Avis, Sprint, and Nokia lead in customer loyalty.

• Position: Consumerism - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Brands that best reflect customer values and concerns were the top performers in the Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Leaders List for winter, 2001-02. The top 10 finishers were Avis, Sprint, Nokia, Budweiser, Motorola, Ritz-Carlton, AT&T, Miller Genuine Draft, Canon copiers, and Google. The semi-annual survey of 16,000 consumers measures loyalty for 145 brands, recognizing companies that are doing things right and will successfully weather the recession. "Customer loyalty measurements have always been leading indicators of profitability, but they take on even more importance in a recession," Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, a New York City-based brand and customer loyalty consultancy, points out. "Marketers can't realistically rely on `business as usual' methods any longer.

"The ability to address customer values in terms of product and service delivery and brand differentiation eludes most companies. Consumer shifts are happening faster today than brands are addressing them. If recent market history has shown us anything, it's that if you can't exceed or, at the very least, meet consumer expectations, you create a high rate of infidelity among your customer base. That's no way to profitably manage a business."

The leaders represent brands that best resonate with the values of their customers in their specific industry categories. "These are companies that recognize the import of truly understanding the values and expectations of customers," Passikoff notes. "In the last century, and in better economic times, it was acceptable for companies to be positioned only for promise. Today, investors are more demanding, customers more fickle, and profits more difficult to achieve. And it doesn't help that brands find themselves in the middle of a weakened economy. Executives at...