The Myth of Loyalty (and Other Fairy Tales Told in Boardrooms)

Luxury brands adore the idea of loyalty. They talk about it the way poets talk about love, with absolute conviction and very little evidence.

In reality, what most brands call loyalty is just cognitive inertia. People stay because leaving means effort. When I worked in hotels, we used to bang on about “guest loyalty” as though visitors were emotionally bound to us for life.

They weren’t, we were simply familiar.

We mistake familiarity for affection because predictability feels like love. It isn’t.

I once asked a client why he’d used the same private jet company for a decade. He said, “Because I have their number saved in my phone.” Ten years of loyalty, because of a saved contact.

The industry, of course, spins this as “relationship depth” and “brand affinity.” But most of it is admin avoidance.

True loyalty only exists when it costs you something. The client who waits three months for their tailor rather than going elsewhere, that’s loyalty.

Hermès built an empire on this psychological quirk. By the time your name finally crawls up their waiting list, you’ve invested so much effort that you’d defend the brand with your life. Effort justifies emotion. It isn’t devotion, it’s the IKEA effect but with a Birkin bag rather than a bookcase.

The problem is, brands start mistaking habit for affection and then they stop trying. Just like marriages where one day someone runs off with the Amazon delivery man because he remembered their birthday.

Loyalty isn’t a possession. It’s a lease, and it expires the moment someone else makes your client feel more interesting than you do.

See you next week

Paul