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Brand Building Brand Differentiation Brand Positioning Brand Promise Brand Strategy Brand Strategy for Start-Ups Branding Psychology Consumer Psychology Marketing Psychology

The Psychology of Obstacles in Brand Marketing

The previous post, Branding Psychology Insights: How Consumer’s REALLY View Your Brand, discussed three important ideas:

  • Your consumers are concerned ONLY about their end result
  • Your product/service is your consumer’s bridge/obstacle to the end result they desire
  • Your brand, the face & name of your product/service, must be synonymous with that end result

We all face obstacles. Obstacles are a part of life. Obstacles contribute to our growth, more than most of us are aware of. And just for clarification – an obstacle, is anything that hinders the progress to a desired goal.

The thing with obstacles, is that they don’t just show up as one big dragon we have to slay. Sometimes there are several dragons we need to get past. Sometimes there are obstacles within obstacles. That’s when we’re truly tested on how MUCH we want our end result. Your consumer goes through these same obstacles on their journey to their end result.

When they choose your brand, your product/service, they are relying on you to get them there in the best way possible (whether ‘best’ means fastest, cheapest, easiest, safest, etc.). That’s when they shift from being a prospect, to being a customer.

Keep in mind: the ‘obstacles along the journey’ concept really only comes into play when the consumer doesn’t have the ability to get their desired end result ‘instantly’. Where ‘time & effort’ are factors. Of course, some products/services provide their consumer with instant satisfaction – food items are an example. If someone’s thirsty, they buy a water bottle and drink it. Simple. However, if you’re selling a course where there’s a learning process, or if you’re providing a service where in the long-term your customer will be able to improve their financial health, their physical health, or their relationships, these things take time and effort. 

These are also the things that are part of the most fundamental human needs. In some way or another, we’re all looking to have these 3 needs met, and constantly improved. These end results will most likely require some degree of time and effort. In other words, they hinder progress.

Question for thought:

After choosing your brand, after becoming your customer, what are ALL the possible obstacles your customer will face on the way to their desired end result? 

And how are you helping them get past all those barriers to their goal?

There are two kinds of obstacles on that journey:

1)      Expected Obstacles

2)      New Obstacles

Expected Obstacles

These are the obstacles that are within the consumer’s awareness.

These are the obstacles that the consumer KNOWS about – the ones that they will CREATE for THEMSELVES. These are personal obstacles. Expected obstacles can be: resisting temptation, sacrificing something, not procrastinating, paying an annual or monthly subscription fee, etc.

staircase

If your goal is to get to the top of the staircase, if that’s your desired end result, you know your obstacles are the stair steps. They are within your sight. You know even before beginning that journey that you’re going to have to keep climbing, one step after another.

The interesting thing about obstacles is that they sometimes increase our sense of commitment to a particular goal. The more dragons we slay, the more invested we become in rescuing the princess, or getting to that gold, or whatever the end result we want is.

Every step on the staircase gets easier to conquer… and as you climb higher you become more invested in getting to the top. Once you’ve climbed halfway or above halfway on the staircase, it’s unlikely you’re going to turn back. The negative emotional impact of turning around and quitting keeps increasing. Eventually, we much rather suffer our way to the end result, than suffer the sense of defeat after quitting.

Once we get past the halfway mark, it’s almost intrinsically ‘automatic’ to keep going… meaning that our motivation automatically sprouts from within. If you’re on a diet and you see a piece of chocolate cake and you resist it, conquering that obstacle automatically strengthens your determination for your end result. Before even beginning the diet, resisting these temptations were obvious obstacles that you were already mentally prepared for.

If you’re a student studying for a particular exam and you tell your friends that you’ll meet them later, a huge obstacle for any student, your determination to succeed on the exam will automatically rise. The best part is, the next time these obstacles show up, it’s EASIER to get past them again because you’ve already done it once.

Key Insight: You need to get your customer past that halfway mark at the VERY LEAST, so you diminish the majority of chances of losing your customer in the process.

If you want to be exceptional however, a market leader, you won’t just get your customer to the halfway mark and move on to something else…. you’ll take your consumer to the top. Your consumer already has obstacles that they EXPECT to have to push through, before starting the journey.

Do you know what those expected obstacles are for your consumer? Can you identify them?

New Obstacles

These are obstacles that your consumer doesn’t know about. These are the obstacles your consumer is hoping they won’t have to face by trusting your brand, your product, and your service. News obstacles are usually the limitations in your product or service. These are company flaws that businesses usually DON’T advertise.

Most people climb with their eyes on the end result (the top of the staircase). They don’t look down. All of a sudden, there may be new obstacles to get past – the toys on the stairs, the spill that hasn’t been cleaned up, etc. The new obstacles are scary. They’re unexpected. The unknown is always a fear for humans.

If your customer has put their trust in your brand by agreeing to take your path to their desired end result, the last thing they want is that trust to be broken. All they can do is take your word and hope that there won’t be any new obstacles.

It’s not the expected obstacles that are usually the deal-breakers for people to get on the journey to getting what they want, it’s the new, unknown obstacles. Because when a new obstacle shows up… that’s when things get interesting…

maze

An interesting paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology demonstrates how when we encounter a new obstacle, we react to it by thinking about the problem on a more global scale.

Our awareness expands.

Here’s an experiment to put this in perspective:

There was a difficult maze given to participants in a study mentioned in this paper. A computer tracked the eye movements of these participants. When some participants hit a ‘block’ in the maze where their path to the end goal was interrupted, they responded by becoming AWARE of the entire maze.

Their focus shifted from that one path… to other potential paths to their destination. They began looking for other options and alternatives. Those who didn’t experience any obstacle, happily kept going. It’s natural for us humans, when we hit a barrier, to think about problems more globally.

What does this tell us?

If your consumer is on a journey to their end destination, that journey is already an obstacle.  And usually at the beginning of every maze, the consumer has several paths to choose from. If I want to search for something on the internet, I have the option of choosing to use Yahoo!, Google, Bing, etc. I’ll choose the brand I trust the most, that has always delivered, that I know will give me the least new obstacles in my search.

That decision process on which path to choose, is the definition of marketing.

Because that’s when your company comes along, and through your exceptional brand positioning skills and marketing strategies (that you learned at Brand Marketing Psychology), you convince your prospect to choose your path to their end result… and become your customer. You convince them to choose your brand, your product/service, to get them to their end result.

A question for every brand/business owner to ask themselves is:

  • How clear and FREE OF OBSTACLES is my consumer’s path to their destination… when they choose my brand?
  • What barriers will they hit?
  • What flaws does my product/service have that will make my consumer stop and question their progress?
  • Is there a point they will hit on our path, where their awareness will expand and they will begin considering other options?

If you promised them that they’ll get to their end result in 30 days and in 30 days they’re only halfway there, it’s only natural that their awareness will broaden. They will search out alternatives – your competitors.

How do you retain those consumers?

