Real consumers don’t have ‘brand conversations’. They use search

Great post, definitely don’t have any brand that I’m in love with and feel that I have to have a continuous connection with. But I still think that there are people out there that enjoy being able to connect with the brand, you just have to see how people talk to some of the brands on facebook and twitter.

Couldn’t agree more.

And i don’t subscribe to the industry “debate” on the subject because there is questioning what we are seeing in terms of user behaviour. Search delivers a lot more then an optimised cpc/cpe.

Yes there are some people who connect with brands. There is extreme behaviour in all facets of society. Marketers look at these extremists and try to apply that fervour to the rest of their thinking. I’m talking about the bulk of the population.

I couldn’t disagree more. Sure 90% of purchases are unemotional, however the remaining 10?

People who buy nike brand do so to align themselves with th brand message portrayed… active, independant, sporty. They got out of their way to prchase that brand due to the connection painstakingly built up through years of brand management.

Another very powerful example is Apple products, the mona lisa of branding. People wear apple t-shirts, get into arguaments over mac vs PC, line up for days to buy the latest gadget, even with the well publicised faults. They dont do this because they where searching “i-phone” on google, but they had pre-existing notions of the apple brand and their relationship to it. These are people who would have grown up with apple, bought the first i-pod, and touch, the computers, the ipad and now the iphone 4. If that isnt an emotional attachment then what is?

I agree, most people don’t have an emotional connection with most brands, HOWEVER – some brands have found that sweet spot with a tight community, which to me, looks like it has to be based in emotion. To me, if a brand can make you act less logical and more irrational, then there is an emotional connection at play – i.e. people lining up overnight for a new iPhone 4 etc etc etc.

Great post Simon. I couldn’t agree more with many of the points you raise. As for all the search results, ‘location, location, location’ goes for search as it goes for retail.

@ Tom Dodson
Although, as you say, that’s only true for 10% of purchases (and probably much less). I think Simon’s point is that Apple and Nike fanboys are a very tiny, specific subset and that trying to replicate this effect is probably pointless for almost everyone else.

I’m a bit more of a ‘shoot for the stars’ kinda guy. I’d prefer to aim for love (loyalty, trust, whatever you want to call it) and get those 10pc of advocates, than give up and only pump out sales messages to the masses. I think there is a distinct difference between brand and sales promotions, product features, distribution channels. I couldn’t agree more that the love of family and friends is another realm altogether, but from a business point of view why not aim for loyalty, trust and advocacy?

I had connections with brands in my teenage years. The one brand I still have an emotional connection with stems from those very same years (and my mother’s refusal to purchase said product for me).

As marekters, we have a high involvement with the brands that we’re charged with selling. While we might like to influence others to feel the same way we do for a brand, the simple reality is they don’t. The perfect example of this was given by Jon Steel in his telling of a client wetting themself over new technological advances that allowed for an extra 1mm of cholcolate around the biscuit – it was game changing. Then one of the planners said quite frankly, ‘…excuse me for saying this, but…but…it’s only a f@cking chocolate biscuit.” (1998, p.68).

I do love the concept of LoveMarks, but it has to be said that this is designed to market an agency to marketing managers who want their audience to feel the same way they do about their brand. It’s just not reality (although there is an exception to every rule).

As it was back in the say, good marketing still comes down to knowing thy audience.

Great post Simon.

Boooooo! Not a great post.

🙂

As one of those social marketing people…

We’re not trying to make people have an emotional connection to a brand itself, we’re trying to make people have an emotional connection while they experience the brand so that when they are in a purchase decision stage of the buying cycle and they come across the brand, the have positive instincts about the brand based on an emotional connect they had with something that is meaningful to them.

There is a difference. It’s kind of like going to a party and chatting with a whole bunch of people you don’t really know. It was a great party though, the music was awesome, great food etc. Let’s say you meet one of those people again, and rather than ask them to recal the conversation you had, you ask them to recal the party and the circumstance in which you met. I see the people as being the brands and the emotional connection we’re trying to have is not with the brand, but with an experience.

i think the issue is marketers associating every interaction with their activity. People don’t care that much & i doubt you will find many people who feel fulfilled when buying toilet paper. ditto “emotional connection”

Ah, the brand debate. Why is it then that most will buy Coca Cola over any other branded cola (Virgin Cola, supermarket brand cola, etc.) but say they don’t have a connection, even though in taste tests, non Coca Cola often comes out on top? No-one likes to THINK they have an emotional connection – we all like to think we make rational and intelligent decisions – but when you choose one product or service or another, there is certainly a sub-conscious decision going on that relates to the brand of that product or service. Simon, I’d be interested to know whether you buy all supermarket own label brands. If you do, then hats off to you!

@ Becks
I’m sure that’s all true, but coca cola’s chief marketing officer said “Marketers need to move beyond the psycho-babble and read this book…”

Some other very compelling (recent) research related to the IMPACT and TRUST when a brand has a presence in both paid and organic here: http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/newsro....._id=102153 from Stern University (NYC).

/y0z2a

Bought a car recently. Did heaps of search for “best 4wd”…all the online research, as guys do for these things. Plenty of great, nice functional Kia, Nissan and Hyundai softroaders to pile my family in to. Great reviews, good price, good warranty. Decided on a good Aussie brand instead – suits my personality. Makes me feel like I’m free, like I’m driving through the Aussie bush. I love my Toyota.

Totally agree with Jordan. While I believe it is a bit of a stretch to claim a brand can create an emotional connection that you can’t live without for the majority of the population, I think it is a bit short-sighted to say emotional connections don’t play a part at all.

Yes, people are busy and yes, they are far more likely to purchase a brand they remember over another, but what usually causes someone to remember a brand is from some experience they have had with it. They have had an emotional connection to it. All you have to do is look at the reaction to the Old Spice campaign and case study to show how effective an emotional connection can be http://adweek.blogs.com/adfrea.....stats.html

People remember experiences more than anything else and regardless of whether they had a positive or negative experience with that brand, they are going to take that feeling away with them. When they are next making a purchase and faced with the multiple choices, if they see that particular brand, their connection to that brand will either elevate it above all other brands that they know nothing about if their experience was positive or put it below if it was negative.

