Jacoby and Chestnut (1978) have explored the psychological meaning of loyalty in an effort to distinguish it from behavioural (i.e., repeat purchase) definitions. Their analysis concludes that consistent purchasing as an indicator of loyalty could be invalid because of happen stance buying or a preference for convenience and that inconsistent purchasing could mask loyalty if consumers were multi brand loyal. Because of these possibilities, the authors conclude that it would be unwise to infer loyalty or disloyalty solely from repetitive purchase patterns without further analysis.The further analysis needed to detect true brand loyalty requires researchers to assess consumer beliefs, affect, and intention within the traditional consumer attitude structure. More specifically, all three decision-making phases must point to a focal brand preference if true brand loyalty exists. Thus, (1) the brand attribute ratings (beliefs) must he preferable to competitive offerings, (2) this "information" must coincide with an affective preference (attitude) for the brand, and (3) the consumer must have a higher intention (conation) to buy the brand compared with that for alternatives. Unfortunately, relatively little elaboration of this attitude-based framework has emerged (cf. Dick and Basu 1994).