Sometimes it’s not your product/services flaw. Sometimes the customer might not have used your product/service in the most efficient way. So you might think it’s their issue if they didn’t use it properly… But who is the consumer going to blame? They will never blame themselves.

It’s ALWAYS the company’s responsibility to retain the customer. When they began the journey, they didn’t expect to face these barriers, otherwise they wouldn’t have started. These are new obstacles.

Your Brand Marketing Strategy:

Remember that there are always obstacles within obstacles. The obstacles that the consumer will face on their journey to their end destination, will either be the obstacles that are expected and/or the obstacles that are new. In both cases, it’s usually your company’s fault in the mind of the consumer.

And that’s a GOOD THING. Why? Because now you know how your consumer is going to react, how they think, you know their psychology… and now you can act strategically.

The most strategic way to deal with this is to tackle both potential obstacles. If it’s your fault, if your product/service has flaws, IMPROVE IT. Keep getting feedback and improving it. If your consumer returns your product, ask why. If the consumer is having to conquer their own personal obstacles, HELP THEM through it. Hold their hand and help them cross that bridge.

Are they procrastinating? Provide a schedule – charge them a small fee for it, or give it for free as a bonus. Whatever you do, establish that strategic relationship, where they feel you’re looking out for their best interest, but at the same time, you’re ensuring their focus remains with your brand, your company. You’re ensuring that they don’t even bother looking at other competitors because their awareness hasn’t grown in that global sense because you catch them at a point before it can get to that level.

Get them to their destination no matter what it takes. That’s when businesses thrive through recommendations and especially because consumers become loyal and are open to any other follow-up product/service you have to offer.

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Brand Differentiation Brand Management Brand Positioning Brand Promise Brand Strategy Brand Strategy for Start-Ups Branding Psychology Consumer Psychology Emotional Branding Marketing Psychology

Branding Psychology Insights: How Consumers REALLY View Your Brand

If you read Brand Strategy: How To Fuel Consumer Motivation, then you’re well aware of the fact that consumers don’t buy the product, the service, or even the brand… they are buying the end result. They are buying the benefits and solutions.

The end result, the solutions, and the benefits are essentially feelings that humans desire on the deepest level – joy, fullness, satisfaction, happiness, confidence, acceptance, etc. Anything we really do, anything we pursue, we do it to experience some form of these positive feelings.

If we were to boil down brand marketing to the core…

It’s how well you can associate your brand, in the mind of your consumer, as being the BRIDGE to the end result they want.

Your brand is the face of the product or service that’s going to get them to those feelings. Just like we have physical bodies, made up of our inner biology which is capable of accomplishing many things… Our physical appearance, the way we present ourselves, our name, our tone and communication style… all of these are elements of our personal brand.

How well people associate your name with how well you can do something for them, is the strength of your personal brand. 

It’s not about amazing your service is. You could be the best lawyer in the world, but if you haven’t built your personal brand and no one can look at you and instantly become aware of their desired end result, then you’re depriving not only yourself of business, but also the world of your true capabilities.

The lawyer is the bridge to the settlement. It’s a painful bridge to cross for most people – one that costs money and time… and the experience to the end result is never really pleasant either. So in law firm marketing, the main focus is usually on the end result… never on the experience getting there – “We will win your case”.. etc.

So what does this REALLY mean for brand marketing?

In between your consumer and their desired end result, is a bridge. Your product or service is that bridge. Your brand is the promise of how quickly/effectively/inexpensively/pleasantly (depends on consumer needs)… will your consumer get to the end result. If they care about safety, your brand represents a safe passage to their end result.

If your consumer could have it their way, they would eliminate that bridge and get their desired end result INSTANTLY. Which makes sense. We all want instant gratification – for everything! We don’t like things out of our control – like spending time to get what we want and having to walk across those bridges. We view them as obstacles. Things that aren’t avoidable. Things that separate us from what we want.

Key Insight: Your product is your customer’s obstacle.

That might be difficult to digest. No matter how much you think your brand or your product is special because it does so much for your customer – it’s still the obstacle that the customer has to get around to get what they want. It’s a hassle.

Your consumer has to actually pay money for it. They have to give up their time as well, to cross that bridge. I’ve met a lot of brand and business owners who have grown to be so attached to their product or service that they associate their own sense of pride with it. It no longer becomes about finding the customer… it becomes about ‘the customer will find our product because it’s clearly amazing, and if they don’t want it, then that’s unfortunate for them’.

That’s probably the main reason why us brand consultants get clients. It’s because we don’t have any attachment to our clients’ business or their brand, so we see everything from a third person perspective, from the consumer’s perspective, and we strategize and advise accordingly.

If you could see the consumer’s perspective, marketing strategy would come naturally and logically. You wouldn’t need to hire consultants. Sharing that insight is probably not  in my best interest… but regardless, why is this concept extremely important for you to realize?!

Well once you understand the idea that your product isn’t this amazing gift to your consumer, that it’s actually an obstacle, NOW you can be much more strategic when you try to market it and present it in a way that your consumer will find appealing… because now you’re seeing THEIR perspective.

Now you’re in their mind with them. You can build a connection. You now have the ability to be their friend, not a salesperson. If you read Marketing Persuasion Strategy: The Deep Psychology of Consumer Persuasion, then you know that consumer’s don’t want to be sold, they want to buy. Friends shop together, they encourage each other to buy things that are GOOD for them, that will make them happy. They even ask each other’s opinion. Imagine the strength of your relationship with your consumer, if they’re asking YOUR opinion on what to buy.

Well the first step to building a strong brand-consumer relationship is realizing how your audience views your product. The next step is positioning your brand to be completely synonymous with the end result. If you have a bridge in front of you and can’t even see your destination, how likely would you be to cross it?

And you need to remember that consumers do have one thing in their control… and that’s the ability to choose from different OPTIONS. 

Enter brand competition.

We buy cars to take us places. Our goal isn’t the car… it’s the destinations the car will take us to. If we had the option of teleportation, we would happily choose it and never drive again. But since teleportation is not a current option, we need cars (the bridges to our goal).

The best thing we can do is hope that crossing the bridge will be a pleasant experience in itself.  We look for what can be the best in-car experience. That experience itself, can be a selling factor. So different car brands sell different experiences while driving. They target different feelings. Volvo targets the feeling of safety. Mercedes targets the feeling of prestige.

Something to think about: Knowing that your product is the obstacle, the bridge, to your consumer’s end result… what would define the best ‘bridge-crossing’ experience? What would define the most desired products or services?

I think the ultimate definition, the ultimate strategy, is that if you can create an experience for your consumer that is so pleasing as they travel to their end result… that your consumer actually FORGETS about the end result because they’re lost in the experience… that’s when you can quickly and easily rise to market leadership.

Make them want the experience of crossing the bridge, MORE than they want the end result it gives them. Make the end result a BONUS. Who really cares about the destination when they’re driving a Lamborghini? Who really cares about the health benefits of getting relevant vitamins when they’re chewing on a tasty gummy multi-vitamin candy?

