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The Internet allows people to search, communicate and compare, to find the best service, the best deal, the best price. But this very nature of new media has the potential to undermine brands and discourage customer loyalty because it encourages us to switch. Becoming a savvy shopper is part of being a consumer today in the 21st century.

The word loyalty conjures up emotional images...

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... of times and places past, when people and their relationships to companies and organisations existed without question or the opportunity to move. Times have changed, however, and a concept that was so strong 40 years ago doesn't exist into today's rampant consumer society. Or does it?

In fact, it's alive and kicking. Almost unbelievably, the numbers are highest among 16-34-year-olds - the very people whose advanced technical savvy and ability would suggest they're the most discriminating and least loyal bunch on the planet. A recent report on the concept of loyalty in the 21st century by the Global Future Forum (GFF) and O2 reveals that over 80% of 16-34-year-olds believe loyalty is just as relevant today as 40 years ago.

Their version of loyalty has morphed, though, into something identified as 'episodic loyalty'. It's like a brief and passionate affair: deeply meaningful for both parties while it lasts but never intended to be forever. The challenge for any brand is how to go about prolonging these episodes of emotional commitment. Long-term relationships are still possible, but any business is going to have to work hard at growing and changing with its customers to keep pace with them.

Today's marketing strategies and the nature of competition have played a critical role in redefining loyalty. For example, we asked the 76% who said that people are less loyal to brands these days why they thought this was. Top of their list was that people change brands frequently so they can take advantage of special offers and promotions. 56% blamed the decline in loyalty on new things coming onto the market that people want to try. This is the loyalty/satisfaction paradox we now face. We can be simultaneously satisfied with the performance of an existing product but move on to another because it has brought something new to market.

So what can positively influence our loyalty? The winner in the race for influence by a long way is friends and family (77%), illustrating the central and many roles trust and real people play in forming relationships and opinions today. It isn't commerce and technology that has the potential to drive loyalty, but people. A clear new hierarchy of loyalty is emerging, which businesses and brands need to understand. Personal loyalty comes top, followed by work, then the sports team we trust. By focusing on pure commerce rather than relationships, companies are failing to tap into the principal mechanism driving loyalty in the modern world.

In the future it will all be about the human touch. Consumers want to talk, both among themselves but also to the people they buy from, which is consistently cited as the reason that we return time and time again to a company.

However, those promiscuous, disintermediators also have an important role to play. Second in importance to the human touch in creating a positive feeling about a company is its Web presence and the ability to make email contact or purchase online. In our new age, it looks like old values in new forms are remerging to align with new channels of communication.

Cath Keers is customer director at O2