Brand Loyalty: Using Primary Qualitative Research to Determine What's Behind the Loyalty Construct

This is the second of three eTips! measuring brand loyalty. February's edition addressed using secondary data for prescribing persistency. April's edition will address the quantitative approach in primary research.

Brand loyalty is an extension of the satisfaction construct that has been in use for the past few decades. It incorporates measures of:

• brand satisfaction;
• product category satisfaction;
• the relationship between prescribers and the brand; and
• continued use of the brand by respondents.

Because each pharmaceutical market exhibits unique dynamics within each of these measurements, assessing brand loyalty is highly idiosyncratic to a given market. So in order to determine the brand loyalty of a specific brand, one must first understand the dynamics of its market. This requires exploratory investigation and can be done using primary qualitative research.

The process for this qualitative research is fairly basic: The pharmaceutical manufacturer and the research provider develop a list of performance, relationship, and use attributes based on their own market and research experience. This preliminary list is then tested using in-depth interviews with 15- 30* physicians who are representative of pharmaceutical company's target market.

Based on the input from these physicians, the predefined attributes are then explored and refined and new attributes are developed. Finally, dependent measures are established for the next phase of the research: the quantitative survey.

In summary, the qualitative research phase prepares the researcher for the follow-on quantitative studies that actually measure the performance, relationship and use attributes. Stay tuned for next month's eTip! that will cover this second, quantitative side of the primary research equation.*

*The actual number of interviews depends on the complexity of the market.