The purchase decision is a long journey – Stores are the last mile

A brand needs to own key touch-points along the way to make sure when the right time comes that consumers will consider it.

So which touch points are critical to the success trial?


Well if you are not in the market for a new TV, Seeing an advert about TV’s will only refresh your awareness of the existence of that brand, hopefully give it some profile and potentially escalate it to acceptance and maybe “top of Mind” status. If this is not refreshed regularly you are likely to forget again, and the money is pretty much wasted.

Companies need to invest wisely in all the steps of the chain. The critical ones being downstream, they are also the ones where the ROI is likely to be higher.

What a brand marketer wants to do is the following.

• Establish awareness profile and acceptance of the brand as part of the consumer environment.


• Win the hearts of the opinion leaders / those who will generate a recommendation – Mavens


• Get people talking and particularly relay the words of Mavens. Create Buzz – Connectors


• Get Sales people in store to recommend and talk up the brand in a consistent way to the brand image carried in all other brand communications. Consumers are more likely to buy in, if the experience is consistent to the one they’ve had when talking to their friends or researching the market.
  

To convert a brand from awareness to trial you will need to win the consumers at four main levels:

• Establish brand acceptance at personal level (buyer has heard enough to find credible and accepts to consider – personal inner circle)


• Get Short listed through research rounds (internet, media, reviews, trade – environment outer circle)


• Get Validated by a closer circle (friends recommendations, trusted inner relationships circle)


• Win the in-store recommendation (point of purchase – outer circle)

Money invested in building awareness and top of mind becomes wasted if when coming purchase time friends reveal to you that this is a problem brand (for example customer service issues) or if when you walk into a store the sales person diverts you to a competitor brand for x,y,z unforeseen reasons.

All the steps are critical. But the in-store experience can make or break your work.

Picture credits: BdR76

Purchase process - All Brand touchpoints are not born equal

Let's say for the sake of this example that I am a marketer working for a company that is selling the “X” TV brand.

Is there a minimum number of touch points that I need to be across to make sure I convince consumers to buy the “X” brand (assuming I have the right appealing message) and which touch points are going to deliver the most efficient strategy?

All sources of information are not born equal. We believe less or more depending on where it comes from and how much trust we attach to the source.

For example:

• Our close circle of relationships: Friends and colleagues for example. We know their personalities, strength and weaknesses. Because of that we believe we can predict their behaviours and we know what we can trust them with. Suddenly an advice from them can quickly be assessed. If you know a friend who is a keen technology enthusiast his word will have more weight to you. He is a maven.


• Sales people in Stores: we all know sales people are here to sell, surely we also know they have incentives and are promoting one product at one time because of personal revenue gains. We take them with a pinch of salt but still we “believe” them to a good degree. They are the experts, they know what sells. They are supposed to understand the technology.


• Media: TV Advertising, Technology Reviewers, Print Magazines, Celebrity endorsement, and other ambassadors in the social media sphere. They are a good source of information, we understand some may not be as neutral as need be, but we believe and read with interest.

I should make a small aside here to discuss briefly Social Media spaces. I believe that currently because of the rather new landscape created by the rise of Social Medias, consumers are displaying a certain amount of naivety about it. In other words they give it more credit than they should. As with every other media this will settle down, and become an integral part of our world. When this has happened and the environment will have matured a bit, I believe this phenomenon will level out as well.

Regardless of the above, any information submitted to us gets double checked against our previous knowledge. The message content as well as the way it is delivered (format, tone, manner,...) are all just as important to us in deciding upon the “trustworthiness” factor.

“In a short slogan, there is no message without a medium. What the example seems to teach us is that at least in some cases, the reasoner should receive not just the content of a message, but take account of the message-with-the-medium.” Rott, 2004



Determining how much a particular message needs to be repeated until it gets the appropriate cut through is therefore pretty hard. What we know for sure is that the more risk averse a person is, the more it will take to convince her.

As explained in a previous post here, we are more likely to believe when the message is consistent across sources that look to us as if they are independent and neutral. The more of those sources with a consistent message the more likely the message is to be “true”.