Two rules:

1) Make your brand synonymous with the end result

2) Make the experience of your product or service (crossing the bridge) more appealing that (or just as appealing as) the end result

You have a sure winner if you employ both rules – but that’s not always possible. It depends on a lot of factors. BUT you can always employ one of them. Most companies employ can only employ one.

Eating at McDonald’s is about the experience, not the end result. The end result usually leaves most people feeling guilty. Same with drinking Coke, it’s about the experience. Drinking Diet Coke however, is about the experience, but it’s also positioned in a way that ‘it’s not that bad… don’t feel guilty… because it’s diet Coke!’.

Sometimes real-estate agents aren’t able to guarantee that their clients will get the house of their dreams, but if the clients know that the real-estate agent’s service is extremely pleasant and that he or she will try their best, etc…. if their clients know the experience dealing with the agent will be a comfortable process… that’s enough for the clients to give the agent their business. But what if the agent has a successful history and can promise the client what they want, PLUS promise a pleasant experience as they work together? How easy would it be for the agent to build his or her brand? Others would actually build it for them.

I started writing this post to explain the psychology behind how consumers view obstacles and what that means for your brand marketing strategy – but it took a little turn.  In the next post you’ll learn 2 ways consumer’s react to obstacles and how by knowing this, you can be sure to INSTANTLY and significantly prevent a reduction in brand equity.

More importantly, you will learn how to leverage human psychology to build a brand that lives in your consumer’s mind… because that’s what Brand Marketing Psychology is all about.

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Brand Building Brand Differentiation Brand Management Brand Positioning Brand Strategy Brand Strategy for Start-Ups Branding Psychology Consumer Psychology Marketing Psychology

Marketing Psychology Secrets: Building Brand-Consumer Relationships

One of the best known theories of motivation in psychology is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The hierarchy of needs is organized in a way where the most basic of needs are placed at the bottom and the more complex ones at the peak.

The Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid

hierarchy-of-needs
What I find most interesting about this theory of motivation is that its evidence is clearly reflected in our current lives as humans and as a society.

If you look at the bottom 3 most basic needs, we have physiological needs which are rooted in survival, safety needs which are rooted in security, and love/belonging needs which are rooted in social connection.

In business market terminology, these needs are:

  1. The ‘Health/Well-Being’ Market (physiological)
  2. The ‘Career/Wealth/Business’ Market (safety, security)
  3. The ‘Dating/Relationships’ Market (love/belonging/connection)

It’s no surprise that these 3 categories are responsible for over 80% of sales that take place online. When people are lacking in ANY one of these three basic needs, the mind is unable to really focus on anything else. The pain, urgency, and irrational passion to find a solution to the lacking need is the driving force behind many consumer decisions. It takes priority over anything else.

The order makes a lot of sense – Health & Wellness is the first most essential need because without food, an able body, a working mind, we are incapable of doing anything else or even considering any other need. That needs to be taken care of first. Career & Wealth is second because once we have our health, we need to maintain and ensure our continuous survival through having the security of a home, consistent food and water, etc. In today’s world, security means a source of income which enables us to maintain continuous growth in our life. Third is Relationship because once we have those basic needs covered, we automatically look to connecting with others, looking past ourselves, realizing the joy and growth that being part of a society, having friends, and family can bring to us.

I believe that we’re progressing on this hierarchy not as individuals, but as a species. We’re constantly evolving in every way. There was a time when our focus was on only our survival – we were hunters and focused on  trying to figure out where our next meal would come from. Once we had a firm grasp on that, we moved up with a focus on maintaining our security through our best known method – through an income – and this gave birth to time periods like the industrial revolution. As we continued to evolve, I believe we’re now focused on relationships and social connection – hence the uproar of all the social networks that dominate the internet and people’s time and attention. Whereas once upon a time, the human species time and attention was mainly focused on making money and creating an income which ensures safety – this is why the older generation’s viewpoints conflict with the younger generation. This is why parent’s still want their children to become doctors, lawyers, accountants, whereas children want to pursue whatever they are passionate about. The focus has shifted from Safety to Belonging & Connection. (Again, I’m talking about the human species as a whole and referring mainly to the developed countries.) I would argue that this shift in focus initially started with the rise of the internet, which enabled ‘connection’ on a massive, global level.  That connection has been improving in speed, ease, and convenience DRASTICALLY ever since. Today, we have access to global social connection 24/7… in our pockets.

What does this mean for marketers and business owners?

Well firstly, GET ON SOCIAL MEDIA if you haven’t already. But secondly, think about this:

If you can understand what the world currently values and better yet, what the world will value in the next 10 – 20 years, and if you can manufacture your marketing and brand strategy accordingly, what could that mean for the long-term success of your business?

For marketers and brand builders, it’s important to know about the basic needs that fuel our motivations, because we can leverage our consumer’s desire to fulfill these basic needs when creating our marketing strategy.

The 3rd Basic and Currently Most Important Need for Businesses to Leverage – Relationships/Connection

Establishing a relationship between your brand and your consumer is the first step to increasing brand equity and creating brand loyalty. The urge to be a part of something, to feel a sense of belonging and connection, is very deep-rooted in human nature. More importantly, the factors that create a sense of belonging and connection that lead to establishing relationships, are also deeply rooted in human nature. Therefore, if we’re going to be strategic, these are the factors we must leverage to enable our consumer’s to feel a sense of belonging and connection with our brand.

One Crucial Factor To Use In Your Strategy

Robert Cialdini identified an important concept that relates to relationship-building when he created his 6 key principles of influence:

The Concept of RECIPROCITY.

Professor Regan at Cornell University displayed the power of this concept when he conducted an experiment where different subjects were rating paintings with a ‘perceived’ partner (the research assistant). Throughout the experiment, the assistant would give some subjects a drink and wouldn’t give anything to other subjects. At the end of the interaction, the assistant would ask if the subjects were willing to buy raffle tickets from him, and of course, those subjects who received the gift of a drink were more willing to purchase tickets – even though the tickets were a lot more expensive than the drink itself!

Humans are naturally inclined to give back when they have been given FIRST. Rarely does anyone take the first step – but the one who does, creates a momentum. The act of giving and serving others inspires that behavior naturally. Which is why when people see others doing something good, they automatically feel the need to good as well. Giving creates a positive emotional momentum.

law-of-reciprocity

Leverage the Concept of Reciprocity

Leveraging this natural human tendency in your marketing strategy accomplishes two things for your business:

1. If you provide your customer with some form of value, they will be a lot more likely to provide you with their business – even if the value of their business is more than the value you provided to them! But also be strategic and keep in mind the ‘value’ of your ‘value’ that you provide. What does that mean? Let’s say you offer a free promotion of some kind and your company is the first to do so. You will do very well. That is until your competitors start doing the same thing. When everyone is doing it, the value of the ‘value’ you are providing, no longer fuels the principle of reciprocity.
Reciprocity-in-College-Advertising2. Creates a strong relationship between your brand and consumer. Relationships are strengthened through the act of service and the act of giving. (Enter free prizes and giveaways – Tim Horton’s Roll up the Rim contest,  WestJet giving free stuff to passengers on Christmas, etc.)

