"Brand Loyalty" and "Brand Essence"

Eric Schlosser comments on two significant terms from Fast Food Nation, “brand loyalty” (pg.43) and “brand essence” (pg.49). Brand loyalty and brand essence plays a major role in profiting from their consumers and in the long run creating a bigger market for their franchises and wider margin for income flow. These companies fool consumers into thinking there a trusted brand because of the image it portrays to be. Though brand loyalty and brand essence differ in meaning they both carry the same similarities in name relating to one another, almost feeding off each other, they go hand and hand.

A brand, which is a representation of oneself or its products for a company or corporation, ties into the loyalty and essence because that’s what it’s built off of. Sequentially brand loyalty is what we recognize as something being familiar with or what we can relate to, and may begin as early as the age of two (Schlosser 43). Ray Kroc and Walt Disney adopted the “cradle-to-grave” method hoping childhood memories of a brand will lead to a lifetime of purchases.

Brand essence is that little element about that brand that keeps us coming back, an emotional connection that we draw to like a magnet to a refrigerator. McDonalds exulted themselves into the brand essence launching campaigns and advertisements. A marketing executive named Ray Bergold said in one of the campaigns “to make customers believe that McDonalds is their “Trusted Friend” which intentions were to create positive feelings about McDonalds making consumers associate one thing they liked with another (Schlosser 50).

Companies such as McDonalds and Disney, just to name a few took pleasure in drinking from the fountain of brand loyalty and brand essence, they owned it. It amplified people’s perceptions of such brands making business easier and admissible to us. Brand loyalty and essence if combined would create the word brand image. Brand image because they both played a substantial role in representing a brand along with what products and services they’re putting out to uphold a good and positive image.

Say I start a clothing business; I advertise on trains, buses, etc. and market my business so people become aware of it. I need a major following if I want my business to boom, I may get customers but I need them to always come back, even tell a friend to tell a friend, so I need to acquire that brand loyalty and brand essence in order to flourish. I have to allow people to be complacent with my company and brand, so I know for sure I’ll stay in business, because I give them a place to call home figuratively speaking.