I don’t think a life long love affair has to be created with a brand, but emotional connections certainly do help.

Well Simon would say something like this. It’s in his realm and digital agencies like Hothouse have a particular view of brands and branding. Unfortunately, digital branding in this country has a fairly lacklustre reputation because few firms employ actual brand strategists or even strategists per se. Simon would do well to read some of the latest research from his own domain before wading into the brand research area via ONE book he thinks does it for him. He’d see that even those relationships with brands which are being determined via search are under threat. http://www.wired.com/magazine/.....brip/all/1

There’s a flaw in the post’s logic.

“I’ve never bought it because I don’t feel the same way”. Then the post says “Here’s a bunch of research from academics”. So, are you arguing on gut instinct, on personal experience, or on research – because there is tons of research that contradicts everything you’ve argued.

It’d be a more compelling argument if the author wrote “his is how I have always thought about brand, and interacted with them, but then I read some research…”

But on a purely common sense level, I can’t remember the last time I googled to decide on a pack of gum?

In the case of gum – I have emotional connections with one brand, as I chewed it as a kid. I have a functional connection with another brand, as I like it’s taste and it’s got a breath freshening angle. I have another functional connection with another brand, because I like chewing old school sticks of gum, and another because a bunch of pieces come in one pack.

In the last three feet before purchase, I’ll make a choice – am I stinky breath? Am i feeling retro? Do I want a sweet sugary trip down memory lane? Do I need a big pack for the long haul? If promotion, placement and price is the google of retail – then why do I ignore all the new to market, flashy, big packs and front and centre options, and go with the old favourites?

You can call these connections, preferences, awareness, whatever – but I sure as heck aren’t going to google before buying a pack of gum, toilet paper or even a Mercedes – people buy a Mercedes for the image they want to project, not because it showed up in google.

Quoting Apple in any discussion on brand is a blind alley – as one commenter said it’s the extreme of human behaviour.

Wow so the founder of and internet marketing agency contends we should focus more on search engine advertising….

Who would have thought?? In fact I bet I could click though to his website, contact him and get him to help me with this too? What a nice man he must be!!

Seriously I want the three minutes back I wasted reading this.

Great post Simon.

I think that there is a continuum of “loveability” and all products/categories sit somewhere along this. What I mean by this is that some categories have a greater propensity for emotional connection than others. People might be more inclined to experience “love” for things like cars, fashion, jewellery, music than for categories like household consumables, insurance, banking or broadband access. (Food might sit somewhere in the middle.)

In my experience “love” for brands is based on trust; trust that the brand will deliver every time.

Imagine how much more effective marketing would be if we actually knew what works. We’ve grown up in a paradigm where we couldn’t easily test what was working and what wasn’t – now we can.

This is driving big changes to the marketing communications landscape.

Nice article Simon, and great work in trying to bust some silly assumptions the industry has.

Thanks Adam. I agree. Byron Sharp has been testing advertising and branding for 25 years. It’s interesting that despite the fact his theories are so well tested there is still such denial around the data. Still lots of people are still arguing against evolution 🙂

It’s interesting that Apple always becomes the poster child. The loyalty for Apple PC’s is only a little higher than the loyalty for PC brands. You’d expect that anyway. Once you have a Mac you have an investment it’s easier to move from a Dell to a HP.

And to Becks – I suspect the reason people buy Coke is two fold. One they have tremendous brand salience in their category. They also have a distribution goal to never be more than an arms length away. So people remember the product and it’s everywhere. Love – I think not.

I agree with almost everything in this post. I loathe brand babblers and try to avoid the word “brand” as much as possible. But sentences like “When you really understand the science of brands it all makes sense” set my BS alarms ringing.

We’ll never understand the “science of brands”. To try is folly. Successful marketing is as much art as science… arguably more art. Clients would love to de-risk marketing via science, but it won’t work. Science consistently fails to understand and codify art. And truly innovative and remarkable companies know when to ignore and shun the “science” and research. Science would have never produced the iMac in the late 90s, or the Old Spice Man more recently, or the Gold Pass movie cinema experience, or 42 Below, or Virgin Atlantic… etc, etc.

The Google research cited is hardly “science”… and most marketing research methodologies make real scientists howl with laughter. (As Mark Twain said: “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics” and nowhere is this more true than in the world of marketing.)

Search is important, and I agree 100% that clients need to pay more attention to it. But loads and loads of people make significant purchases without ever visiting Google, and loads of people type the brand name into their search.

So as plastered as our environment is with advertising, and as much as we may wish it wasn’t so, nothing is changing anytime soon.
{Sorry for the long rant}

Interesting ideas.

But what about the stuff we buy every day – from Woolies and Coles.

How many people do searches for dunny paper?

You almost won me over Simon. I think “love” and “brands” should rarely be used in the same sentence. I believe it can happen – Apple being a point in case. Personally, I love my Audi. I used to love my Bose but no longer do.

But where I think the bowstring snapped was saying “every time you appear on a search results page, you are doing the most important branding job.” i wonder how the consumer knew how to type in the brand into their search engine. I do not NOT see search as branding, but I see it as an extremely important fulfillment tool at the bottom of the purchase funnel. All the client has to do is to continue the brand advertising to keep filling the funnel with prospective customers.

And, as for the Omniture research, a quick look at the methodolgy may reveal the results reported. As my Stats lecturer used to say – give me the answer and I will give you the question.

Having said that, on Simon’s recommendation I will make sure that Byron’s book (which has sat beside the bed for a couple of months) makes it to the top of the reading pile.

Great discussion you’ve started Simon.

To clarify a few things about the book How Brands Grow, it is based on decades of scientific work documenting real-world buying behaviour. Not one-off academic studies, nor case studies.

Loyalty is something we observe in every market, it’s natural human behaviour. But it’s prosaic loyalty, which shows in our polygamous behaviour (and attitudes). This means that physical availability is terribly important, but what we see depends on the mental structures of our memories. What we do and don’t notice in-store depends on what’s already in our heads. And what we search for, and click on, also depends on that mental availability.

