Habitual Purchase

We gathered in the lobby for a social lunch.

"Where are we going?" I asked. "Any ideas?" he replied.
"How about x?" I offered. "No." he replied. "What about Y?" I volleyed. "Nah."
"Then you decide." I snipped. "Oh, I don't care." he said.

Most purchases are made from habit. If we stopped to rationally discuss and weigh every decision, nothing would get done. We'd find ourselves in internal and external dialogue similar to the one above. Habitual purchase is convenient and expedient. It's how we navigate life.

Habit is a wonderful "cheat" for marketers. Once our brand becomes a habit, human nature kicks in (and we kick back). But don't confuse habitual purchase with true brand loyalty or affinity or preference. It may just be convenience. Habits aren't even conscious decisions.

Habit may have been born in brand preference. A decision long ago, perhaps weighed carefully, resulted in repeated behavior. But the trap is to assume that this initial brand preference is still active. That they still love your brand. That they are even aware of your brand. I have talked to many consumers that can't name brands that they use regularly. (What brand of toilet paper is in your house? Paper towels? Spices? Air freshener?) If they can name them, they can't tell you why they use them.

The question is....what will happen when the consumer awakens and makes a conscious choice in your category?

As a new brand, half the battle is just getting that unconscious, habitual shopper to awaken and re-examine the category. But it's not easy to do. People are busy and most are fundamentally happy with their habitual choices. How do you interrupt? How do you insert doubt into this happy routine? I personally feel this is one of the primary roles of creative. To awaken, to start a new consideration.

As an established brand, the challenge is diligence and intellectual honesty. Do you know how your consumers really feel about your brand? Is there passion? Is there still a point of difference? Or do they just buy from habit. Most of our biggest brands are over 50 years old. We are on the 3rd or 4th generation of consumers many of whom learned to shop categories from their parents. A habit passed down through generations. I bet that if we compared our parents pantries with our own, we would find many of the same brands. We inherit more than our good looks from our parents. And the same is true at work. Institutional habits are often even stronger, and more deeply rooted than individual behavior.

What's the point? A brand built on habitual purchase is vulnerable. Better figure out where you stand.

Emotional Consequences

It was a long trip. Travel home was a grind. I was tired. Weary. Road worn.

As I neared my house there was a growing sense of anticipation and yet, hesitation. Had I been homesick? No, but yet I wanted to get home. Then again, re-entry was not always pleasant.

I walked in the door and was overcome by a sense of familiarity. Sound, smell, touch, sight. Then I was noticed. I was greeted, touched, accepted, loved. I felt belonging. Contentment. Happiness. At peace. Connected.

Your brand has an audience. Their days are grinds. They are weary. They are worn. How do they feel as they near your brand experience? How do they feel in the moment? What is your brand's emotional consequence?

When consumers interact with a brand, there is an emotional consequence. Brand failure, even in the most insignificant categories, can cause frustration, anger, even embarrassment. Brand success can lift spirits and turn a bad day around. What’s interesting is these emotional consequences are often not just directed at the brand, but at the user. Ever felt like a sucker for buying a brand? Ever felt more confident about yourself when using a brand?

As a brand builder, the goal is to marry your brand to a positive emotional experience that enhances the user’s day and their self opinion. In short, interaction with this brand makes me feel ______. So when I want to feel that way, I reach for the brand. This is the essence of the emotional benefit.

Unlike with functional benefits, it is often much easier to differentiate your brand with its emotional benefit. When I was young, Nike and Adidas were functionally marketed brands with little differentiation. Nike figured out the emotional benefit of running (and fitness in general) to its users, and the rest is history.

While functional benefit remains precedent to emotional benefit in my opinion, it’s the MARKETER that is typically the author of emotional benefit strategy. Net, this is where we earn our keep in brand construction.

The Unity of Freedom Has Never Relied on the Uniformity of Opinion (JFK).

INDIVISIBLE is a precious word that the Left and Right seem to ignore in their self-serving rhetoric. Civil discourse has been replaced with flatulent, garrulous braying. Personal gain over public progress. It's distasteful and has pushed many from the political process.

Just because politicians have a live microphone ...doesn't mean they speak for me. Same goes for the political talk-heads.

America is ultimately about unity and common cause; has been since our start. We stand united here in the United States. Together we have always been stronger. Have we lost track of this?

Let's start a new discussion that respects different views and seeks progress on our common problems. I think we understand each other's positions, how do we move forward? The unity of freedom has never relied on the uniformity of opinion (JFK).

America, Still the Shining City on a Hill.

NOTE: I wrote this little rant about the state of the American political process. But guess what? If you replace America with the name of your organization, I bet some of these points will hold true.

The Beginning of the World

I think marketing as we knew it has died. Drowned in a sea of technology that has fundamentally changed the way people interact with media and the advertising it contains.

I came of age in the prime of prime time. TV was king and all young marketers aspired to make 30 second commercials and blast the middle class into submission with zillions of GRP's. With rare exceptions, that is no longer a viable plan. The audience is just not there and when they are...they just don't care.

