Same Reach, Different Story: What Gen Z's Basket Says About Loyalty

Gen-Z Basket Everyone keeps repeating the same thing about Gen Z and loyalty: they'll switch brands at the drop of a hat — about 81% say they did in the past year — yet plenty still call a favorite brand one they'd never leave. The honest read is that Gen Z isn't loyal by default. They're up for grabs until a brand earns its way into the routine. ECGO's Basket data shows what earning it actually looks like — and it's a good reminder that two brands can post the same headline number and be in totally different shape. This edition, two beverage brands tie for the widest reach in the panel, hitting the exact same share of users. On paper, dead even. In practice, not close. One of them racks up more than three times the disposal events from that same group of users, and its shoppers come back on a repeat cycle nearly triple the pace of the panel's next most-tracked brand. Here's the thing worth sitting with. "Percent of panel reached" is the number everyone puts in the deck, and on its own it can quietly mislead you. Two brands can look identical on reach while one is getting tried once and the other is getting bought almost every week. That's the difference between winning a trial and winning the routine — and you can't see it until you look past reach to how often people actually come back. This edition's Basket section ranks every top brand on both sides of that — reach and repeat frequency — across every sub-category in the panel, not just the two here. If reach is the headline you report on, this is the table that tells you what's really behind it.