PS Each of us may love a few brands out of the thousands we buy, but for any brand its lovers/tribe members/committed loyalists matter little. That’s true even for Apple and Harley Davidson (see the data in chapter 7).
http://marketinglawsofgrowth.com/ is the book’s official website

John, have to disagree with you. SEO pros understand the real opportunity with search is based on the generic term a user enters into a search – say, “5 door hatch” rather than entering the manufacturer. The branding is in the meta data content (description) – the text in the search results below the page title. This is the key message that determines whether the user is going to click or not. So if I’m on the Subaru business for instance I’m going to make damn sure that my SEO is optimised against that term and present the right brand message.

So Mike, how is entering “5 door hatch” into a seartch engine branding? Isn’t that really a product description or attribute that applies to several/many brands – a segment of the automotive industry.

Brands survive by differentiation. I understand that the meta-data text is a ‘differentiation’ of sorts, but if I am relying on 2 or 3 lines of optimised text to do my branding for me then I think my brand is in trouble.

I’m in no way saying that SEO is not an important tool in the marketer’s toolbox, but I can’t see how typing “5 door hatch’ into a search engine is doing a branding job for the Yaris, Swift, Impreza, Neo et. al. (by the way Impreza didn’t come up until page 2 when I did it).

There are some good points you raise Simon especially regarding lovemarks. It definitely overstates the role most brands play in our lives.
However I can’t agree with blanket statements like “search is the most powerful tool in the marketing toolkit”. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.
Take for example most every fmcg brand. How many people to you think use search to select toothpaste or peaches or milo? Very few I’d suspect. I agree that brand advertising is not the sole answer anymore but to suggest that search is a panacea is a little exuberant.

I feel very sad for you Simon that your life is so empty, I love my Scott Mountain Bike, Golf Car, K2 Skis, Tag Watch and ipod. What humans beings are able to create is no short of amazing and having the opportunity to connect with them at a practical and emotional level brings me joy.

>We’re not trying to make people have an emotional connection to a brand itself, we’re trying to make people have an emotional connection while they experience the brand – Jordan

God’s teeth. People don’t “experience” a brand, much as you might wish. They buy stuff. They search for stuff, they might hold some opinions on the quality or look of certain brands, but they don’t sit about fapping over them, much as you might wish.

When they sit down and use their new LCD TV, they’re not “experiencing Samsung”. They’re experiencing their new screen, and more likely the content they watch through it. When they drink a coke, they’re not “experiencing Coca Cola Amatil”. They’re quenching their thirst, and maybe enjoying the taste (and rotting their teeth most likely).

Simon I think you make some valid points here, and I think your argument would hold well maybe even two years ago but there is an underlying shift in behavior driven by technological and cultural factors.

Search is a key branding exercise, but we’ve all seen the research that an individuals’ most trusted information source is a recommendation from a friend and search does little to address this. A conversation however, does whether this be with a friend or the brand itself and in whatever form this may take.

There is also an inherent problem with attributing a general consensus to one’s own behavior and view of the world, in psychology this is know as a misperception of norms. We all do it, but as marketers it is important to step back and not let our own experiences colour our perception of others experiences.

The product research behavior described for example does not bode equally well when you look at the differences in online shopping behaviors between men and women.

The reality I believe, lies somewhere in between these two arguments and I think it’s a positive that the argument is now starting to shift back to a more rational approach that is blending the pure ’emotional connection’ message and the science that lies behind it.

“Articles that explain why the industry is desperately short of a certain expertise or service the author just happens to provide are generally rejected.”

“Generally, but not always.

@John – It’s the content a brand presents to the user, in the search results, against the generic search term that makes it branding.

Users entering terms like “5 door hatch” into Google and the like have not yet formed a consideration set/preference on brand, and most probably still in the stages of researching the options available.

If I was a brand manager in the 5 door class I’d be wanting to align my product with that term so I have a chance of converting that user. I’d aim to ensure my message in the metadata would be optimised to rank well in the organic results, and be a lot more creative than features/specs etc. That’s the role of the detination/landing page.

Search is not the be all and end all to branding, but it’s a crucial element. Subaru need to do a little more work then (I have no affiliation by the way).

Mike , I do get all that. My point is that what the user sees as the result of a search (leave aside all the unseen meta-data as the consumer does not see that) is 2-3 lines of text. That text is part of the link to the content on a corporate website, product comparison website, recommendations website, retailer website etc. To me it as AFTER the click through that the online branding occurs. Yes, search is part of the process, but I would argue that it is a weak force while still being cognisant of all the optimisation that happens underneath the hood to get that link to the top of the search list. (Clearly by extension the other 2.96m matches to “5 door hatch” that haven’t been optimised are extremely weak forces). My EPG and remote control find me all sorts of interesting programmes that I watch ads in – but it is the ad that is important.

Methinks we might have to agree to disagree.

@John – I recommend investing a little more time into the study of search. It’s the metadata that IS ACTUALLY SEEN in search results that I am referring to. Positioning statements and straplines are only a few words. In another couple of lines you can easily support the proposition with well written copy optimised for web. Yes, we disagree – let’s leave it at that.

Don’t agree to disagree just yet – this is a good conversation. A couple more comments and it’ll make the “most commented” section.

@The Nige – I USE my ipod, I USE my iphone, I USE my macbook but I love my son, daughter and their mother – I will almost go as far as saying that I love my dog.

I purchased a macbook air because they are lightweight and I travel a lot, I purchased an iphone and an ipod because they work well with a mac.
Byron talks about creating physical and metal availability and that is what brands like apple and coke do well. They are easy to find and most importantly easy to purchase.

To those of you that think lovers of brands will wear your brand and blog about your brand with love and deep affection on their ipad on the bus on the way to work. A recent article in Harvard business review quoted a study that found that brand fanatics account for less than 5% of your customer base. So unless you are as big as apple or coke or nike don’t expect too much love from your facebook fan page.

If you do want to get as big as nike, coke or mac I suggest you put your marketing effort into something that gets more customers – like search.

