I'm resurrecting this thread, because it is probably the best one on the Forum that deals with issues of brand loyalty. The other people did a pretty good job of covering the the big factors in supporting or tarnishing the brand, but here is one that got mostly overlooked.
[Saturating the city with advertising] ...may have a negative effect on brand loyalty if you cannot satisfy the increase in demand.
Cap2 manual, page 33.
I have found the quickest way to lose brand loyalty is be selling a product that people like and run into supply shortages. If supply is spotty but still delivering, the loyalty will drop slowly. If your supply runs out and you let the store stay empty of that product for an extended period of time, loyalty will drop very quickly. And if you are running a Corporate Brand strategy,
all your products will suffer in that city!
Leveraging off what I learned playing the B2B script, I'm trying out the Legacy Brand scenario. You start the scenario with about 60 brand points in all 5 cities, about 30 points from awareness and 30 points from loyalty. Great...awesome! Except on the first month just about anything you sell under your brand will hurt these ratings. [FYI, my CEO's expertise is Furniture, but I don't know if that's true every game or just this run. The game sets you to Corporate Brand and you're not allowed to change it.]
So some of the strategies for early game to make money can really hurt your brand:
1) Private label consumer goods from the seaports. Since the AIs will also sell those products (unbranded or not), when the demand goes up and the supply stretches thin, you won't be able to keep up with enough supply. Now the sims will be mad at you and not the Seaport because it's your name on it. You would have to set your price low and sell into all five cities in order to lock them out due to negative profit margin.
2) Sell frozen foods from your new farms. This might work if your quality is better than local, but the Diversified AI's will quickly compete with you. That is probably going to be brand awareness stalemate.
3) Find an AI starting to sell high quality products and rebrand for your stores. See 1), you don't know if his supply will keep up with your demand.
Some strategies that probably will work, but will take time:
1) Quickly research a few products to a much higher tech, then make yourself. You can use inferior products if the Tech portion of product quality is high. But be careful about selling from too many classes, as that will lower brand loyalty. I'm starting with Furniture mostly, since that is my specialty. I'll probably also sell leather goods, since I need textiles and leather for my furniture.
2) Sell semi products. B2B sales do not affect brand ratings, only retail sales.
3) Invest in real estate (learned from the CAPEX script lessons).
4) Invest in raw materials. Will probably only work in my case for timber, as I can make Beds (with higher tech) and Dyestuff.
Some other tactics that will be absolutely necessary to help keep brand rating high.
1) Use warehouses. A distribution center that buffers supply can help you keep an eye on stock before a retail location runs out.
2) Keep prices high. The sims will tolerate high prices as long as they don't raise too fast. Keep raising prices often and by a little bit, probably by keeping brand rating only 0 - 3 points above local. Besides, it lets you command less market share but at a higher profit margin.
3) Swap to a different product in your store if it looks like you won't keep up with demand. If all else fails, demolish that store and either build some other structure or sell of the land.
4) Keep up on technology. Staying in the top tech position means your competition will be at a bigger brand disadvantage and make yourself look better to the sims.
5) Limit how many classes you sell. I'm going for furniture, leather goods, and maybe apparel, since the last two are in the same mega class.
So, does anybody else have testimonies of when supply shortages hurt their loyalty?