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.

Feels true, sounds true, looks true, and heard it was true? Must be true!

Our world is crowded with information. How do we actually come to believe?

So much information that our brain could not process everything that is around us unless it applied some filters. I recently came across research showing how our brain decides what to believe and how it processes information. There is a clear pattern that emerges, one I am sure is consistent with our individual experiences.

We are more likely to believe when we are able to double check the information across different sources.

Cristiano Castelfranchi from the Institute for Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, in Roma, Italy gives us some key elements that corroborate my intuition on this in a essay titled “Reasons to Believe: Cognitive Models of Beliefs Change” - 2004.

We only believe if we have reasons to believe.

In doing so, our brain reassures itself with the logic of comparing sources and information. Compare this to the phenomena of false beliefs and rumours getting started. If two or three unrelated people give you the same information, suddenly a doubt is born that the information may actually be true. Why so? Simply because you were told so by a small number of people that seemed to believe in it...

Important steps in believing are:

• Source Reliability (perception of independence, trustworthiness)
  
• Belief Credibility (importance and plausibility = how much it matters to you and how you feel about it from the inside)
  
• Existence of a convergent source confirming.
  

Castelfranchi also talks about what the belief brings to you in terms of achieving your goals. Does it make you feel good, satisfied, does it solve a problem etc... Naturally the brain has a tendency to take the shortest path to satisfaction and if believing is “simpler” than doubting, one may be inclined to avoid challenging the belief further.

The absence of internal contradiction is a key success

 factor to believing

If the information contradicts other existing beliefs it will either be purely and simply rejected, or submitted to a much more intense scrutinizing process.

Morality ? in trying to convince someone, going with the flow is easier than contradicting them. Leading them to analyse and realize their own belief is false is key in getting them to change their mind.

Give them reasons to believe. Get the same information to come to them from various sources they will deem reliable. Deliver the message in a way credible to them.

And remember convergent sources of information contribute to making the information credible.

Pics Credit: Truth and Falsehood by Dulhunk and Megaphone drawing by PSD

Thank You !

This post is about all of you.

I have now been more regular at posting on this blog in the last month or so. There has been more and more of you to actually read, bookmark and track my posts.

I am very grateful. I hope what you are reading is helpful and might even get you thinking about your own business and your own brand.


Hopefully, I am not taking myself too seriously and I don't pretend to know it all. Don't be afraid to challenge me and post comments. Most of these posts are the continuation of my own state of mind and can very much be qualified as work in progress.

Once again, thanks. And I hope to continue to deserve your attention.

How you define your business changes everything – the Google example

I recently came across an interesting post on BrandSimple, which triggered this one.

Is Google stretching the limits of brand credibility with the launch of its phone?

The article is well written and makes a very valid point about businesses who go and cross the line of what is really their core business model to adventure themselves in side activities that can later fireback and damage their brand.

But I am thinking a business model and a brand is something that can evolve with time, and it is not uncommon to see a business centre its activity differently by redefining itself and it’s brand or brands. Therefore it really depends on how you are looking at a business. To go back to the Google example if you think Google is purely in the content business, then you may agree with Allen Adamson who posted this article on BrandSimple.
I don’t agree with him. Nothing personal. I think looking at Google and saying they are in the content business is an incorrect and a very short view of what the Google business and brand is about.
What is Google’s core business or at least was when they started is Search. So they are about

 indexing, searching, and bringing the result of your search to you. That led them quickly into indexing the planet (Maps are giant indexes in a way), and is leading them into the publishing side and naturally in the advertising side (which is no doubt their major source of revenue). Then you need to stay on top of the content generation game, and with Cloud Computing growing, Google launched Google Apps, facilitating online computing.
So Google is not really in the content business. Google does not really “make” content although it sometimes does.

Google is about searching, organising, facilitating, presenting and delivering content. Google is in the content delivery business.

So does it make sense to partner with mobile manufacturers and give your name to a phone software? Yes, absolutely. 

A phone is a mobile terminal. By doing that Google is securing THE ultimate delivery platform. A great way to ensure content is delivered all the way to mobile users. It is mission critical for Google and Google Apps to secure the mobile base.