Keep in Mind & Key Takeaway

Keep in mind that as humans, we are not only compelled to return the favor when we receive value, but we’re also inclined to not have to feel obligated and in-debt towards others. Therefore, as a business you should make it a point to always be the last to give something of value to your customer, so it’s on them to always take action in your favor. If your customer has already bought your product or service, give more value by sending an appreciation email, or by sending a follow-up bonus, or by having exceptional after-sales customer service. At the very least, a thank you in some shape or form is a no-brainer, because even ‘thank-you’ is reciprocated in the form of a ‘you’re welcome’. Even if the customer can no longer buy anything you, they WILL give back value through recommendations, referrals, likes on your Facebook page, etc., which is how your brand and your business grows. Understand your consumer, their psychology, their motivation and provide them with value to evoke their willingness to take action towards your brand – that is what brand marketing psychology is all about.

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Brand Building Brand Differentiation Brand Management Brand Positioning Brand Promise Brand Strategy Branding Psychology Consumer Psychology Emotional Branding Marketing Psychology

5 Underrated Channels to Build Brand Loyalty and Increase Consumer Engagement

Brand loyalty is about connecting with your consumer. It’s about having a brand story that communicates the personality and values of your brand. It’s about delivering on your brand promise. It’s about the impression your brand leaves on your consumer. It’s about the emotional engagement which drives repeat purchase decisions. At the very core of it all, it’s the experience your consumer has with your brand that will motivate them to become a repeat consumer and eventually, a loyal consumer.

Knowing this, have you ever thought about how on a physical level, your consumer experiences your brand? Logically, if we understood all the different channels through which consumers experience our brand, our product, or our service, we would make sure we cover EVERY channel to make sure we have the MOST impact on our consumer’s experience with us. But do most businesses and marketers really do that?

There are five physical channels through which we  humans experience the world in which we live – and you know already know this very well: it’s the five human senses. We experience things, places, people, and the world around us, through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. The five senses are also how your consumers experience your brand. Yet, the majority of marketing strategies and plans that are created are mainly focused on engaging only two of our senses – sight and sound. We forget that ALL of our senses are our pathways to our emotions. Perhaps sight and sound are the easiest to leverage to trigger emotion, which is why most businesses only focus on them.

As I completed writing my previous post about Kellogg Special K’s brand revitalization strategy, I remembered another significant investment Kellogg has made – an investment in the sound of their cereal. Kellogg believes that the crunching sound their cereal makes when it is chewed, is one of the reasons for the success of the brand. This is the reason that the sound of the cereal is strongly emphasized in many of the Cornflakes ads.

Sound is definitely important. If it wasn’t, the easily identifiable and unique crunch sound Kellogg created for its cornflakes wouldn’t have led the brand to become even more successful. Kellogg wouldn’t have hired a sound lab to create the Kellogg’s crunch, and they wouldn’t have made the investment to go as far as getting a patent for the “crunch”. In 2011, it was noted that 74% of modern consumers associate the word “crunch” with the Kellogg’s Company.

There are many ways to use auditory stimulus as a strategy to engage with the consumer – think of jingles and background music in commercials. It’s common. I particularly like the Kellogg example because it’s unique and I think it’s innovative. I wouldn’t be surprised if Doritos and Pringles probably use a similar strategy.

Tangible Advertising

In a Millward Brown Case Study, researchers investigated how the brain processes physical marketing materials. The findings demonstrated that tangible advertising produces deeper engagement with the audience as it engages more senses. They noticed that brain activity was associated with the integration of senses that triggered stronger emotional responses by creating a deeper integration with personal thoughts and feelings.

Tangible advertising is appealing to the sense of sight and touch. As humans, we are wired to interpret the touch of everything around us. We communicate with each other through touch, whether we realize it or not. We feel more connected to someone if they touch us. In 2009, DePauw University psychologist Matthew Hertenstein demonstrated that we have an innate ability to decode emotions via touch. In a research experiment conducted in the late 70’s, clerks at a library returned library cards to students either with or without briefly touching the borrower’s hand – borrowers interviewed said that those who had been touched evaluated the clerk and the library a lot more favorably. The effect was true even when they hadn’t even noticed the touch. Further recent studies have found that slight touches to customers enable waitresses to receive bigger tips and because of a simple touch as a customer service gesture, people also tend to shop and buy more in stores.

What could this mean for your brand, in being able to connect with your consumer?

Touch is extremely important – think of Apple stores and how they happily allow customers to interact and ‘touch’ their products – and we all know how loyal most Apple consumers are. I can go on about the importance of touch forever and write a whole post on it – which I probably will – but you get the point.

Touch has the powerful ability to improve the desire to own a brand.

touch

Then we have smell which is unique in its own way because smell sprouts memories and evokes feelings without first being filtered by the brain.

All of our other senses are processed by the brain first. We’re all emotionally sensitive to the smell of a new car, or the smell of rain, or freshly baked cookies. I can’t help but feel a craving for fresh-baked bread every time I walk by a bakery. I don’t know if that is the bakery’s strategy or not, it’s probably an accidental strategy, but it definitely works. In order to identify a smell, you must be able to recall when you smelled it before. That is when you connect it to a visual image that occurred at that same time. A familiar childhood perfume brings back memories from those days, and the feelings associated with that time. Some research shows that absorbing information in the presence of a scent increases the vividness and intensity of that information when you smell that scent again.

If your product or service can incorporate a smell as your consumer is absorbing your brand’s experience, how likely do you think your customer is to recall with complete vividness, the emotions they felt in your brand’s presence? If the emotions were pleasant, how much would they crave that experience with your brand again?

SensesBuilding brands through leveraging all five senses is important and extremely beneficial. Not many companies have incorporated brand building strategies to appeal to all the senses. In some cases it calls for a lot of creativity and innovation. In other cases, it can be quite simple to do.

The brands that are succeeding today are taking into consideration how the consumer experiences their brand. At the end of the day it’s about consumer engagement. The more you can positively engage your consumer with your product and your brand through their different senses, the more easily your consumer will recall the feelings they felt with your brand when those senses are triggered again.

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Brand Building Brand Differentiation Brand Management Brand Positioning Brand Promise Brand Strategy Brand Strategy for Start-Ups Branding Psychology Consumer Psychology Marketing Psychology

Brand Revitalization: Leveraging Psychology To Shift Consumer Demand (CASE STUDY: Kellogg’s Special K)

images (3)

The value of your brand is based on how much your customer wants you. Brand equity relies on customer demand. If your brand won’t care about your consumer, your consumer won’t care about your brand. If your consumer doesn’t care about your brand, if your product lacks appeal to the consumer, your brand will fail in shifting demand.

Apple captures more than 3 times the market share of the number two company in the MP3 player category – and this is if the price and other features are completely equal. Even if Apple doubled their price, they would still have market share equal to its competitor brands! That is the power of building brand equity. That is the power of understanding your consumers to such a degree, that your brand is like a magnet that pulls consumer demand towards you.

