[ THE LAST WORD ]
A MOST
LOYAL
CREATURE
W
hen I was growing up, we
had a cat, a freelance cat who
wandered in on a whim one
day and stayed for dinner.
It was a pet with benefits,
belonging not to us but to
the neighbourhood, slinking over walls, sunning in
backyards, lapping milk from a saucer and leaving.
On a trip to the supermarket, after I had chosen
my favourite cereal, based not on its flavour but
on the gift inside the box – a toy submarine with
working torpedoes – my mother said I could
choose a tin of food for the cat. I scanned the
shelves. There were so many cats.
The ginger cat, stripey and imperious. The
black cat, shadowy and languid. The grey kitten,
with its paws held up in sweet surrender. But
I couldn’t see our prodigal model, which was a
scruffy black-and-white with yin-yang markings.
I pointed this out to my mother, worrying that
our cat had not been catered for, and she laughed.
Cats can’t tell the difference, she said. Just get
any tin. Thus I learnt one of the key lessons of my
childhood: parents don’t know everything.
Of course cats can tell the difference. You
know how people say, generally when they are
on the verge of leaving a job or a relationship,
that if you want loyalty, get a dog. If you want
brand loyalty, on the other hand, I suggest
you get yourself a cat.
Last year, for a school science project, my
teenage daughter decided to investigate the
domesticatability of urban feral cats. With the help
of a rescue organisation, she managed to procure
one motley-coated juvenile felis domesticus from the
grounds of a hospital car park.
96 R E WA R D S & L O YA LT Y S A
After a couple of weeks of hissing,
clawing and spitting from inside
its quarters at the vet, the
hypothesis was proven
correct: feral cats can
be domesticated.
What I had not realised
was the addendum to this
thesis, which was that
we would get to keep the
feral cat. From my own
research, I can now reveal
that ferals are just as
fastidious and pernickety
as aristocats when it
comes to their choice of food.
They will only eat one variety of one brand, and
the trouble is, you won’t know which brand it is
until they have tried all the others. I am like that
cat, only fussier.
IF YOU WANT
LOYALTY, GET A DOG.
IF YOU WANT BRAND
LOYALTY, ON THE
OTHER HAND,
I SUGGEST YOU GET
YOURSELF A CAT.
Once I have settled on the brands I like, no,
love – car, computer, smartphone, breakfast cereal,
coffee shop, radio station, social network – you will
not induce me to switch, for any amount of points/
cards/benefits/rewards/toy submarines with
working torpedoes. Instead, I will gladly turn your
business model on its head.
My loyalty to your brand will be its own reward.
I will become your evangelist, your ambassador,
your imbongi, your from-the-rooftop shouter.
All I will ask in return is that you keep your
side of the bargain, which is to grant me the
right to inexplicably change my mind, as cats like
to do when you have bought them a bulk pack of
their favourite food because it was on special at
the supermarket.
The ultimate test of loyalty, in an open market,
is whether it can survive the glittering allure of
competing propositions.
But don’t worry, brands of my heart and soul,
I shall return, like the cat who wondered what
was on the other side of the wall, and the child
who inadvertently broke the toy submarine in
the bathtub. ■
EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOYALTY, I LEARNED
FROM THE CAT. WELL, BRAND LOYALTY, ANYWAY,
WRITES GUS SILBER.