There is more than one manufacturer working on the Android platform so one cannot say that Google is tied up with a particular hardware manufacturer.

As an aside HTC has done a really good job with the first Android phone (featured pics)

Check the Android T-Mobile page on HTC’s Website.

And the following Press Release on T-Mobile's Launch

Android is an OS similarly to Symbian or Windows mobile. Open Source it is based on a Linux and Java core and will rely heavily on developers bringing new applications to market. Calling it the Google phone is a good stretch that will provide the device with instant awareness and a fast adoption curve.

I can only applaud. The future will tell us how successful this strategy was.

For more technical resources check an independent fan site.

Lifestyle brand or not, marketing is about adding value.

Would you argue that it is easier to talk about branding when you are working with consumer goods or lifestyle brands? Surely it is easier to think brand when you are an icon like NIKE, APPLE, SONY.

Marketers have to answer to the CEO and the board about ROI and how much value they add to the business and that is where my point is. Marketing must add value whatever product or service you are bringing to market.

"A commodity is anything for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. In other words, copper is copper. Rice is rice. Stereos, on the other hand, have many levels of quality. And, the better a stereo is, the more it will cost. The price of copper is universal, and fluctuates daily based on global supply and demand..

One of the characteristics of a commodity good is that its price is determined as a function of its market as a whole. Well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets. Generally, these are basic resources and agricultural products such as iron ore, crude oil, coal, ethanol, salt, sugar, coffee beans, soybeans, aluminum, rice, wheat, gold and silver.
Commoditization occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base, often by the diffusion of the intellectual capital necessary to acquire or produce it efficiently. As such, goods that formerly carried premium margins for market participants have become commodities, such as generic pharmaceuticals and silicon chips." Source Wikipedia

Fighting commoditization is what marketing is all about.
Find a meaningful point of difference for your target market, whether the difference lies in the manufacturing process or the quality of the materials, ingredients, the history around it etc.... It is around difference that you can articulate a brand strategy. And if your target market does not care, find a way to make them care. Educate them to choose better. Educate them to choose your brand.

Advert recall even in fast forward !

Interesting research is showing that TV viewers that are using PVR/DVR functions and are fast forwarding adverts are actually still paying attention to what they are forwarding through. Ad recalls are still high even if they are lower. Subjects are so anxious not to miss the beginning of their show that they are still registering images. Read the full article

The difference between Advertising & PR

I have just read a funny post from Chris Brown in the US.

Here are pics from it - I think it is self explanatory !

Just one comment I would add though. Something I have been beating on constantly in this blog. It's the power of repetition from different sources. Joke apart the subject is more likely to believe the statement to be true if he hears the same info from at least 3 different types of sources. So Branding / PR and Advertising should be used together to consolidate the brand message... one really can't achieve the same results alone.

Seeing is believing ?

I came across an interesting article about a paradigm in the way we choose to believe information.
According to researchers M.B. Welsh & D.J. Navarro from the University of Adelaide in Australia, we are subject to a phenomenon called "Base Rate Neglect" which means we tend to give a stronger weight to information gathered depending on whether it is recent or not (age), geographically relevant (location), and depending on the source and the sample size.
Beyond the very technical content of the article, I found enlightening the way that we discount information and what we choose to believe.

One particular example is a research about Swans, where 999 swans observed around the world are white and one found in Australia is black. Although the probability that the next swan encountered will be white is very high (as per the base rate), research shows that the subject after observing a regional variation is suddenly more prone in believing that the next swan encountered in the same region could actually be black. 

This phenomenon can explain, for example, how negative consumer experiences can ruin brand image quickly. 

But it also opens an interesting door on how to reverse negative brand image. And how one can manage information and marketing activities to reverse consumer beliefs. 

Showing a radical change (something as different as finding a black swan), concentrating on creating positive consumer experiences in stores as well as using word of mouth and PR tactics to spread the word can help reverse previous perceptions. 

Brands: Show them love and get loved back !

Great post, I have just read today on:

http://tinyurl.com/3tetdy

Looks like the human brain may have neurons called the "mirror neurons".

Mirror neurons play a great role in imitation behaviours.

