Brand Loyalty - Not an Outdated Concept Copyright © 2005 Stephen Abbott Communications. All Rights Reserved Thumbing through the Sunday paper’s ad inserts recently, I came across the Sears flier. Very quickly, something hit me and I put the pages up to my nose and confirmed my suspicion. Oddly, the 48-page insert smelled EXACTLY like the old Sears catalog - the same one that graced coffee tables for generations in the entire 20th century. This, of course, is no accident. Anyone old enough to remember Sears’ "Big Book" catalog knows that EVERYONE got one, and it was like getting the world at your doorstep. Those days are long gone (the last "Big Book" was printed in 1993) but the company continues to offer many specialty catalogs including the Christmas Wish Book. I bet they all smell just like the original, reminding customers of the days when Sears was the king of retail. My parents bought into that image and were Sears customers for decades. They insisted on always having a Sears credit card, even though the interest rate was 25%, and I grew up surrounded by Sears Craftsman tools, the only brand my father, a mechanic by trade, ever trusted. That kind of near-fanatical brand loyalty was obviously built up over generations, but the lesson we can take from it is something we can implement today, and in our own daily business activities. The bottom line of branding is that if you make your product or service unique, easily identifiable and of a high quality, your customers will remember you. Possibly for generations, and most likely in a positive way, just like Sears. Stephen Abbott, 38, is the principal of Stephen Abbott Communications, a public relations and political consulting firm in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA.

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