The index surveyed more than 81,000 consumers aged 16 to 65, examining their attitudes toward and their relationships with 1,100 brands in 104 categories. The yearly study is designed to determine the drivers of brand loyalty, including how the consumer views the category, compares offerings and ultimately buys the product. Rankings are based on a brand’s ability to successfully deliver on drivers the consumer desire most, which are predictive of the highest levels of engagement and loyalty over the next 12 to 18 months.
The 2025 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index reveals that brands like Levi Strauss, Macy’s, and Amazon dominate their categories, with loyalty influencing consumer purchasing behaviour, sales, and market share.
It highlights that retaining customers is 15-22 times cheaper than acquiring new ones and boosting loyalty by 5 per cent can increase lifetime profits by 86 per cent.
“The impact of loyalty on brand profitability has increased so significantly since we released those very first calculations in 1997,” said Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, the New York-based brand loyalty and engagement research firm that conducts the annual research. “We introduced gold, silver, and bronze levels to this year’s CLEI to specify brand loyalty hierarchies in the companies consumers evaluated.”
The 2025 research highlights the significant impact of customer loyalty on business economics. It now costs 15-22 times more to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones, reflecting a 20 per cent increase since 1997. Boosting loyalty by just 5 per cent can increase lifetime profits per customer by 86 per cent, while a 2 per cent rise in loyalty can equate to a 28 per cent cost reduction in various sectors. Loyal customers are six times more likely to engage, prioritise, and repeatedly purchase from a brand, driving higher market share and profitability.
“The loyalty paradigm has changed dramatically over the past decade,” added Passikoff. “Happily, consumer loyalty can be measured, achieved, and leveraged. But it isn’t something that just shows up one day. It isn’t awareness or satisfaction no matter how much you think you have. And it absolutely isn’t something one can find on a 10-point scale. Loyalty is more complex today just as the consumer, the marketplace and marketing have become more complex. But, as research has proven, brands best at building loyalty win more customers, more sales, and much bigger market shares.”
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RR)
