In the course of an entertaining post about NBC’s current “two hosts, one spot” late-night nightmare, Dean Bairaktaris asks, “Where is everyone’s Brand Loyalty? Is it with NBC, Leno or Conan?” This is an insightful question, because the expensive and embarrassing contretemps has been presented largely as Jay vs. Conan, Old Guard vs. Young Turk, homespun vs. hip.

via mashable.com

The potential impact on NBC as a major media channel has largely been ignored, except in posts like Dean’s, as Conan is widely presumed to be able to shift his audience, more or less intact, to Fox or another media outlet. But it’s fair to ask whether the broadcast networks actually have brand equity apart from the shows they carry. Is there an “NBC-ness” to the Tonight Show (or any other NBC program) that would not carry over to another network? That arbiter of absurdity, The Onion, would certainly say no.

The soon-to-be-announced decision by The New York Times to put some or all of its content behind a pay wall also involved a debate over the brand equity of the Times versus that of its content (in this case, the paper’s prominent columnists). An outstanding article in New York Magazine details some columnists’ concerns that in its pursuit of subscription revenue the Times would be sacrificing its position as a leading online news brand, giving up both traffic and influence (as well as premium advertising rates, apparently).

I think the two situations have a lot in common. In both cases, the underlying question was whether the locus of customer loyalty is the channel (NBC and NYT) or its content (shows and columnists). I’m not sure the answer is the same in every case. I don’t think broadcast TV networks are differentiated enough to generate brand loyalty, but I’m not sure that’s equally true of newspapers (I grew up reading the New York Times so I might be biased – or just conditioned).

For small businesses, the lesson is to think about what aspect of your brand your customers are loyal to, and not to assume that all customers are loyal to the same thing or for the same reason. You want the locus of loyalty to be your overall brand so that customers will stay with you as your business changes, whether those changes involve staffing, product assortment, location or even store closings. However, until you have the conversation with your customers, you can’t be sure that they are loyal to your brand or to your personable store manager, convenient location or frequent sales.

As a smaller business, you have the ability to engage with customers directly and provide an overall customer experience that embodies your brand’s unique promises and values. Larger brands often (but not always) provide a product experience that is not as closely connected to the brand. This is an advantage for smaller businesses which, unlike large brands, should never need to market brands and products separately. To leverage the direct connection with customers, treat loyalty as a two-way street. There are many ways to demonstrate your loyalty to customers, but the easiest is to listen to what they have to say.