This is just a short story that illustrates just how easy brand loyalty can change, almost overnight and how you need to make sure you know and understand what your clients want from you.

Picture the scene, my six year old daughter comes out of the doors of her primary school, smiles and runs over to me, gives me a hug and shows me very proudly the clay head sculpture she has made for me in art. We chat on the way home, stop at a cafe for a cup of tea and cake and she tells me I am the best mum in the world. I feel nice inside and can’t image how things will change….well fast forward five years and it seems that the mummy brand isn’t so popular now. And what’s more it seemed to happen so suddenly, after years of loyalty I was well and truly dropped!

So picture the school scene again, only this time it’s her first day at her new secondary school…

We agreed that since it was her first day, and she was finishing early I would pick her and some of her friends up. So there I was outside the school gates grinning and waving frantically as I saw her approaching me, but she didn’t seem to see me and although there were hundreds of kids leaving the school, I thought she would still be able to pick me out. However, as she got closer she still didn’t acknowledge me, even though I was now walking towards her. Then it happened; she walked over to me and with a look of worry on her face said “wait over there” and waved me away, desperate not to be seen with me or even talking to me. In a state of shock I walked “over there” and watched as one by one her friends appeared. Then she started to walk off with them and waved me to walk behind then. The mummy brand had been well and truly dumped and was now surplus to requirements - except in the capacity of unpaid taxi driver.

It seemed that just a few weeks previously she had been welcoming me with open arms when I picked her up from her primary school and yet here I was being ignored. So when we got home I asked her what was wrong, to which she replied “I’ve changed, I’m at high school now, things are different there, if you have to pick me up can you wait in your car down the road”. She went on to say that she still loved me but it wasn’t cool to have your mum waiting outside the school gates to pick you up.

So what did I glean from this episode?

Firstly, I guess that I had ignored the subtle changes that had been happening in her final year at primary school such as wanting to be more independent, roam further than just our back street and having sleepovers, where I definitely wasn’t invited into her room any more. Secondly, I had let myself become a luddite, not keeping up with  IPods, MSN messaging, Bebo, texting language and every other from of technology 10 year olds and over use on an almost daily basis. Thirdly, I didn’t put myself in her shoes, I didn’t take the time to remember what it was like when I was approaching my teenage years and try to look at things from her perspective.

Therefore I decided that in order to regain some loyalty I needed to make some changes to the mummy brand. So I am now mum, rather than mummy, I can msn with the best of them, and I try, but don’t always succeed to look at her world and be a mum she can relate to not want to run away from.

What has all this got to do with branding though, quite simply it shows you that even the clients you believe to be your most loyal supporters can drop you overnight. You must make sure that you constantly monitor their needs and understand if there are any changes, keep abreast of new products and services coming into the marketplace and always, always, take some time to look at things from your client’s perspective. Or it might be you stood at the school gates being waved away. Take a look at our article on branding on our website www.brightermarketing.com.