The Bible Direct Marketing, and Research
The New Testament is not my normal source of marketing inspiration. Being secular, cynical, and non Christian, its probably fair to say that I have seldom sought inspiration in it all, unless you define reading it to try and get to sleep in a hotel without cable as an inspiration situation.
And its fair to say that when ‘thought for the day’ comes on the Today programme, I usually interpret it as a sign that if I don’t leave immediately, I’ll be late for my first meeting.
But last week, a late meeting off site created an opportunity to listen, and in 8 short words, a minister whose name I did not catch convinced me that I’ve truly been missing a trick.
He quoted St. Paul – the disciple, not a cousin of St. Ivel – and said quite simply ‘The good that I would, I do not’. I don’t remember what else he said, or even the point of his commentary. I only remember thinking that in that short sentence, he encapsulated the real challenge in brand marketing.
The good that I would I do not. Think about it. All of us have values. Those values drive our attitudes. And, if brand planners are right, those attitudes drive our behaviour. St Paul’s message is clear; often we don’t do what we know is right; our values don’t drive our behaviour.
An example. Most of us value honesty. But are we always honest? Do we always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Or do we occasionally feel it necessary to dissemble, even if ever so slightly, and of course for very good reasons?
Most of us value living up to our word, doing what we have promised. But if we all lived strictly by this value, than adultery would be non-existent, rather than the norm that recent surveys would have us believe it is.
Most of us –particular those of us of a certain age – value our health; yet we smoke, drink, and visit the dentist only when in pain.
The good that we would, we do not.
The linear relationship between values, attitudes and behaviour i is an aspiration, not a norm. We know it is people; we don’t always live up to our own pitcture of being ‘good’. And we know it as marketeers. We know it because in focus groups people tell us they will buy a product if it has these attributes and those emotional and yet, those very same people will buy a competitor product instead. We know it too because in those same focus groups they tell us that they never respond to junk mail if it uses star bursts and prize draws, and yet they do. Most of all we know it because we too are consumers and recognize that for all the purchases we make that are driven by our values, our beliefs, our perceptions of brands, there are tens of others that are driven by impulse, distress, or price.
Good brand planners can use research to help brand managers design constructs that accurately reflect the real values that the target market uses make decisions. Great brand planners can even tie together strings of values and attitudes and combine them with insights about how people attempt to rationalize their failure to live up to there own values.
But these grand and worthy plans designed to create appealing and self-reinforcing edifices suffer the same problem that religion does. As noble as the vision may be, and as fundamentally right and appropriate the target market believes them to be, sales – or bums on pews – will still be hostage to reality.
If values and attitudes don’t drive many purchases, what does? Well, gray bearded ad men will start with ‘fear and greed’- the mantra of many a salesmen. Then there’s sex, and envy, and of course gluttony. The seven deadly sins certainly have a role to play.
But there are less dark reasons why people don’t behave in accordance with their beliefs. Availability, practicality, and affordability can change buying patterns. I may prefer Coke from both a product and brand perspective, but I’ll buy something else if Coke’s available or if a competitor makes me a promotional offer I can’t refuse.
And so to can conflicting values. I may be driven by top-of-the-Malsovian-tree needs for freedom to explore myself, to become truly self realized, but that driver usually comes into conflict with other values, such as supporting my family. Thus a year in an Ashram will have to wait until my kids are self-sufficient.
This contradiction between what we believe and what we do may be answerable by accepting that the strength of conviction in our values and beliefs is not uniform. Some things matter a lot, some things don’t. We prioritize. We don’t feel passionately about everything, consider deeply ever decision. We learn to go with the flow when it doesn’t really matter. If we don’t, then we go crazy or go to a shrink.
The same thing is true of the brands that we buy.
The brand of motorcycle I choose to ride reflects a great deal of my values, my self-perceptions, my beliefs, my attitudes, even my rational considerations; but the brand of pen I use doesn’t. It simply isn’t important to me.
Yet in a focus group, I could easily describe what kind pen brand I would like to buy; its proposition, its product features, its price; even its personality, tone of voice and executional details. But in the end, I will buy whatever is nearest the check out.
So what good is qualitative research? What good is a brand construct? If consumers are going to buy products or their competitors not on the basis of carefully crafted brand building communications but because they are on sale or come with a free carriage clock, does understanding the intricacies of consumer insight matter a jot?
Yes, I think so. But only if the implications of the above are taken into consideration, and aligned with the Pareto Rule.
The 80-20 rule. Perhaps not true in every market, but most. Eighty percent of sales and usually profit comes from 20% of the customer base. In many markets, a good portion of the customers outside the top 20% is actually costing the company money.
And the 20% who are making money for you? We believe that they are the people for whom what you offer matters. They are engaged in the market, and are more likely, as proven in there consistent repurchasing, to be making value driven rather than ‘accidental’ purchases. Getting the brand right for them is crucial.
And understanding what makes them tick – their values and consequential attitudes – is essential not only to keep them, but to use as a blue print to find people who look like them who can be brought into the brand fold.
The consequence of this is not to reject qualitative research, but to conduct it amongst very select people. Not the promiscuous users, who can be converted from one brand to another by a discount or a good salesman because the purchase is not very important to them in any case. Their views may be of interest, but brands built upon their views are brands built on sand. Not the occasional buyers; they don’t generate profit. We should research brand development and communications treatment among the 20% who drive the profit, and prospects who both care about the market (as indicated by their purchasing) and who ‘look like’ our best customers.
This view can seem quite scary to those marketeers who confuse share of market value with share of customers in the market. They think to grow share, they need to have more customers, and collect those swing voters. But unlike an election, consumers can buy more than once. And in most markets, getting heavy users to use more or attracting just one more heavy user will generate a great deal more money than attracting a lot of light users who may well go to your competitor next time if they get a better deal.
It can also be rejected by NPD or brand developers because, they argue, either the 20% we currently have are not the 20% we want to have in the future, or there simply isn’t yet a group of people who are generating that high level of custom.
But there will be. Even in the most radically new market, with a completely new product, there will be a group of people who care passionately about the offer, and will engage with the brands and products at a far more intense level than others. They may be identifiable by their heavy use of a sector that currently provides a solution to the need or want your new product or brand will of course solve better. Or they may simply be the people in the research who are most a passionate, whether positively or negatively. Their views matter. They will make brand informed purchases, and potentially a lot of them. The others are distractions. They will be won over only by costly tactics, accident, or free carriage clocks.
St Paul was, I hope, not completely accurate. When it matters to us, we do do the good that we know we should. And we buy things because the brand we purchase aligns with our values. It is because of these people, and the value they present to clients, that brand planning must continue to evolve its own beliefs.
First published on BR 24 2 2003
