Critical Brand & Marketing Trends For 2022 From 4.3 Million Customers

Predictive Trends For An (Almost) Post-COVID World

NEW YORK CITY, NY, US, December 15, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Brand Keys Inc., the New York-based brand loyalty and engagement research consultancy, annually translates behavioral and emotional engagement metrics from their Customer Loyalty Engagement Index survey to predict trends for the coming year.

"This year, the company did something completely different," noted Robert Passikoff, Brand Keys Founder and President. "We used all 25 years of our database – 4.3 million customer loyalty and engagement assessments for 1,624 brands in 142 categories – to look back and look ahead." Independently-validated and correlating highly (0.80+) with positive, in-market consumer behavior, these assessments represent the world’s largest continuous brand tracking database, mined for four critical trends for 2022.

1. Consumer foundations for brand engagement, product and service purchase, and brand loyalty will be almost entirely emotionally based – a cross-category consumer decision-making ratio of 80% emotional, 20% rational for 2022.
"Rational aspects for categories and sectors will get filed under, 'Primacy-of-Product/Service' by consumers," said Passikoff. Brands will need to know the emotional-rational ratio for values that drive behavior in their categories. To do that, brands will also need to acknowledge there is a difference between “emotion” and “imagery” and between “engagement” and “entertainment” because consumers are going to.

2. Consumer expectations will increase.
Twenty-five years tracking consumer brand loyalty makes it clear consumers do not settle for what exists. Expectations will continue to increase faster than brands can keep up. Net change since 1997 and 2022 will be a 39% cross-category increase in what is expected. Social Networking and Technology will be closer to a 50% increase. "Brands only managed to keep up by about 5%, creating an even bigger gap between what consumers truly desire and what brands are seen capable of delivering," noted Passikoff. "Brands that can best meet consumer expectations are always the category leader."

3. Value Ownership Will Be 2022’s Lock On Loyalty and Differentiation.
Value-ownership today is a brand-state that goes well beyond 20th century differentiation. It will define category leadership in the next decade. Brands that can meet expectations and emotionally engage will survive. But brands that will dominate and literally “own” categories will own an emotional value that will meaningfully differentiate them from their competition. Amazon has created a connection fulfilling consumers’ needs for “immediate gratification.” Apple has done it via “human connection.” Netflix via “diversion.” "Your brand will need to do that too if you want to be a category leader," said Passikoff.

4. Brand dominance and profitability will synergistic.
The ability to own emotionally-engaging values and best meet consumer expectations will be synergistic. Adjusted for a new century and inflation, loyalty will matter more than ever. It will cost 13 to 18 times more to recruit a new customer than to keep an existing one (+60% vs. 1997). An increase in loyalty of 5% is projected to result in a 2022 boost in lifetime profits per customer of as much as 78% (+22%), and an increase in customer loyalty of only 2% will be equivalent to a 15% across-the-board cost reduction program (+50%). "What has not changed is the bottom line is always the bottom line," observed Passikoff.

Brand Keys speaks to thousands of respondents annually. That’s how they ended up with the largest continuous consumer loyalty database in the world. And that’s how they identify linked-to-behavior insights and trends.

But Brand Keys also recognizes people are only consumers some of the time. And even then do not turn to anything resembling a buying equation. "They remain people, with emotions and lives who understand brand choices have social, tribal, even spiritual consequences. Consumers are constantly re-examining deeply held notions that underlie their brand loyalties and market behaviors. So does Brand Keys. And that always leads us to the nexus of opportunity and success," said Passikoff.

Brand Keys Loyalty Database Access
For more information about accessing the Brand Keys loyalty data base, our 2022 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, or information about integrating predictive loyalty and emotional engagement metrics into your marketing and branding efforts, please contact Leigh Benatar at leighb@brandkeys.com or call 212-532-6028.

Methodological Framework
Brand Keys uses an independently-validated research methodology – including The Advertising Research Foundation’s “First Opinion Review” – that fuses emotional and rational aspects of categories, identifies four category-specific path-to-purchase behavioral loyalty drivers, identifies expectations consumers hold for each driver, the values that form the components of each driver, and their percent-contribution to engagement, loyalty, and profitability.

A combination of psychological inquiry and statistical analyses – accounts for 96% of the variance, has a test/re-test reliability of 0.93, and produces results generalizable at the 95% confidence level. Brand Keys loyalty assessments correlate with positive consumer behavior in the marketplace at the 0.80+ level. It has been successfully used in B2B, B2C, and D2C categories in 35 countries.

Robert K Passikoff
Brand Keys, Inc.
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