Great post Simon
How is it that when we debate on brand buying, many refer to their ‘own’ experiences as being representative? When Tom said “We’ll never understand the “science of brands”. To try is folly. Successful marketing is as much art as science… arguably more art” – actually, no this is exactly what Prof Sharp’s book is about – it is mathematically sound science, that has been found to hold across many conditions i.e. time, categories, countries. And note Prof Sharp draws on work from many other authors (not just a bunch of academics- and it is largely industry data), so it is not just a one man agenda. So for me this is where I start when it comes to developing strategies for new media (and yes the logic applied in his book can be applied online, particularly social media) – would rather base it on what we know works than risk $$ with no guarantee.

I recently read a paper that tried to measure brand love – its when you read the questions that people have to answer to determine if they love the brand do you realise how silly this idea is.

But from a practical marketing perspective, if people love your brand, great – but you don’t need to reach out to them, they will come to you. Its the light, disinterested buyers that you need to reach out to, just to keep them buying the brand. I don’t know any examples of a brand that has remained financially viable with only a small group of passionate customers.

Gee The Nige – surely that list was intended for your RSVP profile.

Spot on, Simon, with “There is extreme behaviour in all facets of society. Marketers look at these extremists and try to apply that fervour to the rest of their thinking. ” Less than 10% of people in many consumer markets are sole-brand loyal yet many marketers talk about their sales revenues coming “their” customers forgetting that 90%, or more, of their customers also buy from their competitors. Marketers talk about “stopping defections” and “converting competitors’ customers” but this demonstrates ignorance of actual behaviour of customers: most of them buy from multiple suppliers, over a period of time, and are quite happy with that – they ‘defect’ from several suppliers regularly ( think petrol buying or department store visiting.) The marketer’s task is to expand the number of customers who have them as one of their pool of suppliers or be part of most category buyers’ repertoire. To understand all this and how you do it, see the book “How Brands Grow”

Hi David, It’d be interesting to apply this knowledge to the social media area as well. Clearly social media has a role in marketing but I suspect a lot of it is aimed at the sliver of fans and not at the real opportunity, building salience amongst the 90% of us who don’t really care.

Simon, there is said to be the 90-9-1 principle, that is, In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action. I don’t know the veracity of this claim as it was current in about 2006. The major parties here during the election campaign seem to have demonstrated their faith in the power of the mass media like TV to get to the 90% of the population who are not that engaged, ‘lurkers’ at best, buwho have to be reached.

Interesting that coke was mentioned early on. It’s a survey of one, i realise, but my own buyer behaviour story seems salient.
If the coke people knew my buying habits with regard to diet coke they would definitely consider me a loyal customer who, quite possibly, ‘loves’ the brand. I drink about five cans a week.
But they would be wrong. I drink it because its the only fizzy diet drink i can usually find. Whenever anything else in the category is available, particularly solo sub, or diet ginger ale, or even pepsi max, I choose those. With diet coke, for me, there’s no loyalty, no love, just extraordinary availability. Not surprised at all that some,one from coke endorsed sharp’s book.
With regard to the comment on dunny paper, I buy recycled so i just look at what’s on special – I honestly have no idea which brand I’m buying.

Jenni, you raise a very interesting point.

Why do we resesarchers use questionnaires and techniques that rely on verbal and text-based constructs which is the domain of the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex – the ‘logical’ side of the brain – to try to measure and plumb the depths of the emotional concepts of ‘love’ or ‘liking’ or ‘engagement’, which is the domain of the right hemisphere of the cerebral cortex – the ’emotive’ non-verbal side of the brian?

Because you can charge for it?

I like the article a lot as it will make people challenge their assumptions. With the disclaimer that i didn’t read the comments in detail, I do wonder about the fascination with discovering a scientific explanation (cause and effect)… what Bryon certainly brings to the table is advertising research (and maybe a claim for scientifically understanding that), but thats all… marketing isn’t all advertising, just as brand meaning is not completely constructed by formal messaging by (or from) the brand controller… we (customers) do what we do (mostly differently from each other) because thats what we believe is best; we (marketers / academics) do our best to explain the bits we can ‘isolate’ as observable knowing that in a social science there is stuff we can’t ever see (measure)…

There is no general theory to explain brands as we all inter-subjectively determine their meaning and importance (to us)… #imjustsaying

Phil, the book draws on largely decades of research documenting buying behaviour. Not just advertising research.

I think you raise the issue of whether or not we can ever find ‘natural’ or scientific laws in the social sciences. Thanks. It’s an old question, which people often have surprisingly strong negative views on (i.e. “we can’t”) without actually looking to see if we can. Today there are a number of books out, not just How Brands Grow but others like Predictably Irrationality that show we can. Today the Social Sciences have laws too.

Which proves the old adage “look and ye shall find”, which leads to “if you don’t look at the real world you’ll won’t find anything to upset your theories.”

Thanks for the response Byron…

I certainly wasn’t implying any criticism of your book or research (sorry of it came across like that)…

Also I’m not sure i wanted to imply that we can’t have ‘laws’, just consider the purpose of why we want them…

Ambiguity is something we (especially managers) don’t like, but perhaps that is a fact/ law we have to learn to live with? Of course i am happy to have ‘Currently Useful Generalisations’ but my experience of the real world (as a manager and academic) is that anything that is taken as a ‘law’ of human behavior (or any self organising system / network etc…) soon demonstrates an element of paradox that challenges any such assumption…

Again appreciate your contribution and insights, and hope you are able to keep shining the light on those dark crevices of marketing…

Looking at the comments I see some people are uneasy with the idea of ‘Laws’ in marketing. These laws apply at an aggregate level and don’t seek to predict what individual people do. For example, one marketing law in Sharp’s book is “brands share their customers with other brands in-line with the market share of those other brands”. Another one is, “big brands get a bit more loyalty, small brands get a bit less”.
These sorts of laws are found in all sorts of categories – I even found they applied to sportswear brands like Nike – yes, Kevin Reynold’s lovemark sports brand, Nike follows the same predicable pattern in brand loyalty metrics found in hundreds of other analyses. So much for Lovemarks getting ‘Loyalty beyond Reason’ !!

** article published in the International Journal of Market Research 2009.

Great comment Simon.

