Branding Strategy Insider

Brand Positioning With Consumer Research

We have worked with a variety of clients over the years, from Fortune 100 companies to new venture start-ups. They have ranged from very entrepreneurial, risk taking organizations to very cautious, mature organizations. And, they have ranged significantly regarding their interest in and ability to invest in consumer insight through marketing research.

Successfully positioning a brand requires consumer insight. Brands are owned in the minds of consumers so unless you know how consumers perceive your brand and those of your competitors, you will not know which brand position (or unique value proposition - unique selling proposition) is going to be most advantageous for your brand. At a minimum, you should know which potential consumer values or benefits achieve ALL of the following:

• Relevant to the purchase of your brand’s products or services
• Unique among competitive alternatives
• Emotionally compelling
• Purchase motivating
• Protectable over the medium - to long-term

Brand owners can identify potentially advantageous brand values and benefits through qualitative research (focus groups, mini-groups and one-on-one depth interviews). Then, through quantitative research, they can evaluate the top brand positioning options against each of the evaluation criteria listed above to identify the most advantageous position to select.

Some clients error on the side of no consumer research, often because they do not think they can afford it and sometimes because of arrogance (“I know what our customers want.”). Occasionally, a brilliant entrepreneur with an excellent understanding of the consumer can arrive at a strong brand position without the help of research, however more often, the person just thinks he or she has an excellent understanding of the consumer and chooses an inferior position. Some organizations legitimately do not have the budget or cash flow to invest in consumer research. But can brand owners and marketers afford to not invest in something that could result in a significantly higher market share and profitability over the long term?

Focus Groups: Truly Useful In Brand Innovation?

Focus groups have been the go-to method many marketers employ to gain insight on how certain people think, feel and behave. In our social media connected world, are focus groups an effective forum for driving creativity and innovation in brand development and marketing?

Henry Ford said “if I gave people what they said they wanted, I would have made a faster horse”.  Mr. Ford instinctively knew then what still holds true about people today­­–people simply don’t know what they want, or what form an innovative idea should come in to solve a problem they don’t yet know they have. Nobody needed a car. Yet once realized, the automobile was arguably the most significant game changing product innovation of the last century.

A more contemporary version of this example is alive and well at Apple. Apple never conducts focus group research to guide their product innovations or drive their marketing. Innovation isn’t about giving people what they say they want. Asking people want they want or need is not a very useful tactic in driving new ideas for innovation. Yet, many marketers continue to rely on this artificial “laboratory” research to gain insights into what specific segments of people might be thinking about, what products they may use, and why they favor one thing over another.  Rarely will focus group research shed any useful light on the deeper needs people have that are, as yet, unrealized in their minds. If we assume this to be true, why do focus group research at all?

“I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they rely too much on research, like a drunkard uses a lamp post for support rather than illumination”.
– David Ogilvy

Brand Research: Generating Good Ideas From The Bad

Qualitative research is especially well suited to discovering something creative, such as a new name or positioning for a product. One focus group technique that helps uncover the best new ideas is, paradoxically, to ask respondents for bad ideas – the worst ones that come to mind.

This approach may sound strange, but it is firmly rooted in clinical psychology and research, as are many other qualitative methods. Psychotherapists have long used so-called paradoxical interventions, whereby they instruct patients to think or act the opposite of how they need to improve.

As explained in Fay Allen’s book, “Making Things Better, By Making Things Worse,” reverse psychology allows the patient to gain freedom and insights useful for moving in the right direction.

How does this seemingly backward tactic work in brainstorming for marketing ideas?

1.) It helps respondents loosen up by relieving the fear of saying something dumb.

2.) It’s easier, initially, to figure out what’s wrong with something than to think about the correct solution. Once bad ideas are voiced, participants are able to consider the other side; how to turn these problems into solutions.

3.) It’s fun to come up with “bad” ideas, and basic research has shown that people are more creative when enjoying themselves. With psychotherapy patients, the humor in a paradoxical intervention is one reason why it works. Humor can overcome the mindset that personal problem solving is ‘painful’.

Build Your Brand On Trust, Not Data

No one will dispute the fact that information about consumer trends, attitudes and behaviors is necessary and useful to gain insight on determining the basis of planning marketing tactics. Like a sharp knife, data is both useful and dangerous.