Long-established or “mature” brands often find themselves asking brand oriented questions when sales are lagging and competitors are thriving. They ask questions like:

  • “Should we re-brand?”
  • “Are our brand’s lagging because of ineffective marketing tactics?”
  • “Are we not advertising enough?”

In reality, these are questions that revolve around creating customer awareness. Customer awareness is already there. Customers already know of your brand’s existence if your brand is a long-established brand.

Instead, brand managers need to have a demand oriented perspective on the purpose of a brand. The focus needs to be on the end goal – the consumer. It’s the message that your brand is sending out that doesn’t speak to your customer’s priorities. It could also be that your product or service is flawed and is not creating recurring customers. Either way, your resources are much better spent on understanding what the customer wants, not on more advertising and on more marketing tactics.

When creating the strategy to build brand equity and shift consumer demand, you are essentially focusing on building your brand’s competitive advantage. Logically, if you’re shifting consumer demand to your brand, you’re also shifting consumer demand away from your competitor’s brand.

The Key: Develop Competitive Advantage (through demand-oriented perspective) –> Shift Consumer Demand –> Build Brand Equity

The Question: So how can you specifically develop a strong competitive advantage?

Here is how Kellogg’s Special K did it…

CASE STUDY: Kellogg’s Special K

Special K

Special K is a cereal that was introduced to the US in the 1950’s. If you’re familiar with Special K now, you’re well aware of its strong association with weight loss. You might have seen the multi-level marketing campaigns Kellogg’s has launched with this brand, especially through social media. Special K was connected with the weight loss idea from the 80’s, straight through to all of the 90’s. Back then, it was just the one flavor of cereal described as being ‘bland’. The taste was bland. The brand was bland. There was no innovation. Competitors wouldn’t look twice in fear at Special K. This is because all throughout the 80’s and 90’s, no one at Special K had a DEMAND-ORIENTED perspective. They didn’t look to understand their consumer as much as they should have.

Towards the end of the 90’s, a brilliant mind at Special K began understanding consumer priorities. They began constantly acquiring feedback to gage if consumers are getting the right experiences with the product. It was only when Special K began focusing on the consumer and asking questions like:

  • Do our consumer believe what we say about weight loss?
  • How should we deliver our promise to our consumers?
  • What makes consumer’s think about our brand?
  • What benefit are our consumer’s seeking?

This consumer-oriented perspective led to the initial process of creating a competitive advantage. This led to the process of Special K beginning to connect more powerfully with their specific target market (women aged 25-45).

Successful brands share a similar focus when it comes to developing strong competitive advantages – that focus is on TWO extremely important elements:

Vision and Innovation

Everything begins with a compelling vision. Your vision is your heritage. It’s your purpose, your identity, your central idea. New brands must develop their vision before anything else. Long-established brands have their vision in place. For long-established, mature brands however, it often becomes difficult to adapt and change with the market because the brand is so rooted in what has been ‘working’, that sticking to tradition is perceived to be the best way to go. Long-established brands feel that they need to choose between ‘change’ and ‘tradition’. The answer however, is to have a BALANCE of the two; a balance of tradition and change, in other words, of vision and innovation. In around 2000, when Special K disrupted the cereal market, I believe they shifted their focus and began fostering this balance.

They zoomed in on their vision: “to empower women to take control and maintain a healthy weight”, and leveraged it to create a measurable, specific, and direct PROMISE that resonated with the consumer.

The promise: Eat Special K two times a day for two weeks, and lose up to six pounds.

They understood that the consumer was looking for a simple, easy, solution to their dieting needs. They understood that the consumer also wanted to feel like they overcame a challenge on their journey to success. Thus, they framed their brand story as a ‘2-week challenge’.

Special K 2 Week Challenge

Finally, after years of remaining stagnant in the cereal market, Special K began aligning its vision with the consumer, and the Special K flight had taken off and was at an altitude higher than its competitors. Now it was all about maintaining that altitude and rising higher. Now it was all about INNOVATION.

Innovation is what keeps brands and businesses alive and thriving in a highly competitive environment. If your brand is defined as an innovator, it is pretty much understood that you brand has been around long enough to develop strong core values that define it, values that stood the test of time, values that have roots in a solid VISION.

Special K’s innovation started with Berry Special K – which allowed Special K to dive into the ‘good-tasting’ cereal market. Since then, we have seen Special K protein bars, shakes, water mixes, cereal bars, crackers, chips, fruit crisps, etc.

Innovation at Special KSpecial K recently:

Aug 2013 – According to market research firm Euromonitor, cold cereal sales in the US have increased only 6 percent. However, Special K has been a standout for Kellogg, with the brand’s market share increasing to 5 percent, up from approximately 3 percent a decade ago.

Aligning your vision with your consumer shifts your consumer’s demand because your brand becomes highly valued and relevant to your consumer. Aligning your innovation with your consumer shifts your consumer’s demand because your brand remains highly valued and relevant to your consumer.

The marketing team at Special K realized this and today, Special K continues to be a leader in its market.

Special K Variety

 

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Brand Building Brand Differentiation Brand Management Brand Positioning Brand Promise Brand Strategy Brand Strategy for Start-Ups Branding Psychology Consumer Psychology Marketing Psychology

How to Evoke Consumer Motivation Through Strategic Delivery of the Brand Story and Promise

White clock with words Time to Buy on its face

“Marketers sell the drill. Consumers buy the hole.”

No matter how great a product is, it will never sell itself. People never buy the product itself – nor do they buy the brand. People buy the benefits and solutions that the product or brand will provide. Their motivation to buy comes primarily from the expected benefits and solutions.

Throughout my marketing consulting experience, there have been too many incidences where I have seen companies with well-established, iconic brands, forget that today’s consumers are generally well-informed and won’t give in to buying a common product with a recognizable name attached to it. Most business owners still think that they’re just selling a product or service.  When business owners attempt to sell just products or services, they focus on portraying facts and informing.

Facts and information rarely motivate us. People aren’t prospects when they’re not motivated. Especially with the social media boom, where there is constant communication between brands and their consumers, people are looking for brands that embody human traits and are more receptive to their emotions.

What do I mean when I say that people don’t want to buy products, services, and brands? When businesses and marketers try to sell products, services, and brands, they focus on selling the features and the results, not the benefits and the solution.

When you tell me your new ab workout product will help me get six-pack abs, that’s a fantastic result… just what I want – except that’s what every other ab workout product is telling me. What differentiates you? The new instructional online video feature that comes with your product? That’s great, I’ll think about it. The result you provided, nor the feature you told me, hit me on an emotional level. I don’t feel an internal motivation to buy your product. If my logical mind convinces me, I MIGHT buy it. Now how would a strategic brand marketer sell an ab workout product? By emphasizing the SOLUTION and the BENEFITS. The solution that I will FEEL the enjoyment and confidence from being more attractive as a result of having the six packs abs. The solution that I will be relieved from feeling unattractive. The solution that I will feel healthier and more energetic. The benefit that by having six-pack abs, I will attract more girls, impress my friends, and feel worthy in my own eyes.