This discussion is lively and really interesting, so let me put in my two cents worth…

Sure, we can all think of brands that we (in line with Frank’s comment) USE more often, and we may even be so keen on those brands as to say we “love” them, but without the rule we can’t spot the exception. These “loved” brands are such a small proportion of all the brands we buy – we spend far more of our time and money buying brands we couldn’t give a stuff about. And from the brand manager’s perspective, so few of their buyers are “in love” with their brands, so shouldn’t most of their efforts be focused on the majority not on the exception?

Thus Byron Sharp’s comments about mental and physical availability in How Brands Grow. And in terms of online advertising, just like buying any other type of ad space, advertising online should all be about which option produces the best metal/physical availability for your brand.

Somewhere in the middle.

No, not all consumers have emotional connections with brands they buy, but their behaviour towards ones they do can be pretty profound.

Search is definitely a means to a brand but I don’t think it would or should define a brand, or be the most important part of branding by any stretch.

Branding is a band not a soloist.

I am not so sure David – I LOVE Verve, but I suspect that the company would find my buying behaviour towards them very underwhelming!

In this discussion it is important to remember that loyalty certainly exists. We see it in every market we study. But it is prosaic loyalty. So words like “love” or even “emotional connections” are way off mark – and mislead marketers.

Every brand gets some loyalty, you can waste a lot of time, effort and money on trying to squeeze out a little more. But then you lose sight of the big picture.

Here is an example with car brands:
http://marketinglawsofgrowth.c.....84f-8.html

Dear Simon

I love you. But in about 3 minutes you’re going to hate me.

Maybe a lot of you will hate me in 3 minutes, I don’t know. I always end up offending someone. Sorry.

Simon, I read your article and I don’t want to be the one that drives holes through your argument or point of view. It was a smart article. So that would be rude of me.

But it’s a flawed perspective. For a number of reasons. At least I think so.

I only want to talk about one of them.

And it’s one that no one else has mentioned. Why is this? Is it because I’m the only one of you that’s not in advertising? Is it because I’m the only one of you that’s without an office job and still up at 5 in the morning with nothing better to think about on a Tuesday?

Ok.

I reckon you can’t talk about brand the way you have without defining it. And by the looks of the article and the responses there’s a lot of implied divergence of opinion over this.

What is a brand?

Simon, I reckon if you define the idea of ‘brand’ a little more obliquely you’ll solve some of your problems.

My argument, or whatever, starts with Julia Gillard, or Tony Abbott.

In the comments and articles I’ve read here at Mumbrella, it seems advertising people are happy to talk about ‘brand Julia’ or brand Labor’ or ‘brand Abbott’ or whatever.

So it seems like a person or an ideology is a brand. Is that fair to say?

Ok, so if Labor is a brand, it’s a small step to say that Al Quada is a brand. With me?

So if Nike is a brand, if Labour is a brand, if Al Qaeda is a brand then it becomes reasonable to assert that a brand is to a product, service, or ideology what a personality is to a person.

Think about it.

It makes sense. I won’t claim this as my definition, it seems like it’s the ‘natural’ definition of a brand.

Ok, I claim it as my definition.

Or am I missing something? Is there a better definition that anyone can give me in 16 words or less? If there is, let me know and I’ll buy you a drink. I’m at the Taxi Club on Friday night.

Consider it a challenge. A dare maybe. A daiquiri is at stake. Any takers? Email me.

People love Tony or Julia or Al Qaeda. Or hate them. Either way it’s emotional. It’s a ‘love thing’.

Simon, do you hate me yet? I am nice person; I’m just making a point.

Ok, so, you can say that Brand Labour and Al Qaeda are loved (or hated) and be 100% certain that this emotion is real and true.

Which means some brands can be loved. Which then brings me to another point. There is no one ‘rule’. People really can deeply and truly love and believe in brands – it’s all in the definition. It’s not black or white. I know other comments say this (citing Apple for instance). I don’t want to say it again, but I have. Sorry.

My point, or one of them at least: the validity, or otherwise, of your article or point of view is somewhat contingent on your definition of brand. So what we have is a point of view with no defined context.

And context is everything.

My bet is that Byron Sharp didn’t define brand either. Byron, I’m sorry if you did. If you did the drinks are on me.

And while I’m on the subject, if we accept that ‘brand Labour’ is a brand, or if we accept that my definition of a brand is valid, then you can say that the greatest advertising person in history wasn’t David Ogilvy or Bill Bernbach or any of those misogynistic old, dead white people.

You could say it was Gandhi.

Think about it, that thing with the salt and the march to the sea side to make it. Then going to bed and not eating. All that stuff. It’s advertising. Better than that, it’s social media – before the internet. Before the majority of the population were even literate or had access to radio or telephones.

Enough already. I’m off on a tangent here. It’s not enough for me to offer a new definition of brand, but I’m also trying to rewrite the history books on who was the greatest ad-person ever. It’s late and I get carried away easily and I’m not even in advertising. I’m sorry.

I’d like to be though. Anyone like to give me a job? Transsexuals are reliable employees; we have a good work ethic, can be very ‘inventive’, are very discreet and add a certain exotic ‘glamour’ to the office. Email me, you know where to find me.

X

Lavinia.

OOPS ! I realised I said Kevin Reynolds in my mention of ‘lovemarks’ – it’s Kevin Roberts ! Sorry Kevin ……. !.

You’re forgiven Mr. Dawes.

My first job was working in marketing for a food manufacturer. I still remember the pain of my jaw hitting the ground when the Operations Manager blithely told me that the generic brands we contract packed for Franklins, Coles & Woolies was exactly the same as the premium priced brand we marketed. Yet our brand out-sold the generic by a factor of 3-4.

So while all of us can debate & find fault with this position or that argument, if brands – & what they delivered, real or imagined – DIDN’T matter, there’d be no um brands. In my far too many years in marketing, I have yet to see an argument to rebut the simple financial / market share proof of that key point.

How much or how little they matter is up to the nature of the category / product / service, skill of the marketers, distribution strategy etc etc.

Peter, brands matter, but loyalty isn’t underpinned by deep love. Your brand out-sold the private label back then because it had better mental availability – due to years of prior marketing support, and consumers buying and using it.

Private labels are newer, largely unadvertised. Consequently many consumers simply didn’t notice your private label competitor.

But I bet your brand doesn’t outsell the private label today by so much. Eventually some consumers did notice it, and tried it, slowly it built mental availability. Private labels are brands too, and they compete in the same way.