Marketers love data. They can’t get enough of it even as they drown in it. And there is no shortage of resources for marketers to get more and more data on consumer trends they believe will influence their marketing effectiveness. It may be time for marketers to recognize data as too much of a good thing. Paradoxically the more data marketers gather on consumer behavior, the more removed they are from knowing what really matters to people.

Data (in and of itself) has no value whatsoever. Add to that consumer’s growing resistance to providing information to marketers, and its easy to see why the proliferation of data driven marketing is reaching a tipping point where so much data simply becomes useless white noise in the background of a crowded marketplace.

Targeting Your Best Customer Is Just The Start

Targeting your value proposition to the right consumer is a basic marketing function. Knowing where to aim your creativity and money is the essential first step in any productive initiative to grow the value of your brand. Yet as important as defining the right target consumer is for your value proposition, it doesn’t automatically mean that defined segment will engage with your brand. Targeting is a means, not an end.

Brand managers are passionate about targeting! Many use a variety of techniques and methods for defining consumer segments. They know it’s better to generally get the definition of their customer mostly right. Targeting is not an exercise in precision as much as it is having a navigational aid to aim the trajectory of your marketing. It’s worth noting your most perfect and profitable customers most likely will not comprise the largest majority of people who will make up your customer base.  So effective targeting needs to include those consumers who may be just outside the descriptive attributes of your high yield customers.

Like a game of darts, you can score points and win without hitting the bulls eye with each throw.

To gain a comprehensive picture and an actionable perspective on defining your best target consumer profile, consider all these criteria:

Demographics
The basic and fundamental starting point, critical for segmenting the market to identify the highest potential target groups, usually defined by sex, age, household characteristics, occupation, origin, income, and education. The most useful aspect of demographics is these attributes are concrete and without bias.

Brand Research: The Net Incidence Rate Factor

You’re the Brand Manager and you don’t know the net incidence rate associated with your brand positioning focus groups? Don’t sweat it, you’re not alone.

In qualitative research, research facilities price their services, at least in part, on their estimate of net incidence rate. That is, if they contact 100 people in their general database, what percentage is going to meet all the recruiting criteria you’ve given them?

Increasingly, this means finding people who exhibit not only a certain behavior, but an attitudinal profile as well. An example: A company wants to talk with super-heavy users of widgets who answer strongly agree to 3 out of 5 attitudinal statements. The net incidence rate falls because you’re looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, and that’s okay if that’s where the action is.

Where I have a concern is becoming so preoccupied with screwing down the recruiting criteria that all the action has packed up and left. There’s nobody left to market to. A bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point.  

I once worked with a client whose recruiting criteria was so tightly wound that I began to wonder about the absolute number of people in the whole country who would meet their stringent criteria. The net incidence rate on this project was less than 3%!

My point is: in qualitative research don’t focus exclusively on the numerator in looking at incidence, look at the denominator, too. How big is 100% in absolute numbers? Is it big enough, lucrative enough - you’ll have to be the judge. But knowing your net incidence rate is just the first step in answering those questions. 

Contributed to BSI by: Jim Eschrich, President, Eschrich Research

Sponsored By: The Blake Project, Brand Consulting

Brand Research: Pre-test Your Tracking Study

Has quality food. That was an attribute I once found in a tracking study for a major fast food brand. It sounds like an important brand attribute, but what does it mean? The answer: It depends. High quality food could mean it looks appetizing. Or that it’s tasty. Or that it’s served hot. Or that the fast food chain uses a top shelf brand name like Kobe beef in its burgers.

Here’s my point: If your company is going to the expense of fielding a brand tracking study you should know how consumers define the attributes you’re using. What I’m advocating is pre-testing your brand tracking surveys. And just to be clear, I’m not talking about pre-testing them to find out if the skip pattern logic is sound. I’m talking about defining the attributes so that everyone who views the data is defining them the same way.

One suggestion: Publish these definitions in the reports with the brand attribute data. Make it easy for readers to make the connection.

In 15+ years of doing this type of work I have always found room for improvement in either the wording of the brand attribute statements and/or improving client understanding of what the statements mean.  