As a consumer, when I hear the benefits and solutions, when you make me feel the solution of buying your brand or product, you’re not longer selling me something, you’re making a promise to me. Now I’m emotionally connected to your brand and product, now I can hold you accountable, and holding you accountable gives me a sense of security in buying from you.

So how can brand marketers strategically and successfully portray the benefits and solutions of their brands to motivate their consumers? As consumers, our motivation comes from the brand promise, which conveys the satisfaction and the avoidance of our pain that we’ll feel when buying a particular brand or product. And one of the major ways that brand promise is communicated, is through the brand story.

The Brand Story

Essentially, what people pay for when they buy your brand, is the story.  Brands that are successful in today’s world, are those that are embodying human characteristics. Just as how every human has a story behind them, a story that makes them who they are and who they are going to be, a brand is no different.

When we first meet someone who we’re genuinely interested in connecting with, what is the main thing that we’re trying to learn about them? When we ask each other ‘what do you do’ or ‘where are you from’ or ‘what got you into…’ or ‘tell me about…’, what are we trying to find out? We’re trying to figure out their story– because that helps us evaluate whether we can connect with them. And on a more superficial level, or even when company’s interview and hire, understanding people’s story tells us if that individual can be of value to us now or in the future.

Understanding people’s story can tell us, on a deeper level, how connecting with them will move us towards a solution or benefit that we want. In the same way, understanding your brand’s story gives consumers a sense of who your brand is, what you value, what they can expect from your brand in the future, and how your brand will help them reach the solutions and benefits they desire. If done right, you create a connection with the consumer, which is what successful brand strategy is all about.

The Life of the Party

We’ve all noticed that those individuals who seem to be the most interesting, most entertaining, most engaging, are usually those that are great storytellers. Your brand should be no different. The successful brand engages, entertains, intrigues, and connects with its consumer through storytelling. The successful brand is the “life of the party”.

If you think of your product’s category as a never-ending party, all brands in that category are essentially competing for attention. They’re competing to be the life of the party. The life of the party is the vortex that draws everything towards it. The life of the party connects with everyone – and the more it connects, the more it stands out to others.  Make your brand the life of the party!

When the brand story rings true for the consumer, it contributes to how they feel. This gives your brand authenticity, and it ignites engagement and strong emotion. This is where the motivation to purchase rises from. Ultimately, you shift your consumer’s demand… and your brand equity rises.

Lastly, remember that as a storyteller you’re also being held accountable for your promise. Sure great story tellers get hired. Sure great story tellers make a lot of connections. It’s clear that they have communicated their ‘promise’ successfully to a company where they got the job, or on a social psychological level, to their friends and connections. However, you will find that sometimes even the greatest of story tellers only deliver stories, nothing more. They don’t deliver on their promise. And at the end of it all, they fall faster than they escalated.

If your brand tells a story, makes a promise, connects emotionally with your consumer, but doesn’t deliver… your story becomes compromised and your brand plummets. Without delivery and evidence, your story is nothing but a fairy-tale.

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Brand Building Brand Differentiation Brand Management Brand Positioning Brand Promise Brand Strategy Branding Psychology Emotional Branding

Emotional Branding Psychology: Creating Brand Trust in the Mind of Your Consumer

Brand Love Emotion is the most powerful motivational force known to humans. Emotions stem from the subconscious mind and they are the real reason why brands exist, and will continue to do so.

The previous post emphasized the importance of drawing emotion from your consumers for your brand. When trying to connect with your consumer, it’s essential to build a relationship between your brand and your consumer that fosters high love and high respect – i.e. it’s essential to make your brand a ‘LoveMark‘.

Every relationship comes with obligations which require both parties to take some form of effort-based action. Maintaining your friendships, family relations, and spousal relations, require effort on both parts. Maintaining the relationship between the brand and the consumer, requires effort on both parts. The moment the emotions disappear, the desire to fulfill obligations and to take action also disappears. And that’s when the relationship starts to deteriorate.

Brand’s live in the mind, but they cause ACTION from the heart.

As brand owners, you want your consumers to make the effort to take action towards your brand. You want them to buy your product or service. You want them to speak of your brand. You want them seek out your brand wherever they go. In the same way, your consumer expects your brand to fulfill its own obligations as well. Why? Because the relationship can’t be one-sided. Because at the end of the day, your consumers will only take action towards your product or service if they’re driven by emotion.

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So what are the obligations that are expected of your brand, by your consumer?

A quick psychology lesson:

In evolutionary psychology, one of the fundamental human needs that we have developed is the need for a sense of control. This need is perhaps the deepest need people have. It’s related to survival and is sustained by the need to predict and have a sense of certainty. From an evolutionary standpoint, if we are in control of our environment, then we have a better chance of survival. One of the ways we acquire a sense of control, is by giving it to others who we TRUST. Trust and control support one another. Not only does trust give control, but the need for a sense of control drives us to seek trust. If you trust a close friend with your car keys, your need for a sense of control is satisfied because you can comfortably predict and know that your car is safe and will be returned to you.

Now what does this mean for your consumer’s relationship with your brand? Through our close relationships, we are able to satisfy this need of a sense of control because we tend to highly trust those individuals whom we LOVE and RESPECT, the LoveMark’s of our lives. Thus, the way to create love and respect for your brand, the way to create a LoveMark brand, is through maintaining and creating TRUST for your brand in your consumer’s mind. 

Consumers want to be able to know with great conviction, what will be the outcome for them if they take the action that you are requesting. “What will happen after I buy your product?” “How can I believe you?” “Why should I believe you?”

Brands need to communicate these things to their consumers. Your brand needs to communicate what consumers can expect if they choose your brand. Answering these questions is the opportunity for a brand to build trust with its consumers, because trust enables prediction.

So how can a brand build long-lasting trust with its consumers? As a brand owner, how can you ensure that the fulfillment of your consumer’s deepest evolutionary need is associated with your brand? The answer is through the BRAND PROMISE.

A company’s brand is a promise. Successful brands consistently deliver on their promises which is how they create brand value and brand trust. Just like with any relationship, trust is stable as long as promises aren’t broken. If you break a promise, you are cutting into the ‘evolutionary’ needs of an individual, which will naturally lead to STRONG negative emotional reactions.

Examples of successful promises kept:

FedEx – Your package will get there overnight. Guaranteed.

Apple – You can own the coolest, easiest-to-use cutting-edge computers and electronics.

Coors Light – “The World’s Most Refreshing Beer”

Geico – “15 Minutes of Less can save you 15% or More on Car Insurance”

coke1

Examples of false promises: Just checkout this blog called Alphaila, where brands have made numerous false promises to their consumers. Although these promises are visual-based advertisements, I don’t get how fast food companies don’t realize that creating such fantasy based ads is more detrimental than beneficial. Promises matter to consumers.