Ah generalities!

I’m a digital marketer and I can say categorically from experience that brands do matter and emotional connections with brands and conversations about/around/with brands do exist and they can be inspired, energised, curated and influenced.

Success is still about 360 degree marketing. The traditional vs digital debate is simply a distraction to great marketing and overstating the role of search in the marketing mix is as fundamental a flaw as is the loss of experience and skills in understanding underlying changes in consumer behaviour which has largely been replaced by too much focus on bright shiny objects.

Some data for the record (Google, DoubleClick, Atlas & Google TechTarget Reports):

– 71% of clicks on paid search is navigational – almost three quarters of paid search is not bringing in new prospects, it is simply delivering people who are already actively looking for your Brand, Product, URL. This means ATL, display or other brand / marketing activity is overwhelmingly driving paid & organic search clicks.

– 50% of paid search dollars is branded search – more than half of paid search is being spent on these navigational clicks which is crazy taking the data above into consideration.
– 44% of people who click on paid search are exposed to display ads prior to the last click. (I don’t have the number handy relating to exposure to ATL) – but sadly marketers and agencies are still giving most of the campaign performance attribution to the last click. This also exposes that the click through rate or initial response rate is a flawed metric for measuring the performance of display media. (I don’t even use it as a primary KPI anymore).

ATL + display + paid search = exponential uplifts in overall paid media performance. There is lots of research by Atlas, DoubleClick, Eyeblaster, iProspect Comscore and others proving this.

There is a 22%+ uplift in paid search clicks, 19% lift in organic and up to 80% lift in search conversions when display advertising is also used. There is also a significant lift in paid & organic search clicks and search conversions when ATL is used to support the campaign.

Successful marketing strategies and campaigns still have a foundation of strategic brand management and investments in brand strategies.

If you make up a mental shortlist from which make your final choice, surely getting into mental shortlist in the first place is paramount for a marketer. And the way into that shortlist is ‘Branding’ (in the widest sense of the word). Which brings us back to advertising in all its forms.

Excellent point Byron. I guess the fact that housebrand / generics have still not taken over supermarkets shelves entirely* (to use that vertical as an example) suggests that people will pay a premium for a brand even though logic may point to cheaper alternatives.

Of course no sane person is ever going to fall in love with a can of baked beans – branded or not. I’d suggest that habit and certainty of the product / service experience are powerful consumer motivators. Neither can really be claimed as a victory for marketing’s ability to deliver an emotional connection but it’s the old story: it’s a brave brand custodian that doesn’t try to attach emotional values to their brand. The alternative could easily be the downward price spiral to oblivion.

* Given their latest ‘premium’ housebrand launches, it’s clear that brand free supermarket shelves are exactly what Coles & Woolworths would like. If only their pesky shoppers weren’t so attached to the branded products…..

Food for thought…
If we assume that this’love’ of a brand is only accounted for by a small faction of the population, let’s say 20%… does that 20% ring a bell for anyone?
Pareto Principle. 20% of consumers account for 80% of sales.
and they’re ambassadors and guard against the remaining folk who can’t decide between Smart Buy and Heinz.
It’s a question of trust (and love) and safe decision mking at a premium, versus cheaper alternative we feel is just as good, but not sure..

Joel

Nice idea, but the real-world evidence doesn’t support it…

1) The people who love and care about your brand are a tiny fraction of its buyers, way less than 20% (and most of them are your employees).

2) The Pareto Principle is a mis-stated myth. Your top 20% don’t deliver anywhere near 80% of sales.

3) Nor are they your ambassadors.

For the evidence on this and other marketing myths please read the book “How Brands Grow… what marketers don’t know”
http://marketinglawsofgrowth.com/

Or for free articles see:
http://byronsharp.wordpress.com/

Byron, I suspect Apple would fit into Joel’s scenario. Your thoughts?

I promise your book is getting towards the top of the reading pile!

I think great branding starts at home, with leadership and guidance from the business. If your company decides to have a brand that’s worth loving, then may be that’s what you’ll get. But leadership is rare in the age of corporate business and therefore most brands become a commodity to buy and sell on the market to consumers, not a brand that stands for something.

Here’s a lesson in branding from Steve Jobs, talking about Think Different: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/.....ing-apple/

Everyone quotes Apple and Harley Davidson. They are great brands but not because of the small proportion of their customer base who love the brand. Everyone forgets that the love their customers had didn’t stop them leaving in droves when they shipped uncompetitive products.

But you can read the empirical evidence on how much loyalty Apple and Harley Davidson’s customers really show in the book “How Brands Grow”. I think this might be the only book to give facts rather than blindly assuming the mythology surrounding these brands.
http://www.marketinglawsofgrowth/ is the book’s website.

PS and the book was written on a mac.

PPS the “think different” campaign was one of desperation – talking to the remaining customers and saying “it’s OK to have an apple”. Once they got their hose in order Apple dumped this loyalty campaign and started talking to everyone.

Hi again Byron. I promise I WILL read the empirical evidence in the book, but I just have this nagging thing in my head that Apple is an exception.

Take for example the iPhone 4. U.S. sales of 1.7m on the first weekend (of four days) – albeit of which 600,000 were pre-orders (a sign of ‘love’ for Apple maybe?) Sales of 3.4 million in the first 80 days. There were queues all down George Street here in Sydney when shipments arrived.

This is a phone that if you hold it the wrong way the signal drops out. Matter of fact you had to buy a plastic thingie – oops they ended up giving them away – so your hand didn’t contact the antenna. Yet, given this known fault/shortcoming they still sold truckloads of them.

Now I am not an Apple fanboy, but surely that is a case of “love is blind”.

John, it’s an extraordinarily good phone (read the reviews – type iphone 4 review into Google). It as a fabulous choice of applications. Backed by sophisticated mass marketing.

It’s selling really well as it deserves to. So are Android based phones. While the inferior Windows mobile phones are losing share. And Blackberry is treading water.

So yes product quality counts. Installed customer base matters. And so does great branding and sophisticated mass marketing.

Apple gets a lot of attention – that’s a big part of it’s success – I fear that clinging to the “love” idea distracts marketers from the big picture.

