findings are that: (1) sportswear brands enjoy polygamous loyalty from their buyers; (2) the market exhibits the classic double jeopardy pattern whereby smaller brands have slightly lower loyalty; (3) consumers switch between sports brands approximately in line with their market share; and (4) a brand's performance with respect to any demographic based consumer sub-group is approximately the same as it is in the population generally – that is, sportswear brands tend not to have markedly different appeal to particular demographic segments. Therefore, even iconic brands and self expressive, emblematic product categories show predictable patterns in brand performance. These well-documented empirical patterns should be used by research providers and brand managers to contextualise brand performance.