It’s amazing when once in a while, a brand like Volkswagen releases an honest, genuine, and sometimes even self-deprecating ad. Is it really surprising that those are the ads that effectively gain our trust? Is it really surprising that when we actually try their product or service, we realize it’s actually pretty good? Authentic ads demonstrate the brand’s self-confidence. Consumer’s recognize this on a deeper level – there must be a reason for someone to be so confident.

How do you deliver on your brand promise?

In the next few posts I will write on creating effective brand promises and brand promise strategy.

For now, it’s important to realize that brands need to build trust through minor promises. This is one strategy that is sure to work. Trust is built through reliability – this is extremely true for consumers. The more reliable a brand is, the more confidence consumer’s will have in it, and the more trust will be built in the brand-consumer relationship. As promises are consistently and repeatedly kept, over time trust is guaranteed to increase.

Feel free to contact me with your thoughts, questions, and ideas.

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Brand Building Brand Differentiation Brand Management Brand Positioning Brand Strategy Branding Psychology Emotional Branding

Emotional Branding Psychology: Deep Decoding of the Brand-Consumer Relationship

images (1)

Life would be a lot easier for us brand marketers if consumers made their purchases on a logical basis. The average business owner often assumes that because humans are rational people, consumers make their buying decisions by weighing the pros and cons of each product. We assume that the physical properties and functional benefits which consists of and define a brand, are the most important factors for consumers when they make their selections. We assume that consumers view brands as ‘things’. For consumers, whether they realize it or not, brands are a lot more than just objects – they care about what a brand represents to them on the highest emotional level. Human beings are driven by emotions, not by rational thought.

6a00d83451b74a69e20120a7fb47e3970b-pi

So how do we as brand builders, trigger the highest emotional point in our customers? How can you create the kind of emotions that fuel inspiration, laughter, and tears? By understanding that your brand and your consumer need to form a relationship, a bond. Think of your brand as your consumer’s mentor, motivator, friend, sibling, life-long partner, or even parent. These are all relationships that spark immense emotions in the average individual. By establishing a strong bond between your brand and your consumer, your brand can create that deep connection that all of these relationships entail. Almost all research on relationships produce the same two essential qualities that need to be present in a successful and strong relationship; LOVE and RESPECT. As brand builders, if we can establish love and respect for our brand in the mind of our consumer, we have then created a strong relationship. And with every strong relationship, emotions fly high. When the highest level of emotions are triggered, we create a long-lasting, loyal, and powerful bond between our consumers and our brand.

Juan Carlos Rodriguez, Creative Director at Badillo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, explained this idea exquisitely when he said:

“… Love is based on inspiration. We are inspired by brands for the same reason we’re inspired by the people we love, because they have principles and treat me like a human being who is intelligent and has feelings. They show empathy and bring joy to my life.”

There are those products and brands in our lives, that if they were to disappear, we would easily find an alternate. But the moment something we’ve formed a deep relationship with disappears, we object and do all that we can for its return. When a strong bond is formed between your brand and your customer, your brand becomes IRREPLACEABLE. Strive to make your brand irreplaceable.

Kevin Roberts, CEO of the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, came up with the marketing concept called Lovemarks. Through the Lovemarks concept, the Love/Respect Axis was born. It demonstrates the difference between those brands that are meaningless to consumers, and those that are irreplaceable, that are LOVEMARKS. The Love/Respect Axis:

love respect axis

A regular brand scores high in RESPECT – where you have trust but no emotional connection. A fad scores high in LOVE – where you have emotional connection but no trust. But a Lovemark scores high in both. Coca-Cola scores high in both. Apple scores high in both. And with the recent viral marketing campaign, WestJet is scoring high in both. It’s no surprise that the recent “WestJet Christmas Miracle” ad is going viral – 8 MILLION VIEWS IN 3 DAYS. If you haven’t seen it, watch it below and get ready to have all of your positive emotions triggered. The next time you fly, you’ll be sure to think of WestJet. Through this branding strategy, WestJet is well on its way to becoming a Lovemark, if it isn’t already one.

In this post I covered the ‘WHY’ and the ‘WHAT’, in terms of the importance of forming a relationship to fuel emotional responses. In the next post I will cover HOW we can successfully and strategically do this. Emotional branding is a huge topic in brand marketing psychology. There is a lot to cover, especially if we leverage the psychology of consumers to understand ideas that create that emotional bond. By completely understanding how emotions are triggered in your consumer, your brand strategy’s effectiveness is guaranteed to evolve.  

“The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions.” – Neurologist Donald Calne

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Brand Building Brand Management Brand Positioning Brand Strategy Branding Psychology

Brand Positioning Psychology: How to Maintain Brand Growth in a Changing Market

Only when a brand stands for something, can it establish itself in your audience’s mind.

You’ve done a great job if your brand has taken up some form of mental real estate of your consumer. This is a commendable feat because it takes great effort and time (years usually) to build a brand and to concretely embed a characteristic of a brand, in your consumer’s mind. One thing you need to remember however, is that there is always the likelihood of the market changing. As a marketer, it is not wise to change your brands positioning with the changing market.

As tempting as it may be, you’ve worked way too hard to create the brand positioning that you already have! Too many times, companies have tried to follow a new trend and have damaged their brand…

Just take a look at this list of “10 of the Worst Product Flops Ever”. Notice how with every product failure, the idea pretty much stemmed from ‘trying to go with the trend’, and deviating from CORE characteristics for which the brands are known for.

One of my favorite examples of a company who has fallen victim to this idea, over and over again, is McDonalds. Ever since I can remember, McDonald’s has been known for being a family burger place that appeals mainly to children. Whereas their competitors, Wendy’s and Burger King, have always appealed to the adult market. So obviously, McDonald’s began questioning why they were limiting their products to just children.

They began thinking that they’re capable of changing with the adult burger trend and competing in other territories. This triggered the release of products like the McLobster, the Arch Deluxe, the McPizza, the McHotDog,…and the list continues. Do you remember of any of these? If you do, can you still go and get any of these from a McDonald’s?

They all failed because McDonald’s didn’t stay consistent in their brand’s image. They spent over a 100 million dollars on the Arch Deluxe’s advertising campaigns in attempts to display it as a burger ‘for adults’, but even a 100 million dollars later, their consumers were unwilling to allow a deviation in what the original McDonald’s brand had already implanted in their mind over years and years of branding – that it WAS and IS a kid-oriented brand.

How can you spend YEARS positioning yourself as one thing, and expect to change that with one product, almost instantly, by unleashing loads of advertising at your audience? Temptation and especially boredom, can often take over, and make you feel like you need your brand to change. But remember, when you choose that path, chances are you will fail, because you’re stepping away from standing for something simple and focused in your consumer’s MIND.

When McDonald’s released the McLobster and the Arch Deluxe, it stepped away from standing for something simple and focused in the consumer’s mind. When Volvo, the car known for ‘safety’, launched a line of sports cars, including a convertible, it stepped away from standing for something simple and focused in the consumer’s mind.