Contributed to BSI by: Jim Eschrich, President, Eschrich Research

Sponsored By: The Blake Project, Brand Consulting

Brand Repositioning Research: A Mandate

As brand consultants, our primary focus is brand strategy and repositioning based on deep customer insight. Many organizations will ask us to reposition their brands but are reluctant to conduct the necessary customer research at the beginning of the brand repositioning process. They will say, “We conduct ongoing customer satisfaction research,” or “We do product research quite frequently” or “We measured our brand’s equity five years ago” or “We talk with our customers all of the time.” But, do they know which brands have the highest top-of-mind unaided awareness within the relevant product categories? Do they know how their brand is perceived? Do they know the top-of-mind associations for their brand? Do they know their brand’s personality? Do they know if their customers can relate to their brand emotionally? Do they know how attitudinally loyal their customers are to their brand? Do they know the most important brand and category benefits and how their brand stacks up against the competition in delivering against these benefits? Do they know their brand’s perceived strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis the competition? Have they identified their brand’s positioning vulnerabilities and opportunities? Do they know whether their brand is perceived to deliver a good value for the price paid? Is their brand perceived to be vital or resting on its laurels? Is it perceived to be innovative, responsive, trustworthy, reliable or friendly? Do they understand how these perceptions vary across various customer segments?

Successful brand repositioning requires intuition, creativity, insight, analysis and a deep understanding of the customer and his or her perceptions. The insight, analysis and deep understanding are largely informed by rigorous brand research. Repositioning a brand without research is akin to painting a masterpiece with one’s eyes closed. Neither is a good idea.

Sponsored By: The Brand Positioning Workshop

A Marketer's Guide To Scientific Research Techniques

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”  Mark Twain

Confusion reigns supreme. In the years since Malcolm Gladwell’s international bestseller, “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without thinking,” awakened marketers to the importance of tapping into the intuitive, emotional responses of consumers to enjoy more effective marketing campaigns, a wild west of scientific research techniques have emerged.  Claims and counter claims are enough to make one’s head spin, especially marketers, who have better things to do than trying to sort out which research tools to rely on. 

As someone who began to study emotional responses for clients a half decade before most of these neurometric firms were born, please allow me to provide some unvarnished perspective.

Two Key Dimensions - Engagement and Arousal
The first key is that there are two essential dimensions: engagement and arousal (whether emotional responses occur, when, and the intensity of those responses), and valence (the degree to which positive or negative emotions occur). Yes, engagement and arousal help to tell you if your marketing message is breaking through the clutter, driving attention, and creating opportunities for recall.  Tools that measure engagement and arousal and, in fact, specialize in it, include heart rate, sweat gland activity and respiration.

Brand Research And Consumer Decision-Making

I love solving puzzles and there’s no greater puzzle than understanding how people spend their attention, time and money. The factors that influence an individual’s choices are infinite, and often subtle.

Any parent can tell you that understanding why a teen behaves as they do prepares you to influence their decisions. The same is true of marketers and consumers. For marketers, unraveling the complexities of customer decisions can mean the difference between marketing success and failure. That’s why we try to frame research objectives in terms of understanding consumer choices.

• What is the consideration set?
• What are the decision drivers?
• How do those drivers relate to the person’s core values?
• What advantages (equities) does the brand offer that can be connected with those drivers?

Consumers Are Terrible at Explaining Their Choices
It doesn’t help that consumers are often inarticulate when it comes to analyzing their own decisions. They often find it hard to say why they chose one option over others. When they do provide a rationale, we’ve learned to take what they say with caution -- the consumer may not even be aware of his or her motivations. This is particularly true in low involvement categories where there is little time, money or ego at stake. Most of us can relate to agency CEO Bob Hoffman’s description of his approach to pet food purchasing:

“I have no idea why I buy Jif instead of Skippy. I don’t do taste tests. All I know is that when I’m standing in the peanut butter aisle staring blankly into space, there comes a time when I have to make a decision. And for some reason I usually grab the Jif. If you can help me understand why I buy Chuck Wagon instead of Alpo for my dog, Buddy, I will be most appreciative. From all I can tell, it doesn’t seem to matter much to him. So why does it matter to me? As a matter of fact, I’m not even sure it matters to me. I just do it.”  --- Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian

In these situations, it doesn’t do a lot of good to ask consumers why they behave the way they do. There are many indirect ways to explore decision-making. Traditionally, marketers have used discrete choice modeling, concept tests or conjoint analysis to infer decision drivers.  Today I’d like to focus on two other ways to investigate decision-making: experimentation and laddering.