LaughlinOutLoud

Many years ago there was a wonderful New Yorker cartoon of two advertising types standing in an aisle of the grocery store. It was so many years ago they were both guys and both wearing coats and ties. You could tell the account guy because his hair was parted and he wore a striped tie. The creative guy had a curly hippie ʻfro and huge flowery tie. They were looking at a large woman in a house dress with her hair in
curlers who was staring at the choices in a frozen food case. The caption read, “Thatʼs your target audience.” Times have changed, but some things havenʼt.

Weʼve gotten better at getting closer to our target audience. Social media will bring us even closer as we get better at taking advantage of the immediacy and intimacy it gives us. But thereʼs a dark side to knowing our customer too well, too.

Itʼs true that if you lose your brand loyalists you lose your brand. In a tough economy thereʼs more interest and effort at zeroing in on our best customers. But itʼs also true that brand loyalists may be the least likely to want to see their brands change. Learning and listening should not about eliminating risk. It should be about reducing the odds of getting it wrong. Steve Jobs has pointed out that the trouble with asking the consumer
what they want is that by the time you can give it to them they want something else. One of the most exciting things about the chaotic media landscape is that we can get to know our customers better. But, letʼs not ever be afraid to surprise them with what weʼve learned. And letʼs also push ourselves to talk to somebody new. And donʼt forget to stick your nose in the store to see whoʼs buying it.

According to a new book, Inside the Mind of the Shopper by Herb Sorensen, a typical supermarket contains 40,000 SKUs. But, over the course of a year, a shopper only buys about 400 of those offerings. Rituals are a way of life. It’s brand loyalty in action.

A recent article by Joel Rubinson, the chief research officer at the Journal of Advertising Research, explores this idea further. The author challenged readers to keep a diary of all the different brands they use during a day. It was a means of identifying if loyalty is borne of love (the way we managers of brands would like to believe) or something else.

When Rubinson tried the exercise, he reached 77 brands by two in the afternoon and realized he cared about only 5 of them – a number smaller than the one he was loyal to. I tried the same exercise and came away with similar results. In fact, I considered myself loyal to about twice as many brands as I cared about on a random Wednesday. A key to these non-love loyalties? They were easy to choose.

Value propositions and positioning statements seem to have fallen out of favor with thought leaders lately. I believe it’s because they have been so badly abused for so many years. But they do serve an important purpose. Done well, they provide an opportunity to prioritize away all the excess. They’re a good barometer for “Am I easy to choose?” And, in the age of exponential clutter, they may be as important as ever. The brand loyalty of your customer may depend on it.