This comment stream SUCKS!

😉

@ Nige – save your embarrassing name-dropping for when you are trying to impress the princesses at the Ivy on a Friday night. This is not a personals page last time I checked….

With regards to the supposed consumers ‘love’ of brands, allow me to speak as an interested outside observer. I don’t work in your industry, and I am a discerning shopper. I have a wide network of friends and colleagues, and I can honestly say that the only time an advertisement becomes the topic of conversation is when a truly terrible or baffling ad is aired (yes, Tooheys Extra Dry, I am looking at you). There is no talk of brand love, not even around the i-Phone or i-Pad. I don’t know if its all a clever ploy by those in marketing to keep their jobs and overpaid salaries, but my take on this is that the general public just do not care anywhere near as much about brands as these guys would have you believe.

Like most people, my shopping habits are largely built around price and quality. I understand that advertising plays a part in this, but I can pretty much guarantee you that most people are like me and look for value for money as a driving factor. You will find that the majority of those who talk about brands like they are a friend are muppets (like Nige) who think that brand-name dropping will somehow fill the empty void in their personalities.

If anything, ads that try too hard or use this ‘love’ thing will only ensure I avoid their product. Cases in point – Tooheys Extra Dry, Mazda, Bottle Mart, Priceline. If that is where you think its best to spend your consumers dollars on that kind of self-indulgent garbage, then I will not be contributing a cent towards said garbage.

My message as a lowly non-industry everyday consumer – keep it simple. Don’t tell me how wonderful you all are; don’t create some baffling Gen Y techno babble that could represent ANY product; don’t pretend that everyday people walk around waxing lyrical about your fantastic, life-changing and envious product. Just tell me what quality I am getting and why it makes financial sense. Remember people buy emotionally and justify logically. That goes the same for non-buying.

While I agree that Search marketing is important, I believe the fatal flaw in the post – and amongst some of the comments – is the masculine assumption that because the original poster and certain academics don’t support the notion of an emotional connection nor the desire for a brand conversation, that the concept of brand loyalty is void.

It is well documented that the majority of purchase decisions are made by women. And the feminine psyche responds on a very different level. In many instances the emotional, the intuitive and word of mouth recommendation can be the catalyst for choosing a specific brand.

The assertion that ‘because you don’t relate to the concept, it is incorrect’, is a common arrogance often maintained by those in advertising and marketing. The fact is, most in this industry are male, better paid and better educated, with a quality of life above the mainstream of society.

Do you know what it is like to be a stay home mother with a family income of less than $60k? How about a recent graduate with an enormous HECS bill? No? Listen to a few online brand conversations. Perhaps if you did, you might understand better why emotion, connection and word of mouth are key drivers of the purchase decisions made by your clients’ target audience.

Jane, I think you will find that all that documented research you refer to shows that ‘the majority of purchase decisions involve women’ rather than are ‘made by women’.

Last time I was trolling around such data bases the gender sum of purchase decision making summed to well over 100%, which reflects (i) shared decision making (ii) the fact that over time purchase decision involvement – which requires a single incidence – becomes a very poor measure (iii) respondent attribution of perception rather than action. Of course I would love to be proved wrong with more recent robust data.

I agree with much of this post. On the subject of having conversations with brands – I’ll do that if they’re providing me with some utility, very rarely because I ‘love’ a brand.

The priority of search for marketers should be much higher and its influence on brand perceptions is definitely under-appreciated.

But there is one point I take issue with: “finally, I don’t feel defined by anything I buy.” Frankly, this is nonsense. Our entire society is built on defining ourselves through brands, be they of clothing, holiday destination, religion or university degree.

I haven’t read down the comment stream in this post in a while… but it’s great. And very cool that the actual author got involved.

While I’m wary about the ‘science’ of branding – in fact, I’m wary about the ‘science’ behind most medical interventions, too, as most of it is far from evidence-based – there are a bunch of people I respect very much calling this book a “stunner”.

Have ordered it…

Sidenote: I found in my PhD research on car enthusiasts that ‘enthusiasm’ is not often experienced as a positive emotional relation (ie ‘love’ etc), but is experienced as a complex of affective relationships such as sacrifice, challenges and satisfaction.

Another late entry but here is an example of a brand that has successfully created an emotional connection through its ‘product’ over the years supported by a variety of marketing campaigns and content pieces, including this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMtyOCoqHTk

Its way too simplistic to say that consumers don’t make emotional connections with brands and that brands can’t make emotional connections with consumers that stick.

Daniel, it’s a lovely ad, but you are confusing advertising that features emotional appeals with the notion that consumers feel love towards brands. To most Brits John Lewis is just another store that they sometimes shop at. Is there evidence of the extra loyalty that John Lewis has over rival brands – no.

There are millions of brands vying for our attention and custom, we might feel a bit passionate about a few of the brands we buy. Some people love Tesco, some love Sainsbury, but most people just shop there.

For the brand owner the tiny minority of “lovers” is of minor importance – what matters is the millions of buyers, and potential buyers, who hardly ever think of the brand.

Thanks Byron. This has been a really interesting discussion. It’s a bit like the anti evolutionists. Despite the evidence to the contrary some people still want to believe evolution never happened. One problem with your book is it’s not in the interest of the advertising industry to support your findings. Where there is mystery there is margin. The book is a great read BTW.

Heard an interesting nugget that possibly adds fuel to the Ehrenberg/Earls/Sharp school: Dove’s ATL campaign for real beauty didn’t sell product. People remembered it, liked it (some even loved it), linked it to Dove, found it new and engaging… and when they went to the shelf they bought the soap they always bought.

@Simon 8:28: What a pompous comment. You hijacked Sharp’s book to flog ‘search’ as the panacea to everything (which it isn’t) and are now equating those who engage in the debate with anti-evolutionists. A current Cee-Lo song comes to mind…

Simon, in fairness to those who have posted questions….

a) some are just doing that, posting useful question, throwing up potential counter examples, to see how robust the new world view is – that’s exactly what we all should be doing

b) some are questioning the conclusion without yet reading the evidence. Which sounds silly but the book has only recently been released, and was out-of-stock for ages. I think it’s fair for people to pose a few questions without having to wait to obtain and read the book.

c) the word “emotion” has been hijacked to mean loyalty/commitment/bond to brand, which confuses many. So that when people (like us) knock the idea of people loving brands many others take that to mean that consumers aren’t emotional – and they (quite reasonably) find that ridiculous. Yes, all decisions involve emotion, even trivial ones, it’s very difficult to make decisions without emotion. Emotional thinking occurs every second, but that’s not the same thing as when marketing consultants/gurus say you have to make people get emotional about your brand.

