Quality Reigns Supreme: The Surprising Data Behind 11.8% Growth Brands

Marketing buzzwords fly at us faster than a caffeinated TikTok feed. Personalization is essential. Omnichannel is non-negotiable. AI-driven insights are the future.

But here's a plot twist worthy of M. Night Shyamalan: the single most powerful driver of customer loyalty isn't some fancy new technology. It's something your grandparents would recognize.

The Element That Rules Them All

According to Bain & Company's groundbreaking study of more than 45,000 US consumers, one element of value stands above all others across every retail category they examined (drum roll please):

Quality.

That's right. Not price. Not convenience. Not a cutting-edge user experience or a clever loyalty program. Just good old-fashioned quality.

As marketers, we sometimes get so caught up in the latest tactics that we forget the fundamentals. But Bain's research is clear: perceived quality affects customer advocacy more than any other element of value. Products and services must attain a certain minimum quality threshold, and no other element can make up for a significant shortfall in this area.

What the Data Tells Us

Bain's Elements of Value® framework identifies 30 different "elements" that influence customer decision-making, arranged in a pyramid similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. These elements range from functional benefits like saving time and reducing cost to emotional benefits like reducing anxiety or providing entertainment.

But quality is the cornerstone. Without it, everything else crumbles.

Image Source: [Bain and Company]

This isn't just theoretical mumbo-jumbo from business school professors who haven't seen a real customer since 1997. It's backed by cold, hard, show-me-the-money numbers. Companies that nail quality (along with several other elements) aren't just winning — they're crushing it:

• 11.8% revenue growth (vs. just 2.3% for companies that don't excel on any elements)
• 4.8% market share growth (vs. -2.1% for companies delivering on 0-1 elements)
• Double the Net Promoter Score of companies that excel on just one element

Image Source: [Bain and Company]

Quality: The Foundation, Not Your Final Destination

Here's where things get interesting. While quality is essential, it's not sufficient for market-leading growth. The data shows that companies delivering on four or more elements (including quality) dramatically outperform those that excel on fewer elements.

This suggests that quality serves as the foundation upon which other elements can be built — not as a ceiling that limits what you can achieve.

Consider the telecommunications sector. T-Mobile has invested in delivering multiple elements of value since 2013, resulting in gains in Net Promoter Score, market share, and a market cap that grew from $14 billion to $48 billion by 2017. But they couldn't have achieved this without first ensuring a quality network experience.

Image Source: [Bain and Company]

Quality First, Then Emotion

One of the most fascinating insights from Bain's research is that companies cannot build strong emotional bonds with customers without first establishing functional excellence.

In fact, delivering on one emotional element adds 1.5 times more to your Net Promoter Score than delivering on one functional element. But you can't skip steps — the research found no company that made the leap to excelling on emotional elements without first establishing a strong performance on functional elements (starting with quality).

Image Source: [Bain and Company]

As Bain puts it: "We know of no company that made the leap to excelling on emotional elements over a sustained period without a strong performance on some functional elements." Translation: You can't sweet-talk customers into loving a product that doesn't work.

How Dollar Shave Club Leveraged Quality

Let's look at Dollar Shave Club — the company that basically said "Hey Gillette, hold my beer" and proceeded to completely disrupt the men's shaving market. Their secret wasn't a Super Bowl ad or celebrity endorsement. It was a laser focus on quality and value. They crushed it on eight elements of value — seven of which were functional, including quality.

The result? Since 2015, as Dollar Shave Club added elements to its value proposition, its revenue nearly doubled, and its market share doubled as well. This performance was so impressive that Unilever acquired the company for $1 billion in 2016.

Image Source: [Bain and Company]

But it all started with delivering quality razors at an affordable price — proving that sometimes the most disruptive strategy isn't a new technology but a commitment to fundamentals done right.

What This Means for Your Brand

So what are the key takeaways for those of you who didn't want to read this entire blog post:

1. Audit your quality rigorously. Are you truly delivering quality, or are you assuming it? Remember, it's perceived quality that matters — how do your customers rate you?
   
   
2. Don't try to compensate for quality gaps. If you're falling short on quality, fix that before investing heavily in other elements of value.
   
   
3. Build on your quality foundation. Once you're confident in your quality delivery, strategically add other elements of value — aiming to excel on at least four.
   
   
4. Don't forget the emotional multiplier. Emotional elements are worth 1.5x more than functional ones — but only once you've established your functional foundation.
   
   
5. Measure what matters. Are you tracking the right metrics? If quality is the #1 driver of loyalty, are you measuring it effectively?
   
   

Quality: The Unsexy Superstar

While everyone else is doing backflips trying to master the marketing equivalent of quantum physics, there's something deliciously satisfying about the primacy of quality. It's like finding out that despite all the fancy diet trends, vegetables are still good for you. Fundamentals don't expire.

The companies achieving extraordinary growth (11.8% revenue CAGR! That's the kind of number that makes CFOs do happy dances) aren't winning because they have the cleverest TikTok strategy or because they've deployed AI to optimize the optimal optimization. They're winning because they make stuff that doesn't suck, then build additional elements of value on that solid foundation.

So before you chase the next shiny marketing tactic, ask yourself: Have we truly mastered quality? Because according to 45,000 consumers across 22 retail categories, that's still what matters most.

Want to learn how your brand can leverage the Elements of Value framework to drive growth? Contact us to discuss how our brand strategy services can help you identify and deliver the elements that matter most to your customers.