IS THERE A “100% LOYALTY PRONENESS” ON A HOUSEHOLD LEVEL?

Abstract

In 1956 Cunningham, an american market researcher, presents the the hypothesis that there is a so-called loyalty proneness. The thesis states that some consumers are to be prone to be, at the same timem loyal to several different product categories. The evaluate this hypothesis Cunningham bases his research on panel data that comes from the consumer panel of the Chicago Tribune newspaper, and he uses the SCR metric. In this article two more hypothesis based on the Cunningham’s “loyalty proneness” are introduced, and evaluated, both of them being a modification on his hypothesis. The first hypothesis states that some 100% loyal households can be prone to be 100% loyal to several product categories at the same time, within a specified time limit. The second hypothesis states that in some 100% loyal households there is a proneness to be 100% loyal in one product category, for two or more consecutive years. Based on the data from GFK Bulgaria’s ConsumerScan household panel, for six product categories and for four consecutive years on the Bulgarian market, both hypothesis are confirmed.