Narrowing the focus of your brand and being consistent with it for years to come, is an important factor in the art of building and embedding your brand in the mind of your consumer.

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Brand Building Brand Differentiation Brand Management Brand Positioning Brand Strategy Brand Strategy for Start-Ups Branding Psychology Consumer Psychology Marketing Psychology

Brand Competition Psychology: How Consumer Choices Effect Demand and Why You Should Appreciate Your Competitors

pc vs mac

The goal of every brand marketer should be to build brand equity. What exactly is brand equity? It’s the ability of your brand to shift consumer demand. Consumers have a vast array of choices these days. Today, we walk into a supermarket and are actually confused by all the different choices we are bombarded with! Whereas not too long ago, we would be hoping for more products and as consumers, find ourselves disappointed with things that don’t really serve our needs. Today, brand strategy is not so much about creating demand than it is about shifting your consumer’s demand to YOUR brand.

Fact: Higher demand of your brand leads to higher market share.

Now logically, there are two ways to increase market share and become a market leader:

1)      Eliminate competition

“Well if I don’t have competition and I’m the only choice for my consumer, then I can have all or most of the market share.”

2)      Enhance brand equity

“I will make it so that my brand will shift consumer demand from my competitors to me.”

It’s surprising how the majority of companies today, choose Option 1.

Greed is not good, when your aim is to shift consumer demand.

The leading brand in a category habitually tries to stretch its appeal in order to seize every last bit of market share. What they fail to recognize is that when you stretch your brand, it deteriorates and weakens. The leading brand should endure competitors and also appreciate them. 

The entrance of Pepsi-Cola, was probably one the best things to have happened for Coca-Cola. Why? The competition between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola makes customers more aware of Cola. The Cola category has been growing ever since this rivalry erupted.

april-fool- ad

If you want to build market share, understand the consumer’s mind, where your brand lives, and leverage that beautiful asset to create a strong brand building strategy. How consumers respond to competition and choices is crucial for any brand marketer to understand.

Customers always have choices, even when no competition exists. They can make the decisions to choose beer, apple juice, or water to drink instead of cola. The reason is because increased competition grabs more attention of customers and has the habit of increasing sales in the category.

Choice fuels demand.

Choice is seen as a huge benefit. Without choice, customers begin questioning the category itself. For instance, customers begin questioning the price point, in wonder if they’re paying too much – “How can I judge the price if I don’t have anything to compare it with?”

The psychology of most brand marketers and companies is that they want to have an unfair advantage over their competitors. They can’t handle the idea of having an even playing field. So they come to the conclusion, that the only way to keep as much of the market share as possible, is to drive out the competition. That’s when they end up making horrible branding decisions and decide to expand, extend their line, etc., which only further weakens the brand.

Appreciate your competitors. Competition leads to increased choices.

There is however, a limit to how much choice there should be for a consumer in a particular category. Having too much choice can definitely be detrimental. Having too many brands can lead to having too much variety, which leads to greater confusion for the consumer.

What’s the right amount of competition? Two seems to be the best number – Coca Cola/Pepsi, Nintendo/PlayStation, Duracell/Energizer, etc. Too much choice leads to reduced consumption.

In the consumer’s mind, if there isn’t any competition they often think that companies could take advantage of them and rip them off. This is why we usually see competing businesses clustered in one area. We’ve all seen it – how similar businesses are usually grouped together in one neighborhood. This is especially evident in large cities. These business clusters attract more customers because now customers have more than one store to shop at, in one trip. Time is limited these days for the average individual. Moreover, customers can now easily make comparisons.

Healthy competition is good. No brand can ever be capable of dominating the entire market. Anything greater than 50% is extremely rare. If your aim is to gain market share greater than 50%, it’s more efficient to consider creating several independent brands (not line extensions).

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Brand Building Brand Management Brand Strategy Brand Strategy for Start-Ups Branding Psychology

Luxury Branding Psychology: How to Implant “High-Quality” in the Mind of the Consumer

Is building a better quality product the same as building a better brand?

One would think so – and it’s not uncommon for new marketers to think so. But when creating a strong brand marketing strategy, this is not the case. There are almost no correlations between best quality and most successful brands. We’ve seen it many times –  where the most preferred brand, is not the leading one.

Why is the Pepsi Taste Challenge so successful? People enjoy Pepsi a lot more, yet Coca Cola is the leading brand. The reason is because the idea of quality is something that resides in the mind of the consumer. The idea of quality is something that is implanted in the mind of the consumer.

One of the surest ways to do this is through further constricting the focus of your brand. This is something I will cover in depth in a future article. For now, what you need to know is that by becoming an expert and by becoming focused on one thing as opposed to many, your brand becomes perceived as being of higher quality.

If you’re creating a soccer team, would you choose the athlete who plays every sport or would you choose the athlete who plays only soccer? Obviously the soccer player. That’s how consumers view brands.

A brand that claims to do everything is less trustworthy, than the brand who claims they are the best at one thing.

Be the best at one thing. 

Be a big fish in a small pond, not a small fish in a big one.

Another way to build the perception of the quality of your brand in your consumer’s mind is through high-pricing – something you may have already realized to some degree.

Below are examples of a few brands that the average individual would associate with being ‘high-quality’. These are also brands which profit immensely from their high price:

  • Mercedes
  • Montblanc
  • Jack Daniel’s
  • Rolex
  • Rolls-Royce

What often happens is that brand owners either feel that their brand should be a high-quality brand but are afraid to make the price equivalent to what they think their brand is worth… OR some brand owners feel that their brand is a high quality brand but in reality it isn’t, yet they still charge the higher price.

Before even considering charging a higher price, you need to be confident in the high quality of your brand. Quality comes first. 

If your brand has products and services with a high price but has a low or average quality perception of a brand, that will discourage consumers from sticking around for very long. That violates the idea of brand consistency. But if your quality is on higher level, don’t be afraid to charge a higher price for your brand. Having a higher price on your brand, can in fact be a benefit to the consumer. By buying a product of brand that is associated with high quality, consumers feel a certain level of satisfaction from the purchase.

The individual who purchases a Movado, doesn’t do so to tell time better, but to make others aware that he or she can afford it. There’s a quote I heard somewhere ; it goes something like… “if your watch costs more than $50,000, it’s no longer a time-telling device, it’s jewelry.” Also, don’t rely only on quality to develop a successful brand. At the end of the day, it is the brand with the better strategy that wins.

The other most important thing to think about when employing high quality strategy, is how you will justify the increase in price of your product or service? What can you emphasize? You need to pick one thing that you can be the best at and be a leader in – this comes back to the idea of constricting the focus of your brand.

Take a look at Whole Foods, who earns most of its profits in prepared foods, where the price premium is very high, with operating margins of approximately 7%. They justified their premium price by emphasizing luxury with organic food, sophisticated in store presentation, and knowledgeable staff. That was enough to convince customers to pay a higher price for prepared food.

Leverage the psychology of how consumers think to build your brand – that’s what Brand Marketing Psychology is all about.