I’m probably not expressing myself very well. What I mean is that the debate has been useful – mainly about misinterpretation but very very useful.

Oh really…

Simon,

Funny how you’ve written emotion off, because plenty of other scientific research has revealed that decision making *always* has an emotional element in it:

For example, renowned neurologist Antonio Damasio found that people who had impaired emotional function after a brain injury could think through the rational steps of a problem, but when push came to shove they were unable to commit to any decision – because at that crucial moment, normal healthy minds use their emotions to complete the decision process, but someone with impaired emotional ability is unable to do so.
http://changingminds.org/expla.....cision.htm
http://www.scientificamerican......emotion-pl
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....144329.htm

Most the time when we think we’re being completely ‘rational’, we’re not. If we were, we would all buy no name brand flour and sugar, ’cause lets be honest: there is no difference… except in the packaging and branding, which prompts emotional response…

As many have pointed out, there are plenty of brands that have cult like followings that defy ‘rational’ understanding. If you asked those people why they loved the brand, they’d give you reasons that they think are entirely rational, but that to someone else may seem biased, tinted by emotion.

You claim not to have any such emotional attachments. Really? None at all? You don’t vote for a particular political party? There isn’t a TV show that you watch, and then maybe buy the boxset so you can watch it again? When you arrive in the toothpaste aisle, do you really stop and do a critical evaluation, or do you buy the familiar brand same as last quarter?

We might not “love” our toothpaste (though fyi my 5 yr old loves hers, branded as it is with popular cartoon characters), but we keep buying the same brand as an emotional preference. And I have never ever “searched” to find out what toothpaste I should buy.

“Search” is just one tool, which is relevant to only some categories, and isn’t much use by itself – it needs to be part of a greater integrated campaign that takes stock of emotion in decision making.

@Lavina lol 🙂

Luci

It’s easy to shoot down straw-men. Simon didn’t dismiss emotions as non-existent. Nor did my colleague Antonio Damasio say we have deep attachments to brands.

Buying does not have to be underpinned by any deep love. Nor does loyalty – it’s natural, time-saving, thinking-saving behaviour. Underpinned by emotions? Only to the extent that all thinking is.

You mention brands that have cult followings. Please quote some empirical evidence (not anecdotes) of unusually high repeat-buying rates, or low defection rates etc. I’d be genuinely surprised and delighted if you could, it would be amazing because data covering thousands of brands (including Apple and Harley Davidson), over decades, across countries show no evidence of stellar loyalty.

Yes, there is more (or should I say less) to buying that rational search. But that doesn’t mean that brand buying is driven by passionate attachment to brands. Consumers are too busy for that.

Professor Byron Sharp.
Sept 2010

PS Most of the non-buying of private label flour (your example) is not due to passionate love for branded flour but rather that many of us consumers on many occasions do not notice or see the Private Label, or it’s not there. Mental and physical availability explain brand shares not emotional preference.

Hello Byron, I do have a query regarding your data on Apple products (now that I am around half way through your book – and loving it).

On page 108 you cite the repeat purchase rate data for Apple at 55%, marginally higher than HP/Compaq (52%) and Gateway (52%), and less than Dell (71%). This data was sourced as MediaFacts Inc. 2002-2003.

First, this data appears to be for computers only, and given the reference period would be based on the iMac G3 and iMac G4 models only.

Is there any more contemporaneous data available, as since then there have been several further iMac iterations; the iPod is into its 22nd generation (third generation only at your point of reference so may have been why it was excluded); the iPhone was launched in 2007, and the iPad was released this year.

I suspect that popularity (demand, fandom, loyalty – whatever labels people may want to apply) of Apple products has increased as the Apple portfolio has expanded to ever more popular consumer devices with broader penetration. (I recognise that I have no empirical data to support this opinion apart from my observations as a researcher – eeeeek, a sample of n=1!).

Do you think it possible that the Apple data you cited (i.e. basicsally old iMac data) could be / would be very different for such subsequent Apple products and therefore no longer representative of the current Apple brand?

Dear Byron

You sound lovely and interesting a clever, I think intelligent men are attractive.

But you shouldn’t be responding to the comments here.

I was once told not to get into a fight with a pig – ‘the pig will only love it and you’ll end up getting covered in mud’.

And there will be mud Byron.

I don’t know what it is about intelligent men. But it’s true… look at Marilyn and Henry, look at Cate and Andrew. I’m the same… I’m looking for my Andrew Upton or my Henry Miller. You’d be surprised how hard this is. The club scene, specially the gay club scene, is a desert. Seriously. It’s all young men with their shirts off, full of pills dancing to Fergie. I’m over it. And the straight clubs; that’s a whole other horror story. Did you know the last three men who hit on me at a straight club were real estate agents? What’s the chances of that? Go figure.

Where do you hang out?

Just curious.

X

Lavinia

John

That is a really good question. Yes the data comes from when Apple were marketing candy-coloured iMacs, beige powermacs, black powerbooks and not a lot else. This is important because loyalty metrics only make sense if we compare apples with apples (pardon the pun), so this is computer brands with each other.

It wasn’t the best of times for Apple, it was the start of their revival. Their customer base should have been down to its core, potentially giving very high repeat loyalty metrics for their small share (and low acquisition rates).

Today I expect Apple’s loyalty metrics to be a bit higher, but even less unusual given that their share is much higher.

In categories like portable music the iPod dominates market-share so will have very high repeat-rates, but not unusual. All high share brands get higher loyalty scores (the Double Jeopardy law). That’s why Dell topped the table back then. Which didn’t prevent Dell from losing share over the next few years.

I published an article on retention rates for cars a while ago, it can be read here:
http://qgf.in/q4JYiE