Increasing number of companies put the strategy of customer loyalty into focus. Marketers from different countries come to an agreement that combining customer development with customer retention can bring long-term impact on brand performance (Kotler, 2003). In specific, price premium, brand awareness and market share closely associated with brand profitability count on customer loyalty. For instance, loyal customers are inclined to pay more for a certain brand because of its inimitable value for them; there is no doubt that no alternative can instead. Similarly, as repeated purchase of loyal customers, market share will be optimistic for the specific brand, in spite of situational restrictions. On the other hand, serious threats customer loyalty brings to brand lies in perceived product parity and fail in innovation and product propagation. Otherwise, retain loyal customers constantly require extra cost for quality control and more budget for marketing campaign on a continuing basis. Unfortunately, small brands with insufficient abilities hardly to achieve the development and reinforcement of customer loyalty, big brands will increasingly prosper as a result. This essay will highlight whether customer loyalty make or break a brand and illustrate examples which can contribute to a brand to be successful through customer loyalty strategy.
Customer loyalty has already been, and carries on to be, defined as “repeat purchasing frequency or relative volume of same-brand purchasing” (Assael, 1998). While some of academics approve that customer loyalty is an exactly multifarious construct (Javalgi and Moberg, 1997) because it well-defined on both behavioral and attitudinal footings (Mellens et al., 1996). And making full use of the compound definition of customer loyalty initially recommended by Jacoby (1978), there is little consent on whether customer loyalty makes or breaks a