Also the lesser number of touch points, the more difficult it is to be convincing and the less credible the message looks.

Imagine you go to a store to finally buy that TV and you come with a set of 2 or 3 brands in mind. Then you see brand Y in store ... you have never heard of brand Y before.

The store sales staff assures you it is the best buy for your money, will you believe them? Is that enough? Probably not. Unless you care little about brands and therefore are happy to take a risk.

You are most likely going to do one of two things.

1. Ignore that brand and buy one of the brands you have done your research on,
2. Delay your purchase and go research brand Y.

The environment you previously studied has changed and you need to reconsider.

picture credits: Old TV by afternoon_sunlight and Kermit shopping by Looking Glass

Risk aversion or Brand Promiscuousness?

How willing are you to take a risk when it comes to the purchase decision?

Let’s take a situation I have come across so many times in my last job.

Say I am an average customer in the market for a brand new TV. I know little about technology and the merits of LCD or Plasma. I have heard about HD TV but I don’t really understand it. I do know that I will be watching DVDs, that I watch Satellite TV, and that I would like it to fit in my existing cabinet. Considering the average price ticket of the item I want, I want to make an educated purchase.

What are the means of information available to me?

• My own knowledge & experience: I already have in my mind a series of conceptions about TVs and TV brands. This is an eclectic mix of what I have been exposed to recently and through past experiences. Advertisements, sponsors, signage, etc have familiarized me with a bunch of brands I am more or less attracted to for various reasons.


• New media and the web: I can google HD TV or LCD TV or PLASMA TV; I can read blogs and forums posts from consumers; I can visit manufacturers’ websites; I can read the blogs and website of Technology specialists (CNET, etc.)


• Magazines, TV, brochures, retailer catalogues and other traditional media: I will probably end up buying a couple of consumer technology magazines with reviews in them and watch some technological TV shows in my quest.


• Friends and relations: I will talk to people around me, particularly to those who have recently changed their TV and get their opinions.


• Stores: I will browse stores, look at designs, deals, ask the sales persons what is good and why, and I will begin to short list what I like.

In fact there are only three categories of souces to making a decision. Personal Beliefs / Trusted circle Beliefs / External insights and perceptions. These are key touchpoints a marketer will have to make sure are covered.

Presented with choices, the brain will start filtering all of this information and will push me towards what feels like the right balance or satisfactory state for me. The left and right brain will interplay to reach a conclusion I am comfortable with. The conclusion that is finally reached will ultimately depend on risk aversion – this to me is the real criteria.

How risk averse are we in a given situation? Early adopters for example are clearly less risk averse to technological innovations than consumers whose attitude towards technology is more traditional.

Buying a new brand is a bit like sleeping with a stranger (!) Sorry for the metaphor, but getting a new brand home is a bit like starting a new relationship.

Otherwise buyers turn to known brands for the reassurance of a continued happiness and the comfort of an existing relationship.

How “promiscuous” are we with a new brand?

That depends on risk aversion. Which is to use another metaphor a bit like finding out how many boxes you need to tick on the rational decision making side vs. the emotional decision making side. The more emotions involved... the more pleasure involved, the higher the risk. If you are willing to surrender to your emotions then you are less risk averse.

Instinctively our brain knows. “Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos (Blues for a Red Planet), US astronomer & popularizer of astronomy (1934 - 1996).

“The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts.” Bertrand Russell

Brand marketing academics often refer to the brand pyramid.

I have used this myself in Brand research surveys. It is a very common way to measure Loyalty levels and attitude vs a given brand.

The Brand pyramid gathers at it’s base “Aware” customers and at the top “Loyal” customers (indicating a higher emotional relationship) with different steps like “familiar” or “most preferred”.

But on those aspects not all customers are born equal.
Some “fall in love” faster than others. They are simply more promiscuous.

Pic Credits from Flickr Creative commons: in order Zach Manchester UK, Fusion 2005 and cbcastro.