Brand Loyalty: Using Primary Qualitative Research to Measure the Loyalty Construct in the Brand Market

This is the third of three eTips! measuring brand loyalty. The February issue addressed using secondary data for prescribing persistency, and the March issue detailed the qualitative applications of primary research.

The measurement of brand loyalty is highly idiosyncratic to a specific pharmaceutical market. Before decisions can be made using brand loyalty data, a manager must be certain that the full market is understood. Last month we addressed the use of qualitative primary research to first identify the dynamics and establish dependent measures specific to a given market. The role of quantitative primary research measures the performance, relationship and use attributes to provide the story of the whole market, which is then used to assess and predict a brand's performance in that market.

Once the brand loyalty instrument has been developed using qualitative research results, the next step in the brand loyalty research is the administration of the questionnaire and the analysis of the resulting data. These surveys are typically multiple pages in length, suggesting a telephone or internet administration. The collected data are analyzed using multiple stage general linear models, such as multivariate regression techniques, to develop a brand loyalty model for the market. This model will clarify existing relationships and provide guidance on which efforts by the manufacturer will enhance brand loyalty. It can also provide a comparative assessment of the performance of different drugs within the category.

An additional step that can be taken is to match the survey results to prescribing data for each participant, collected at the same time as the survey administration. These data are merged and analyzed to assess the effect of brand loyalty on actual behavior—in addition to self-reported perceptions and attitudes. The only caveat is that the actual prescribing data may reflect market conditions other than brand loyalty, such as formulary coverage or promotional (e.g. sampling) efforts by competitors. This alternative analysis can provide a different perspective to the brand loyalty outcome, which may be useful in tailoring efforts to specific locations.