The short answer: brand love is what happens when people feel a brand is genuinely on their side. It can’t be bought with a big campaign. It is earned through a product that delivers, proof that removes worry, a purpose people share and consistent behaviour over time. For small brands, start-ups and scale-ups, that is good news, because none of it depends on having the biggest budget.
“Brand love” can sound like a soft, fluffy idea. In my experience it is the opposite. The brands people care about are built on hard decisions: what to make, what to promise, who to partner with and what not to compromise on.
What brand love is, and what it isn’t
Brand love is a strong emotional attachment to a brand. People who love a brand choose it without shopping around, forgive the odd mistake, pay a fair price without waiting for a discount and, most valuable of all, recommend it to others.
It isn’t a loyalty scheme, a clever slogan or a burst of social media activity. RED C’s 2026 UK Brand Reaction Index, which ranked M&S Food, LEGO and Walkers as the brands Britons feel most positively about, put it simply: emotional connection “is built through what brands consistently do, not simply what they say.”
Is brand love worth chasing? What the research says
The evidence points both ways, and it is worth knowing both.
The case for. Kantar’s 2026 ranking of the most valuable UK brands found that brands which significantly improved how relevant and meaningful people found them grew their value by 140% over six years. Kantar called emotional connection “the big growth opportunity”, while warning that anything forced will look like bandwagon-jumping. RED C found that many of the UK’s best-loved brands draw on nostalgia and childhood associations, and that what builds connection varies by generation. Gen X, for example, prioritises trust, quality and value.
The case for caution. A 2026 study in the International Journal of Market Research, co-authored by Byron Sharp, found that four in ten buyers loved at least one brand in a category, but the share loving any single brand was only between 3.5% and 15%. The link between love and actual repeat buying was weaker than many marketers assume.
So brand love is real and valuable, but it belongs to a minority of your customers. The lesson for a smaller brand is not to choose between love and reach. You need to be easy to find and easy to buy for everyone, and give the people who matter most a reason to care. Those people become your advocates, and for a small brand, a parent recommending you at the school gate is worth more than almost any advert.
How Frog Bikes became a brand families care about
At Frog Bikes, where I was Head of Marketing, brand love was never a campaign. It came from the founding story and was reinforced in everything we did. Jerry and Shelley Lawson started Frog in 2013 after a fruitless hunt for good bikes for their own two children. That gave the brand a clear purpose from day one: bikes designed around children, not scaled-down adult bikes.
Two audiences had to care, for different reasons. Children needed to feel confident, and parents needed to feel they were in safe hands.
Children who feel confident
Learning to ride is a huge milestone, and it can also be frightening. Frog bikes are sized by leg length rather than age, with shorter cranks, scaled-down handlebars and brake levers small hands can reach. As Frog’s Head of R&D, Dr Tom Korff, put it: “children are not miniature adults.”
That design shows up as confidence. One Frog ambassador parent described her son moving from a balance bike to pedals “almost overnight”, because he was already so confident balancing. We told stories like that rather than just listing features, because the feeling of a child riding off on their own is what parents remember.
The brand also stood for something bigger: a generation of healthy, active and happy children with positive, lifelong habits. Content on confidence, mental wellbeing, family days out and screen-free time gave parents a reason to engage with Frog long before and long after they bought a bike.
Parents who feel in safe hands
Parents buying a child’s bike worry about safety, fit and whether it is worth the money. Frog answered each worry with proof:
- Research. The bikes were developed with sports scientists at Brunel University and the bicycle engineer Dimitris Katsanis.
- Testing. Every bike is safety tested, with the older children’s ranges tested to adult safety standards.
- Value. Frog bikes held around 60% of their original price after two years, and were backed by a 10-year manufacturer’s warranty. A premium price felt like a sensible investment rather than an indulgence.
- Longevity. Bikes were designed to be passed down. One dad described how his daughter’s balance bike was handed down to her younger brother, and “started an amazing journey into cycling for both our kids”.
Partners who lend their authority
Partnerships showed parents that organisations they already trusted also trusted Frog. The Bikeability Trust, Scottish Cycling, Welsh Cycling, the National Trust and Cardiff Council’s schools bike fleet all put children on Frog bikes. At Newport Live, cycling sessions grew 87% after partnering with Frog. Collaborations such as the limited-edition Tour de France bikes and Jaques of London added pride and family warmth, and the King’s Award for Enterprise and Red Dot Design Award added recognition.
Each partnership did two jobs. It got more children riding, which was the brand’s purpose, and it gave parents independent reassurance that Frog was the right choice.
7 ways small brands can build brand love
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Start with a real problem you care about. The strongest brand stories start with a frustration the founders felt themselves. If yours does, tell it simply and keep telling it.
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Make the product earn it. No amount of marketing makes people love a product that disappoints. Find the details that make the biggest difference to your customer and get those right first.
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Remove the worry. Work out what stops people buying (safety, quality, fit, value) and answer each worry with proof: research, testing, guarantees, reviews and resale value.
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Stand for something beyond the sale. A purpose people share gives them a reason to follow you between purchases. It has to be genuine and backed by action, or it will feel forced.
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Let customers tell the story. Real families, real photos and real words are more believable than anything a brand says about itself. Make it easy and rewarding for customers to share.
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Borrow trust from the right partners. Partners your customers already respect can give a small brand credibility it would take years to build alone. Choose partners who share your values and your audience.
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Look after people after they have bought. Help with setup, good service, spares, trade-ins and second-hand support all show you care about the customer, not just the sale. That is often when love is won or lost.
How to measure brand love
Brand love is hard to measure directly, but you can track the signs:
- reviews and recommendation scores, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- repeat purchase and referral rates
- branded search and direct visits to your website
- content customers create and share without being asked
- whether you can hold your price without relying on heavy discounting
The bottom line
Brand love isn’t something a small brand can buy, but it can be built. Be clear about the problem you solve, prove you can be trusted, stand for something people share and behave consistently. Do that, and the people who love you will do much of your marketing for you.
If you’d like to think about how to build a brand your customers care about, How to grow a small brand is a good place to start, or book a free 30-minute call.
Sources
- RED C, UK Brand Reaction Index 2026
- Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable UK Brands 2026 (October 2026)
- White, Bellman, Beal, Michelon and Sharp, “Love is in the … Rare? Investigating Brand Love Prevalence and its Link With Behavioural Loyalty Across Multiple Product Categories”, International Journal of Market Research (2026)
- Frog Bikes examples from the author’s own experience
Frequently asked questions
What is brand love?
Brand love is a strong emotional attachment to a brand, where people feel it is on their side, choose it without shopping around and recommend it to others. It is earned through what a brand consistently does, not just what it says.
Is brand love worth investing in for a small brand?
Yes, but as a result rather than a target. Research published in 2026 found that only a minority of buyers love any single brand, so you still need to reach and appeal to everyone else. The people who do love you become your advocates, and for a small brand their word of mouth is extremely valuable.
How do you build brand love?
Start with a real problem you care about solving, make the product earn the love, remove the worries that stop people buying, stand for something beyond the sale, let customers tell the story, behave consistently and look after people after they have bought.
How do you measure brand love?
Look at reviews and recommendation scores, repeat purchase and referral rates, branded search, the amount of content customers create without being asked and whether you can hold your price without heavy discounting.
