SOUTHFIELD, Mich. and ATLANTA -

Polk and AutoTrader.com recently reached out to almost 1,500 luxury vehicle owners to figure out what makes these buyers loyal to — or defectors from — a particular luxury brand.

What their study found is that the motivator most often cited for sticking with a luxury make is brand affinity. Almost half the respondents listed as a reason.

In fact, brand affinity was mentioned by 44 percent of the respondents, 11 points higher than the No. 2 choice, quality/reliability, which was cited by a third of respondents.

Driving performance was third (24 percent), followed by price/finance/value (16 percent) and styling/design (16 percent).

Differences Between Brands

Interestingly enough, though, the study found that the “primary” reason consumers stayed with a particular company was different from brand to brand. For example, officials noted, owners may stay loyal to Cadillac for a completely different reason than why BMW owners stay loyal to their brand.

“These key insights are important because they highlight the strengths of individual brands with their audiences and shed light on where each brand can improve to increase loyalty or combat defection,” they added.

Going through the reasons, those sticking with Cadillac had the greatest likelihood of citing brand affinity as their reason. Meanwhile, consumers favoring Mercedes-Benz and Acura were the ones most likely to count quality/reliability as their primary influence.

The brand most likely to have buyers citing driving performance was BMW, while returning Acura buyers pointed to price more than any other brand. Styling and design was more important to returning Audi buyers than it was for any of the others.

Technology/innovation was a top five choice for just one brand (Acura), while dealership loyalty made the list for Lexus and Mercedes-Benz loyalists.

“Understanding behaviors and attitudes is critical in helping automotive marketers to more effectively reach and influence luxury shoppers during their decision making process,” explained Rick Wainschel, AutoTrader’s vice president of automotive insights.

“Because of this, we sought to take a more in-depth look at why this specific set of buyers was either staying with or defecting from their brands to help uncover opportunities that manufacturers and dealers could take advantage of or threats that they could mitigate,” he added.

Gender, Age Breakdown

Additionally, the study found that loyalty reasons differed by age and gender.

Women, for instance, were more likely to cite dealership loyalty (17 percent) than men (11 percent). They were also more prone to list safety (10 percent) than their male counterparts (5 percent).

Looking at age, loyalists ages 55 and over were more likely than those younger than 55 to cite their strong affinity for a brand as their reason (47 percent versus 37 percent, respectively).

Quality/reliability was a more common choice for younger buyers, who cited this 54 percent of the time compared to 31 percent for buyers 55 and up.

Defection Reasons

Moving along, the study also found the top reasons mentioned by respondents for deciding not to go with the same luxury brand again.

Topping the list was price/finance/value at 24 percent, followed by size/body style at 20 percent. Brand affinity was third on the list (17 percent), while 14 percent said it was time to change. Lastly, driving performance and styling/design both generated 13 percent of the response.

“This study illuminated important differences for staying loyal or defecting from luxury brands and how those key drivers of loyalty and defection are different for each luxury brand," said Mark Pauze senior solutions consultant with Polk.

“AutoTrader and Polk have worked together to bring greater insight to several areas of critical interest for the automotive industry. The insights gained from this study will be very useful for luxury brands as they strategize on how best to retain more of their customers and key drivers that could attract new buyers or keep current owners from defecting,” he added.