The Loyalty Recession: Why Lifelong Brand Devotion Just Flatlined
Sara Richter, CMO of SAP Emarsys, on why "true loyalty" has stalled for the first time, what's replacing it, and why Gen Z's boredom economy signals something far bigger than generational quirks
True loyalty has stalled
Sara Richter, CMO of SAP Emarsys, doesn’t equivocate. For five years her company’s Customer Loyalty Index has tracked consumer behaviour across markets. This year, for the first time, the metric flatlined. Lifelong brand devotion the sort marketers spent entire careers cultivating has stopped growing. What Ms Richter calls a “loyalty reset” might more accurately be termed a loyalty recession. Perhaps even a loyalty depression.
What defines this Engagement Era, as Ms Richter terms it, is a recognition that loyalty now rests on a customer’s personal relationship with a brand and the conversations that constitute that relationship. Long-term loyalty is no longer based on products, price cuts or convenience alone. Customers now expect brands to engage meaningfully with them in real time across every touchpoint.
The data is stark. Almost two-thirds of consumers now say they are loyal to products rather than brands. A third trust TikTok and social media trends more than brand websites. 45% are more likely to trust a product if it goes viral. This is not irrational teenage behaviour bleeding into the mainstream. It represents a structural shift in how loyalty forms, breaks and reforms.
In place of true loyalty, a new phenomenon is emerging: Trend Loyalty, an emotionally charged, fast-moving allegiance driven by viral moments and cultural relevance.
Gen Z and the Rise of Boredom-Driven Defection
Consider Gen Z. 63% per cent say they do not care about brands provided the product meets their needs. Nearly half have abandoned brands purely out of boredom, not dissatisfaction, not a better offer, but boredom. Their definition of value has mutated in fundamental ways.
The rise of Trend Loyalty reveals that consumers derive value from feeling involved in a moment or movement. 43% per cent buy products because they are trending on social media, almost double the general population rate. 20% say they are loyal to brands specifically because those brands trend, loyalty predicated not on product quality or service but on cultural momentum.
To break this cycle, Ms Richter argues, brands must deliver relevant, responsive experiences that transcend the product itself, turning a trend into a more meaningful, lasting connection. What sparked the customer’s interest initially? What emotional need did the trend satisfy? Brands need to understand the intrinsic value in dynamic interactions that are personalised and resonate emotionally.
Sara Richter, CMO of SAP Emarsys presents at Vogue Business Conference
That requires moving quickly and understanding each customer on a personal level. Whether it is a bespoke customer experience or a unique offer on a wish-listed product, this personal connection and emotional relevance now drive loyalty. It is tempting to dismiss this as generational quirk. That would be a mistake. Business buyers executives making procurement decisions worth millions, are exhibiting remarkably similar patterns. More on that to come in my follow up post.
How Responsible AI Became a Competitive Differentiator
Could responsible AI become a differentiator for brands? Ms Richter believes it already has. A year into the EU AI Act, 44% of UK marketers say their AI use has become more ethical; 46% report better understanding of AI ethics. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” notes Ms Richter, and the global wave of AI regulation appears no different.
Yet consumers remain deeply sceptical. 63% per cent of UK shoppers lack confidence in AI’s data privacy protections, up from 44% 2024. The gap widens rather than narrows.
The reality, Ms Richter notes, is that whilst anyone can use AI, not everyone has the skills, values and tech stack to use it well. It falls to brands to bridge that trust gap. Responsible AI has shifted from a compliance requirement to a genuine means for brands to stand out and build long-term loyalty. Brands that use AI transparently and deliver real value will win trust and loyalty. The rest will watch customers decamp to competitors who understand this.
Why Personalisation Keeps Failing
Only 44% of UK marketers believe their personalisation efforts are effective. Consumers agree, which is awkward given that 86% of marketers consider personalisation a key differentiator in 2025.
What holds brands back? The constraints are structural. More than half 57% cannot use data in real time. Two-thirds admit their data is too unstructured to use effectively. If one cannot adapt a campaign whilst it runs, the result is generic experiences delivered despite expensive infrastructure.
That is why too many brand experiences fall flat. Until marketers can connect data across silos and remove complexity from their tech stacks, they will struggle to deliver the speed and relevance consumers expect.
75% of consumers are put off when brands request data without explaining its use. The value exchange is breaking down. Consumers will share data as they do constantly but expect something meaningful in return. Personalised offers, loyalty rewards, early access, smoother service. What they emphatically do not want is to surrender email addresses, purchase histories and browsing behaviour only to receive identical promotional emails.