Watch someone experiencing strong emotions (excitement, laugh, love, tears, etc...) and suddenly our innerself seems to resonate along? 

Mirror  neurons are playing an important role in the learning process for example.

Read more about mirror neurons on : http://tinyurl.com/5hm6dy

Shall we derive from this that a good way for a brand to be loved is to show love ?

I feel smarter now.

Concentrate on understanding usage & usability not just your customers profile

Gone are the days.

I have read and heard so much about how businesses should be consumer focused. Put the consumer in the middle of your business model, and try to service him properly, service his needs... In my area of marketing - Fast moving Consumer goods and Consumer electronics, I believe the thinking needs to shift.

Businesses need to focus now on how consumers are using the products. Usability is key. We all know consumers barely use 1/3 of what their phone can do. How many consumers are using video messaging ? Video Calling ? how many watch TV on their handsets ? How many are actually using mobile banking ?
I believe we will see more and more businesses focus on how consumers use the technology, how they use the products. The winning ones being the ones who will bring to consumers the real perceived added value to their everyday life rather fancy gimmicks which nobody wants.

Ergonomics, Cognitive sciences all have contributions to make to marketing in helping us understand the relationship between products and consumers.

If you are marketing a particular innovation or technology product out there. Ask yourself how people are using your product and what they really care about. Don't put them at the centre of your thinking. Put the relationship between them and your product at the centre. And try to maximize that in a way that they can't live without your product anymore.

It is that relationship that really matters to you.

Marketing Metaphoria

A very interesting reading from G.Zaltman.

Zaltman he is a leading thinker around what influences consumer behaviors. He puts into light what he thinks are key drivers of consumer behaviors regardless of cultures and borders.

These drivers are the perception of balance (justice, equilibrium), the feelings of transformation (changes in substance and circumstances), the impressions of embarking on a Journey (Meeting of past, present and future), the perceptions of Containment (inclusiong, exclusion and other perceptions of boundaries), the perceptions of being Connected (to oneself and to others), the available Resources (acquisitions and their consequences), as well the sense of control (Mastery, Vulnerability and Well-Being).
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is marketing innovation and technology. Zaltman is certainly touching something interesting here, even though he is not giving us direct keys into practical marketing actions.

It is a good insight and its learnings can for example be used in ad testing and in any experiential marketing brief to drive key perceptions.

Stealing the Olympic Togs - Pleading Guilty !

I have to plead guilty to 185K+ victims of my idea of an Olympic viral campaign !

Check: http://www.nzsportsnews.co.nz/vid.php?id=185579 to see an example iteration.

Born out of a problem situation : how to increase the traffic on our Campaign website for the Olympics ? Check http://www.bringithome.co.nz/

Note: Bring it Home is our current umbrella theme for this winter to connect with NZ Consumers.

Turned around in a couple of weeks by our agency Satellite Media (http://www.satellitemedia.co.nz/) this viral email has worked beyond our wildest dreams.

Simple idea though ... a one on one relationship between the sender and the recipient, full personalisation of the message to make it more "real".

Outstanding results and possibly a NZ First.

Guilty as charged ;-)

NOT SO GOOD JP !

Ok - Welcome to Web2.0 ....
This is probably the first learning ;-) great to have a blog... but:
1. you need to take time to post things on it !! and
2. actually probably nobody looked at it anyway ....
I make honorable amends, I have been pretty busy.
Fine! then but hey this blog is still here and I am back on it...

SiSoMo

Kevin Roberts has done it again, after Lovemarks he is coming out again with a new book called SiSoMo (Sight Sound & Motion). The theme looks promising. We are definitely going to talk here about marketing emotions, consumer experiences in today's techno world...

Intuitive Marketing

Certainly there is a difference between a little market research and too much market research.

Data can sometimes be your enemy.
I'll remember an example in the book BLINK (Malcom Gladwell) about this retired army general who kept the pentagon in dismay over a simulation of war in Iraq. Why ? Because the pentagon was running sophisticated simulation tools who were trying to predict and calculate everything whereas our General was using his experience and intuition built on the battlefield. He engaged in a series of guerilla tactics and moves that the pentagon did not see coming... Too busy looking at complicated spreadsheets ;-)

Well, I think this illustrates well the point today. Too much information kills information. You can loose yourself into it. Remember the Game theory they teach you in school.
- You move they move = status quo
- You move they don't move = you win
- You don't move they move = they win
- Nobody moves = nobody wins.

