What Aussie Minds reveals about building brand loyalty that sticks

Brand loyalty is behaviour, not just attitude

Real brand growth comes down to behaviour. Brands grow primarily from acquiring new customers, while reducing the churn of existing customers. Growth can also come from nudging existing customers to buy the brand more often.

That’s why Stickiness is what marketers are really seeking – behaviour that repeats over time.  

The Research Agency’s (TRA) prior loyalty work provides guidance on how the latest marketing and behavioural science principles can be applied by brands to create sticky customers. The framework focused on embedding automated behaviour (Habits) and greater switching costs and friction (Effort), while also earning greater personal relevance (Identity) and emotional connection (Reciprocity).  

While emotional connection plays a role, it cannot be relied upon alone. Attitudes do not equal behaviour. Brand love is difficult to achieve and weakly correlated to actual behavioural loyalty. In most categories, including FMCG, clothing, technology, and streaming services, people typically buy from a repertoire of brands rather than staying loyal to one.  

That’s why brands need to focus on creating behavioural loyalty by making repeat behaviour easier and more habitual and giving people fewer reasons to switch. In frequently purchased repertoire categories, this means nudging people to buy the brand more often and winning a greater share of purchases. In service categories where people typically have one or a small number of relationships, it is about the brand increasing tenure and customer lifetime value.

‍

What Aussie Minds adds to our understanding of loyalty

Aussie Minds is TRA’s segmentation of the Australian population, built from an ongoing national study of more than 2,000 Australians. It identifies six distinct MindSets: Keepers, Anchors, Mavericks, Nesters, Strategists and Chasers, based on the values, motivations and outlooks that shape how people see and interact with the world.

The MindSets give us a different lens on loyalty because they reveal characteristics that demographics alone cannot. They help us understand whether someone is comfortable with familiarity or actively seeks new experiences, how they think about risk and progress, and what they expect from the brands they choose.

Those differences matter for stickiness. Someone who naturally prefers the familiar starts from a very different place to someone who actively enjoys discovering what is new.

Keepers and Chasers need different reasons to stay

The clearest contrast appears between Keepers and Chasers. Their answers point to different starting orientations towards familiarity, change and brand discovery.

Keepers: protect trust, familiarity and reliability

Keepers are the most likely to form consistent purchase habits, with 8 in 10 preferring to stick with brands they know work for them. The Keepers are content with their position in life and are less likely than any other Mindset to be early adopters, with only 27% saying they are faster than the average person when it comes to trying new products or services.  

Across a range of product and service categories, such as banking, superannuation, consumer packaged goods, and beauty and personal care, The Keepers are more likely than any other Mindset to agree that they usually prefer brands that are well established in the category.  

Chasers: create novelty, discovery and social proof

Chasers, on the other hand, are more aspirational and progressively minded. They want to get ahead in life and are open to change and new experiences. Half of Chasers perceive themselves to be faster than the average person in trying new products or services, and over half (54%) enjoy discovering brands or products that feel new or different.  

What this boils down to is clear differences in the openness to brand switching between The Keepers and The Chasers. The Keepers are seeking familiar experiences while The Chasers are much more open to trying new things. The Keepers have a much greater desire to remain loyal to the brands they currently buy and are the most likely to display sticky behaviour if brands get things right.  

How brands can design loyalty for different MindSets

The Keepers

Their loyalty is an asset to protect; programs that recognise tenure and continued commitment will matter more than acquisition-led offers. Reward loyalty and give people a reason to feel that staying with the brand is recognised.

They are more likely to trust established brands, so signals of scale and establishment can help reinforce trust.

Trust is built through honesty, reliability and promise-keeping. They expect brands to honour what they say. Broken promises, poor customer experiences, unavailable stock or bait-and-switch tactics can therefore be particularly damaging.

They want to buy what works, buy what lasts, avoid wasting money and avoid feeling like they have been fooled. They are not looking for novelty, status or reinvention. They want proven quality, fair pricing and products that do what they promise the first time. Paying more is acceptable when it means durability, reliability and fewer problems later.

The Chasers

Chasers are more likely to be influenced by others and by company reviews. This makes positive word of mouth, reviews and values-aligned creators more important in keeping the brand visible and relevant.

There is also an opportunity to use loyalty programs and other customer experiences to give Chasers a sense of novelty. This could mean regularly refreshing rewards, introducing personalised surprises or creating new experiences and access.  

Mecca’s Beauty Loop is a good example. Its Beauty Loop Boxes give members new products and samples as they move through the tiers, while its Birthday Edit offers increasingly premium gifts to higher-tier members. The real value is the feeling of having something new to discover and something personalised to look forward to.

CommBank Yello takes a similar approach, regularly introducing new cashback and discount offers across retailers such as Coles, Myer, Chemist Warehouse, JB Hi-Fi and DoorDash. It also extends loyalty beyond savings through presale tickets, preferred access and money-can’t-buy experiences.

For Chasers, the challenge is finding ways to keep satisfying that desire for something new to ensure they remain sticky customers.

The MindSet behind the behaviour matters

The contrast between Keepers and Chasers shows that creating stickiness does not necessarily mean doing the same thing for everyone. Keepers are naturally more inclined to stay with what they know, so brands need to protect the trust, reliability and familiarity they value. Chasers are more open to switching and discovery, so brands may need to keep creating new reasons for them to stay.

Understanding the MindSet behind the behaviour can help brands identify what will make staying easier, and what might eventually prompt someone to leave.

Want to understand what makes different Australians stay, switch or seek something new? Explore the Aussie Minds research and what they mean for your brand, or get in touch to find out which MindSets matter most for your brand.

‍