When the internet arrived most marketers took their tv strategy and reapplied it to banner ads. Lured with the potential of micro targeting, we poured our money into ads that framed the content that fueled the audience. Just like tv right? Wrong. The consumer had tasted freedom and they wanted no part of these ads. They learned to circumnavigate them, to not even "see" them...much less click on them. Seth Godin had it right years ago, it's a permission based medium and the consumer has the power.

So welcome to the new beginning. The birth of marketing on the Internet. The flood waters have receded and Noah is unpacking the ark. Shallow, tag line marketing didn't make the boat. What has survived is content. Real content. Stuff people want to read, watch and talk about. "Content is king" was a phrase fashioned to define how to draw traffic to a website in the late 90's. Well guess what? The phrase also applies to our marketing.

For decades we have lived as a parasite on media. The speed bump between programming. Those days are done. Marketing must become the programming. The paradigm is that we are now the broadcasters. Entertain, educate, engage or prepare for extinction.

It's with this conviction that I commissioned this campaign for a safety brand. Yes a boring safety brand. Please review here http://bulwark.com/451/ I'm proud of this work for a lot of reasons, but this morning, I am most proud of it because it is a step into the new world. The new frontier few are exploring.

Marketing is dead, long live marketing.

PS: Thanks to my friends at Fitzgerald + Company in Atlanta for helping make this strategy a reality (I'm talking to you Llneveldt)

Go Figure

Just the facts ma'am:

The US population is 311 million.
The top rated broadcast TV show typically has an audience of around 20 million.
The top rated cable show typically has an audience of 7 million.
The largest daily newspaper is the WSJ with 2 million circulation.
The largest paid magazine is Better Homes and Garden with circ of 7.5 million.
The largest radio audience is Rush Limbaugh at 15 million weekly.

The great American mass audience...is now a myth. Collectively we have very few unifiers in media. Yet we keep paying to play on these mass vehicles, and try to build "mass" brands. Godin is right, it's about tribes and niches.

Coca Cola has 40 million "likes" on facebook. Is it a community? No, but the 'like' gives Coke posting privilege on the "likers" wall. Twice the reach of the typical #1 show on tv...and with prudence they can engage them repeatedly weekly for months, even years. At very little cost.

What is the value of that community?

One spot on American Idol reaches 20 million people and costs about $400k. No the editorial context is not the same...but then fb has twice the reach and marginal cost.

How can we not be spending LOTS of time learning how to build these communities? Learning to engage in a way that eliminates media cost? It's not free...you have to have content...but it's dramatically less than paid media.

Nobody has all the answers, but we all have to be asking the questions.

Higher Motives

If we treat social media as another place for transactional commerce ...we're missing its potential... and we're missing why people are drawn to our brands in the social environment in the first place.

People don't go to facebook to shop. Yes... for us there is a commerce motive...but we can't be too heavy handed in that pursuit.

The potential of social media is authentic interaction.
The hope of authentic interaction is relationship.
The benefit of relationship is empathy.
The power of empathy is relevance.
The promise relevance is preference.
The payoff for preference is repeated purchase.

It's kind of like sex.
You can't let your wife see your motive, better yet, have a higher motive.

And the Question Is....

What question are you trying to answer?

When you ask a question a natural vacuum forms. Questions beg answers. Questions inspire thought, but questions can ruin resolve. Questions bring clarity, but questions can easily distract. Questions spark understanding, but questions can just as easily frustrate.

As a leader, you get to ask the questions. Your questions set the agenda for the work of your team, of your organization, of yourself. Be very careful with questions.

First, don't ask too many questions of your team.

The fastest way to paralyze an organization and turn it inward is for leadership to ask too many questions. 20 questions is a game - not leadership. Show some insight. Show some discipline. Show some pacing. It's your right to ask questions, exercise in moderation.

Second, direct questions to the right person.

Ask the wrong person, get the wrong answer. Ask the wrong person, generate a lot of unnecessary effort. If you don't have enough insight into your organization to know who to ask, perhaps you should start by asking who is in the best position to answer the question. I've had bosses who think it's clever to ask several different people to answer the same list of questions. I'm sure this occasionally generates a novel idea, but at what cost?

Finally, ask insightful questions.

Any hack management consultant can ask big broad questions of the organization. How can we reduce costs? How can we generate more revenues? Ask a big vague question, get a big vague answer. Ask a big vague question, send everyone on a wild goose chase. Show some insight into the business and keep your team on strategy by asking insightful, directed questions. How do we reduce Asian sourcing costs for the outer shell of the XJ product line? As an employee, this tells me you have a grip on cost components for the XJ line and an informed opinion that we are either overpaying in Asia, or that the parts from Asia are the lever for improving line profitability.

Most teams face two or three critical questions that, if answered correctly, could lift them to the next level. As a leader, one of your most important roles is getting those questions framed appropriately and answered.

So what questions are you (and your team) trying to answer in 2012?