Next time you are practicing your oral hygiene, think about this:

Why can’t Colgate and Crest, the two top-selling toothpaste brands, achieve the customer loyalty of Tom’s of Maine?

And more importantly, if loyalty is the ultimate purpose for branding (as consultants say), why doesn’t Tom’s of Maine dominate the toothpaste category?

Are you familiar with Tom’s? In 1970, Tom and Kate Chappell decided to make and sell their own natural products in rural Kennebunk. They started with a $5,000 loan and the philosophy that their products would not harm the environment. Among other offerings, they launched the first natural toothpaste in 1975.

Tom’s of Maine sells 12 varieties of toothpaste. Crest sells 41. Colgate sells 31, not counting its Ultrabrite brand.

Tom’s outperforms its much larger competitors in the toothpaste category, according to Brand Keys‘ 2009 Loyalty Engagement Index, a list of rankings of customer loyalty. In other words, Tom’s of Maine customers are more loyal to Tom’s than Crest customers are loyal to Crest.

So why doesn’t Tom’s own a larger share of smile?

Because, although Tom’s of Maine has more loyalists, Crest and Colgate have more samplers.

You know — flip-floppers. The undecided, uncommitted, experimenting, switch-hitting, test-driving swing-voters. The people that decide our elections.

Every brand has them (or doesn’t have them), along with loyalists who always prefer the brand and rejectors who always prefer the competitors.

Why don’t the brand samplers commit?

Some simply don’t care. Perhaps they think the category is a commodity. They buy the cheapest or the nearest. Eat Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes one week, then mix it up with some Post Grape-Nuts the next. It doesn’t mean one isn’t at least a little favorable toward Frosted Flakes. Just not every frickin’ morning.

Other samplers may enjoy sampling. I know guys who can rattle off with pride the pros and cons of every make and model of sports car they have ever owned. They fancy themselves as connoisseurs who appreciate variety.

There is great value in brand loyalty. As has been famously pointed out by Kuczmarski & Associates, loyal customers, on average, are willing to pay a 20% premium for their brand of choice. And it’s common knowledge that retaining customers is less expensive than acquiring new ones.

In 2006, Tom’s of Maine was purchased by Colgate-Palmolive. (There goes that idyllic illusion of the family making their own toothpaste in the Maine backwoods.) Certainly brand loyalty to Tom’s had an impact on the price.

Achieving loyalty is the ultimate purpose of branding, but the strategies vary by audience segment, depending upon where they are on the loyalty scale. Branding should focus on:

• Converting the samplers to loyalists
• Converting the rejectors to samplers
• And, of course, keeping the loyalists happy

Which strategies are most effective at converting samplers to loyalists?