brand loyalty turns negative. why?

[tosh]

I'm selling Cola, quality of 85. I'm the only provider and seller of cola in the game and use heavy advertisements to push my brand up, using Unique brand strategy. Now while my overall rating is 1-10 depend on the city (no competition except the local ones who have a negative overall, so price is very high) my brand awareness is 50-90 depend on the city, but my brand loyalty is a negative of (10)-(5). Why? is it due to the overall rating? I'm pretty sure price does not affect brand loyalty.

[counting]

When I was testing the parent-child brand merger which requires negative brand loyalty, I notice in order to "get" more into negative loyalty quickly, I actually have to advertise. And the key to "gain negative loyalty point" is to have less product quality than the city average (notice, not local quality, but city average quality, which includes your own previous sells weighted in). And the brand loyal change for every month or so (if actual product been sold). Also if price is higher than city average and the quality is lower loyalty seems to drop faster. Sometimes even around the same quality but price higher, the loyalty still drops.

In a normal play, I notice that some aggressive AIs also face massive negative loyalty because they choose to set their price very high for max profit and let rating just above average. This is especially obvious when I research a tech to push their manufacturing quality down and their previous saturated product actually causing their new inferior product trouble. (what's being produced, and what's actually being sold at the moment in retail isn't always the same)

Maybe if you post the save file, we can check out whether it's abnormal or not, or need a patch.

[Dav3]

I think the developers should explain how that brand loyalty thing really works, what will cause it to go negative etc. Same with brand strategies (corporate, unique & range brand) what to do to make them efficient in the long run cause right now there is not much information about all of that. They could post it on the front page.

[counting]

Ya, I agree at least some tips and hints or general strategy about what's good or bad. Right now, the best guidance is to avoid inferior product for your company put on the market regardless of brand strategy.

[tosh]

I still cant find the reason for the negative brand loyalty. Maybe it is due to high demand and low supply (my fac' making 10mil units of cola per month selling it to a 30-40 mil market) so maybe this is the reason. I'll keep testing it out and check the reason

[counting]

I am curious though, what's you game setting and progress to let local rating became negative for basic product like cola?

[tosh]

so from what I found so far, cities where i sold my cola for an overall rating above 30 got positive brand loyalty, while cities below 30 got a negative one.

[David]

Ya, I agree at least some tips and hints or general strategy about what's good or bad. Right now, the best guidance is to avoid inferior product for your company put on the market regardless of brand strategy.

Actually in the original Capitalism 2 manual, you can see an explanation about how Brand Loyalty works from page 114 to page 116.

[counting]

Actually in the original Capitalism 2 manual, you can see an explanation about how Brand Loyalty works from page 114 to page 116.

So the mechanism is still the same, and never changed since then?

BTW, I notice something strange the other day, when I tried to sell cars from an AI source, it had 100 brand awareness and -50 brand loyalty even before sold on the market somehow (I doubt AI advertised product in the factory), and the product quality was not bad (60+). Also when I tried to help advertising it, the loyalty seemed to trap between -45 to -50 range.

[counting]

The old manual said

Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty measures the attachment that a customer has to a brand. If a customer continues to purchase a brand even in the face of competitors with a superior quality and/or lower price, then there must be a substantial value placed in the brand itself.

Brand Loyalty Level and Rating
In the game, a brand loyalty rating (with a rang of 0 to 100) represents the two main dimensions of brand loyalty:
* The percentage of the people who are loyal to the brand
* The average loyalty level of the people

Brand Loyalty Factors
Brand loyalty is based mainly on the following factors:
Brand Awareness
Brand loyalty cannot exist without the prior purchase and use of product. The brand must first generate sufficient awareness for the consumers purchase and use the product. The higher the awareness, the more people will try the product, and the faster the rate at which the loyalty can increase.
Product Quality
If a customer is satisfied after using the product, brand loyalty increases. Conversely, a bad experience with a product will lead to a decrease in brand loyalty or sometimes even negative brand loyalty (the customer will avoid buying the same brand in the future). In addition, customers will only be loyal to a brand if products of the brand have consistent quality.