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Tag Archives: brand difference
Tuning Up Sales Interactions
The Old Way
It’s an old truism in sales: customers evaluate rationally, but they buy products and services emotionally. Traditional market research, however, typically only analyzes the rational aspects of sales interactions. Win-loss interviews, a standard market research approach, rely upon respondents’ recall of the sales interaction and a discussion of what they thought and felt. Although useful, this approach unavoidably leads respondents to deliver rationalized versions of the story of their decision to purchase/not purchase a product or service. Of course, the story they tell emerges through the filters of their rational recall of the event and desire to present themselves in a particular way. The emotional element in the sale – the piece that drives purchase – is less deeply explored and often obscured in the process.
Validity in Assessing Ad Communication & Impact
Under The Radar
by David Forbes, Ph.D. & Judith Retensky
Typically, good advertising has to come in “under the radar” – that is, be persuasive in ways that are subtle – appealing to emotions and deep-rooted psychological motivations. One type of research that attempts to measure these reactions is the communication check.
Communication check research typically takes place when advertisers have reached a fairly specific vision about an upcoming ad campaign. The “check” is used to gain a preliminary look at how the ad will “work” – what messages it will convey and how those messages will be received.
However, respondents are often unable to give accurate reports about their reactions to advertising since the important communications usually take place below the conscious intellectual level, and the kinds of impact good advertising can create are precisely those that respondents don’t want to acknowledge. Given these constraints, how should researchers proceed? Following the 6 steps in the communication check process can help to accurately measure reactions and optimize the campaign.
Step 1: Use Developed Stimuli
Stimuli for advertising communication research should be as fully developed as possible. Although showing the ad at any stage (sketch, storyboard, etc.) works, well-developed executions will deliver the underlying strategy in a way that can come in “under the radar,” just like a real ad.
The more stimuli look and feel like finished advertising, the greater validity in the findings.
Ask Sig: “Radar Eating”
Q. Dear Sig,
I am in charge of a group of brands for a large maker of snack foods, including a brand of popcorn. A fascinating article I’ve just read discussed the different motivations behind eating, but used an unfamiliar term. Can you explain “radar eating” in more detail?
Sincerely,
Curious in Chicago
A. Dear Curious,
How fascinating and technological are today’s contemporary terms! Radar – as any competent schüler knows – is an American acronym for “radio detection and ranging,” introduced by the U.S. Navy in 1940. Eating isn’t just for nutrition and hunger; the radar metaphor is apt when eating is used as a tool for “forward movement” amid other activity. Allow me to explain.
Research ON Research: Importance of Brand Photos
The Effects of Brand Photos on Attitudes & Usage Measures
BACKGROUND: Including digital images of branded products or brand logos has become a common practice in web-based questionnaires on the implicit theory that these images will improve the accuracy of aided recall measures of awareness and usage. One hypothesis is that these images serve to jog respondent memories of brands seen or used that might otherwise have been forgotten, and thus raise levels of stated awareness and usage. A competing hypothesis is that these images lower levels of stated awareness and usage by deflating the incidence of “phantom awareness” (false positive claims of awareness and usage) by providing cross-validating information.
RESEARCH METHOD: A total of 1,250 surveys (625 with brand pictures, 625 without) were conducted about sports drinks, using a demographically representative online panel, with a standard security screening and a requirement that respondents be partly responsible for household shopping decisions. Each option shown to the respondent was selected at random and chosen to ensure an equal distribution of each option.
FINDINGS: The study showed that reported usage for several brands used in past 6 months was significantly higher when NO picture was shown, and significantly lower when a picture was shown.
CONCLUSION: Preliminary evidence suggests that the use of brand images helps to reduce the prevalence of “phantom usage,” i.e., overstated usage, presumably because brand images provide additional cues that improve respondent recall. Although further research is needed, it appears that brand images improve the accuracy of usage recall and should be incorporated when possible.
Ask Sig: Hot Dogs are Serious Business
We make a popular line of hot dog brands and have done so for decades. Our company is doing ok, but we have seen better times. All management levels agree that we need to grow, but there is some debate over how – expand distribution, partner for recipe inclusion, extend beyond hot dogs, etc. Our company board is partial to extending to hot dog buns. How
do I determine what is best for the brands?Sincerely,
Down in the Dogs
A. A very tricky situation, indeed. I have faced a similar dilemma when I was at the University of Vienna and asked to work on a rather unfruitful search for proof that was never to be found. Professor Karl Claus asked me to study the life cycle of eels. After four weeks at the zoological research station where I dissected hundreds of eels, and starting seeing many of them swimming in my dreams, I was still not able to prove or disprove the presence of male reproductive organs in eels. Professor Claus was determined – he suggested we look again at only baby eels. I suggested we take a step back.
Whats Does Your Brand Stand for?
Understanding Brand Architecture
By Brian Sowers
UNRAVEL THE MYSTERY
Do you know what your brand stands for in the eyes of your customers? How does your current product portfolio support the master brand? Is your brand’s meaning and purpose still relevant in an increasingly competitive marketplace? If the answer to any of these questions elicits an “I don’t know” response, an examination of your brand architecture is in order.
Having well-defined brand architecture is a critical component of an effective marketing strategy, as it provides the structure for leveraging strong brands, assimilating acquired products, and successfully launching new products.
In developing cohesive brand architecture it is important to follow three steps:
- Determine what the master brand stands for
- Assess how well current products fit into and support the master brand
- Understand how far the master brand can be stretched with new product introductions
Ask Sig: Noogies Over Nougat
Sig,
It is difficult to market a snack food that, while delicious, is not particularly healthy. I’m fighting significant trends; there simply aren’t enough people open to a product of this sort. What’s an appropriate product benefit when today’s parents won’t give their kids this sort of thing?
Thanks for reading,
Getting Noogies Over Nougat
Dear Getting Noogies Over Nougat,
Ah, reader. Your letter reminds me of my grandmother’s marzipan, which she pressed into large pans to let cool on the window sills of her farmhouse in Pribor. The aroma was so wonderful it made the Yellowhamers sing! One can only hope that your product is a lovely marzipan?
But your question is also important! Consider for a moment my neighbor at #17 Bergasse, Otto, who is somewhat portly. He enjoys ale and a good Kaisersemmel roll, and even if he gets them at Franziskanerplatz Kleine Café around the corner, he prefers to take a carriage than to walk. Otto is not what one would call spry.
Positioning for Motivational Impact: Does My Brand’s Difference Matter?
By Jeremy Pincus, Ph.D. and Amit Ghosh
A Brief History Of Positioning
In earliest advertising, the goal of communicating to the consumer was to convey factual ideas about a product or service to promote its unique features and benefits. The logic of this traditional strategy was well expressed in Rosser Reeves’ (1961) famous unique selling proposition (e.g., “melts in your mouth, not in your hand”).
But this approach only works well when something factual about one’s product is truly new and unique. As more and more products entered into the market to make purely factual distinctiveness less and less obtainable, Ries and Trout (1972) developed the concept of “Positioning”, arguing that marketing should stake a unique position in the minds of consumers. The focus of communication under positioning theory became a psychological one, with an emphasis not just on reality, but on perception of reality.
Over 80 percent of new product launches in the last five years consisted of “new and improved” brand extensions, and the majority of these failed.
Success in today’s marketplace requires positioning skills of Olympian proportion.