How Gibson Guitars Grew Email Revenue 120% Through Authentic Personalisation
Ms Richter distinguishes between targeted offers and “personalising with purpose”. What does that actually mean in practice, and how does it differ from simply sending more targeted offers?
Personalising with purpose, she explains, means using data to create experiences that matter, not just more noise. Rather than isolated examples of personalisation designed to drive a one-time sale, it is about delivering a mix of personalised elements as one cohesive, emotive experience.
She cites Gibson, the guitar manufacturer, as exemplar. The legendary guitar brand has shifted to a direct-to-consumer model powered by SAP Emarsys, and personalisation sits at the heart of it. By connecting channels like email, mobile, apps and in-store, Gibson has doubled engagement, grown email revenue by 120%, and now drives nearly half 46% of its total revenue through automated, highly personalised experiences.
What makes Gibson’s approach stand out is how they blend heritage with modern engagement. A fan who walks into a Gibson Garage in London or Nashville can continue that journey long after they leave, with personalised emails, app-based learning paths and targeted offers that reflect their passion for music. It is personalisation that feels authentic, and it is paying off.
Ultimately, Ms Richter argues, trust is built when customers feel recognised. An experience that reflects their preferences, behaviours and values achieves that; a chatbot loop does not.
Most brands are not doing this. They drown in data they cannot structure, run campaigns they cannot adjust, and wonder why customers ignore them.
The Value Exchange
What constitutes good value from the consumer perspective? Consumers increasingly expect a clear value exchange for their data. What does “good value” look like?
Ms Richter suggests that whilst value differs for everyone, a strong value exchange should mean a consumer feels an immediate, meaningful improvement to their experience. That could be personalised offers, loyalty rewards, early access to products or simply a smoother service.
What matters is that those benefits are specific and that a brand follows through on them. Collecting data without acting on it leaves customers questioning why they bothered sharing it at all, widening the trust gap already evident in AI adoption patterns. It is this follow-through, or lack thereof, that increasingly separates brands customers stay loyal to from those they abandon.
The Risk of Reducing Customers to Age-Based Stereotypes
Different generations engage differently. Boomers are more trusting and loyal; Gen Z are mobile-first and price-sensitive. Should brands hyper-segment by generation?
Ms Richter warns against it. Generational traits can guide strategy boomers often prefer email whilst Gen Z inhabit apps and social commerce, but loyalty is not fundamentally about age. The risk in hyper-segmentation is reducing people to stereotypes.
Behaviour and context prove far more powerful than age alone. The brands succeeding use generational insight alongside comprehensive customer views, identifying trends and patterns without losing sight of the individual. They can spot that boomers gravitate toward certain channels whilst recognising that individual boomers may behave quite differently from their cohort.
Because ultimately, loyalty is personal. Not generational.
Where Discovery and Loyalty Split
Will discovery increasingly occur on social platforms whilst loyalty is built elsewhere, in apps or direct commerce ecosystems?
Yes, Ms Richter believes so. Nearly four in ten Gen Z consumers follow brands on social media. 43%t have purchased products because they were trending proof that discovery often starts on these platforms.
When it comes to ongoing engagement, however, loyalty tends to shift into owned channels like email. Owned channels allow for deeper personalisation and consistency, but they only succeed if connected to discovery platforms. Customers move fluidly between discovery on social, research online and direct purchase.
Omnichannel, Ms Richter notes, allows brands to maintain pace with that speed of change and perceive those interactions together as a single journey rather than disconnected episodes. The brands that can stitch together discovery moments on TikTok with purchase behaviour on their site and service interactions via email are the ones building durable loyalty. Those that cannot watch customers slip away.
What This Means
The loyalty recession is real, and it is not confined to fickle teenagers. The patterns emerging in consumer behaviour product loyalty over brand loyalty, viral trends driving purchases, AI trust declining even as adoption grows, personalisation failing despite massive investment represent a fundamental shift in how relationships between customers and brand’s function.
Ms Richter’s message is clear: loyalty must evolve from products and pricing to meaningful engagement. Brands that understand this, that invest in proper data infrastructure, that use AI responsibly, that personalise with purpose rather than volume, will survive the recession. The rest will simply watch customers leave.
This article is based on an interview with Sara Richter, CMO of SAP Emarsys, and findings from the SAP Emarsys Customer Loyalty Index 2025.
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