If your competition starts doing promotions and you do some too at the same time... You go back to equilibrium. Unless this has a global effect of dragging more people into stores overall.... But that's not always the case. Hence you always loose somewhere else.

The point I am making with all this is that when it's action time don't hesitate because often it's the player who makes the move first who will cash in until everyone else follows. Study enough data to make your business decision in confidence. Then keep the studying for later when it will be time to analyze the cost / benefits of your move.

Don't get me wrong research is great... It's just that you could be doing just that ;-)

The sales guys & Brand Strategy

Often I come across the same problem. Brand image is this fuzzy idea out there... But sales is what really counts... Yes ? Well this is part of the same thing... And I have been preaching this for years in all the companies I have worked for.
Ignoring this is a bit like running without direction, The legs without the head. The way you sell, the people you employ in sales, how you negotiate on price, your ability to add value to a deal, the kind of promotions you run, the corporate responsibility programs you run, the sponsorship deals you sign... Everything, it all speaks for you as one. It is your brand personality. An because it all comes down to people, it will be about who they want to work with and will impact their confidence in what you have to offer. So at the end it will impact very directly your business results. A brand is an asset. As I already highlighted before... That asset is sometimes worth everything.

Consumer acquisition & Brand Management

What does one have to do with the other ?
Well every business dreams to grow its consumer base. Last posting was about the fans.... Imagine a music band who would start to play every different style of music in a desperate attempt to increase album sales and reach out to more people... Well now you are with me... The likelihood of them upsetting their fans is high, their identity becomes confused, diluted... And the reverse effect happens they loose their public without really growing a new one. Its the same in business. The key is what does you business / your brand stand for ? Who are you ? What are your values ? What do consumers like you for ? Try to understand that first - because every brand / business has an image it projects ... Good or bad. You want to capitalize on that image, work on it, develop it, correct it. You also want to filter new ideas, new services, offers, through your existing consumer base to make sure there are no fundamental objections. Focus groups are great for that.
That's it for me today. Cheers.

It's all about the fans...

Today I had a discussion with a guy I met who is a music producer. We were talking about the difficulty for young talents to break through. New Zealand seems to have loads of young talents, but then there is a large gap between the base and the top groups which are breaking through.

We wondered why. As we talked about this I couldn't help thinking.
What is the difference between an artist and a tube of toothpaste or a bottle of beer or an MP3 player. Well no difference when it comes to branding. It's all about building and retaining fans, and its always the same challenge :
- Finding your audience (or target consumer) / and for that it is key to understand what / who you are ?
- Understanding who they are and what they want
- Meeting your audience (finding connections with them) hard to think what connection I can have with my toothpaste... but hey I know what I don't like... so there is a connection isn't it ?
- and then it is the fine line of continuing to do what you are best at while you start re-inventing yourself and growing / evolving your audience.

Good brands don't die, they evolve, transform over time, rejuvenate themselves. Check out Kevin's book "LOVEMARKS" if you don't know it... nice and refreshing. Great angle to look at branding / creating emotional connections.
Remember it's all about fans, creating fans and keeping them... Refocus your business around that idea.

Artists ... not an easy one. Painters, poets who become popular post mortem... they were ahead of their time. A brand can be ahead of its time but that's dangerous because no revenue = no business. A brand must generate revenue today. Some companies consider brands as an asset. I would agree with that. It's just that they are difficult to dissociate from people. Because somewhere it's the sum or factor of our combined attitudes which make a brand. In that way it would be hard to cut the ombilical cord... Brands are what you stand for as a company they are a part of yourself as an employee... you live and breathe the brand... (I can hear some laughs in the sales team - someone is talking about intellectual masturbation here... ?) well maybe... but then if you don't feel it that means you are not working for a strong brand. Ask people at Nike if they live and breathe the brand !

Well that's me today. If you read this please post some comments... makes me feel a bit less useless ;-)