We have all seen brands constantly competing in the low-cost market as one of the newer market trends. We see them across most industries — supermarkets, airlines, clothing stores — and we’ve all enjoyed that fierce competition between them.

But is there something more to these brands than just being the cheapest option?

First, I’d like to explain the difference between customer loyalty and brand loyalty. Customer loyalty happens when customers know they’ll find cheap prices, so they keep coming back — but it’s difficult to sustain, since another brand can take your customers with a better price. Deloitte research suggests up to 40% of a brand’s perceived value comes from things other than price.

Brand loyalty, on the other hand, is driven by trust and reliability. Both types matter in the race for customer retention. Now, if brand loyalty is what protects brands from that race for the best price, how do we achieve it? It all relies on integrated communication and coherence.

Integrated communications is the best marketing campaign we can possibly have. It’s not achieved by a single post, but by being coherent at every single interaction with the customer — and that interaction isn’t only when we sell to them.

Volkswagen’s Dieselgate illustrates this perfectly. Volkswagen claimed their cars had 40% lower emissions than competitors, but in 2015 it came out they used software to cheat emissions tests. The scandal took years to recover from — the real cost of saying something your organization isn’t living up to.

That kind of coherence starts with who you bring into the organization — hiring for cultural fit means people who genuinely believe in the brand’s values. So next time you go back to a brand, ask yourself: is it the price, or do you actually believe in what they stand for? That answer says more about a brand’s real strength than any discount ever could.