Brand Switching: defined by the Sticky-Marketing.com monthly magazine

Brand switching is when a consumer or group of consumers switches their allegiance from one brand of a certain type of product to another. This brand switching may be temporary, (example: if Marlboro cigarettes are not available at the shop a consumer may buy Camel as their next preference) or it may be longer lasting, perhaps for example in the case of products that last longer or from which switching away is harder.

It is possible to research consumers in a marketplace to determine their attitude to brands and their likelihood to switch from a brand they are using at the moment, and in particular to which other brand they might switch. This allows the building of a picture of likely brand switching behaviour. It may be that German Mercedes buyers will in the main consider switching to BMW cars but would not consider switching brands to a Volkswagen. Added twists might be that from BMW some consumers would switch to Volkswagen. If consumers propensity to switch is known the market can be modelled to indicate future market share. Such modelling could also indicate the relative positioning of the competing brands on some variable asked in the research. The simple example above for example positions BMW and Mercedes close together but BMW nearer to Volkswagen than Mercedes.

What brand switching research would show is if a particular competitor was most likely to steal customers away from any particular company and the company could then focus their creative attention on that particular threat to their business.