• by Karl Greenberg , January 7, 2010

New York-based Brand Keys has been doing its Customer Loyalty Engagement Index (CLEI) in the U.S. for the past 13 years. And while the firm has also done brand loyalty studies in some 30 other countries the just-completed -- and inaugural -- Spain CLEI may have implications across the pond.

The survey, done in partnership with the Asociación de Marcas Renombradas Españolas (The Brand Association of Spain), Accenture Marketing Science, and Positioning Systems, polled 3,500 people 18 to 65 years of age. The respondents self-selected the categories in which they are consumers, and also rated brands for which they are customers. The survey examined 50 top brands and their category drivers.

The top airlines in the Spanish CLEI were Iberia, Spanair and Air Europa. Santander, which also owns banks in the U.S. market, was the top Spanish bank in loyalty. Robert Passikoff, president and founder of the New York-based Brand Keys, tells Marketing Daily that brand loyalty in Spain has relevance in the U.S.

"When you look at the Hispanic market in the U.S. it is closer in terms of brand expectations and drivers to Spain than the non-Hispanic U.S.," he says. "The Latino family is far more social; the family is more important, but we also find brand names are more important to them. And American brands need to understand market opportunities and branding opportunities are two different animals."

Other brands in Spain that lead in their CLEI categories and also have a U.S. presence include British Petroleum, Vodafone, and clothing lines Zara and Mango. The top bottled water in Spain in the index, Font Vella, and the second-place brand Vichy Catalan, both sell in the U.S. "The issue for them is understanding their brands so they can now become more global," says Passikoff. He says that with the exception of TV channels and sports categories in the index, all brands are looking for more global reach. "They are now realizing they need to be more proactive in terms of the other markets, the U.S., of course, and Latin America."

Passikoff says that the index doesn't treat a brand as a thing in itself but as participants in a category. Therefore, brands that are not in the same product or service category are not compared, and their consumers' responses are weighed differently because what motivates loyalty differs from category to category: He says that loyalty drivers differ from category to category partly because what consumers expect varies by category.

"It's always been a bit of a bête noir for me because most people are looking at loyalty from the perspective of brand rather than customer. But if you don't know what people expect [from a category of products], how can you manage the brand in any meaningful way? It goes back to -- what does the brand stand for within the category."