Marketing Mix: Product / Service Guide #7

The strength of a brand decreases with the number of brand benefits that the marketer claims.

Many marketers get themselves into trouble with this one.  Generally speaking, my experience has been that we marketers tend to be ego-driven people.  Because marketing is a social science rather than a physical science, there isn’t a single correct answer to any marketing problem.  Rather, there is a set of better answers and a set of poorer answers.  A marketer’s job is to find one of the better answers and gather the resources to execute that better answer.  Marketing staffs tend to be small relative to the size of the business so marketers have to motivate those in supporting functional areas to support the better answer.  To do this the marketer must have a passionate belief in the better answer.  That passion comes from ego-involvement in the correct answer.

The ego-driven nature of marketing people means that we love the brands on which we work.  We honestly believe that our brands are better than competitive brands in some meaningful way.  Marketer who are overly product-focused and who believe that the key to marketing success is a superior product often want to claim everything that is good about a product category for their brand.  These product-focused marketers often tend to focus on product benefits and include multiple product benefits in their messaging.  There’s nothing wrong with communicating product benefit if they support the brand’s unique brand benefit.  However, if product benefits don’t support the brand’s unique brand benefit, then the marketer is just going to confuse potential buyers.  (If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, go back to the section of marketing guides on brand positioning.)

Let’s use the Chevrolet brand as an example.  What kind of vehicles do you envision in your mind when you think of the Chevrolet brand?  Trucks, SUVs, sedans, coupes, convertibles, sports cars, large, intermediate, small, inexpensive, moderately priced, expensive?  Chevrolet has a problem.  Each product offers different product benefits which leads to numerous and varied brand benefits.  To give a few examples:

With the Chevrolet brand, there are so many products, product benefits, and brand benefits that the brand doesn’t stand for a single unique brand benefit.

While companies may own the brand names, brands exist in the minds of the customers.  Does a tree falling in a forest with no one around to hear it make a sound?  For sound to exist, it takes someone to hear it – a receiver.  For brands to exist, it takes someone to recall them  – potential customers.  Ask owners of Corvettes what they drive, and they’ll say a Corvette.  The brand Corvette exists at the top their mind, rather than the brand Chevrolet.

Ask owners of BMW X5 what they drive, and they will say a BMW.  Why the difference?  All of the BMW models share one common brand benefit, they’re fun to drive … the ultimate driving machine.  Ask Volvo owners; they’ll say a Volvo.  Again, the brand in the U.S. has a single brand benefit; it stands for safety/security. 

But you need a variety of products to satisfy the varied product needs of your target customers, you say.  Fine.  Go ahead and expand your product range.  But, as you expand, find a way to link the product benefits of each new product back to your brand’s single unique brand benefit.

Marketing Mix: Product / Service Guide #6

Some product categories are high-interest categories; others are low-interest.  Interest in the product category tends to be high if the product category is put on the body, if it is put into the body, or if it is a reflection of the customer.

(Note for followers of this blog:  Sorry that there was no blog post last week.  I was on an Alaska cruise-tour vacation, and the ship's satellite internet link was too slow to upload anything.)

Many package goods (fast moving consumer goods) marketers have an easier marketing job than durable and semi-durable goods marketers.  Think of the various package goods categories: health and beauty aids go onto or into the body; all food categories go into the body; etc.  Many, if not most, package goods categories are either put on the body or into the body.  Thus, they tend to be high-interest product categories.  Consumers are interested in the product category, and they tend to be more open to hearing about the category.  Some durable goods make the list of high-interest product categories.  Automobiles are a good example as one’s vehicle is a reflection of one’s self for many people.

Do you remember the selective processes from your marketing courses:  selective attention, selective perception, and selective retention? 

selective attention:  the ability of individuals to notice only the information in which they have interest.

selective perception:  the ability of individuals to block or modify messages that conflict with previously learned attitudes and beliefs.

selective retention:  the ability of individuals to remember only what they want to remember.

These processes come into play when one is talking about high-interest versus low-interest product categories.  Since people are interested in high-interest product categories, they are actually open to and see the messaging for brands in high-interest product categories.  In messaging for low-interest product category brands, they block out the messaging at a subliminal level.  It’s not only that they don’t recall seeing the messaging.  Although they’ve looked straight at the messaging, they don’t see it.  All of the above are examples of selective exposure.

If the consumer’s subliminal guard is down and an messaging message does slip past into their consciousness, then selective perception comes into play.  In low-interest product categories, this generally works in favor of the brands that are the category leaders.  Advertisements for the smaller brands in the category are often misidentified as being advertisements for the leading brands in the category.  I’ve seen commercials that were misattributed to brands that were the leader in the category several times in my career. All of this is an example of selective perception.

Lastly, selective retention means that consumers generally delete any information that they have absorbed for brands in low-interest product relatively quickly.

The selective processes represent a challenge to marketers in low-interest product categories.  Having worked in the low-interest tire category for many years, I feel that marketers in low-interest product category must resign themselves to the fact that the best advertisement for a brand in their product category won’t have the same level of attention as a mediocre advertisement for a brand in a high-interest product category. 

Go back to your marketing strategy:  segmentation, targeting, and positioning.  If marketers in low-interest product categories do their targeting and positioning work correctly and if the unique brand benefit has been validated through research to motivate target customers to consider the brand, then the marketers in low-interest product categories should focus on communicating and/or supporting their unique brand benefit.  Target customers will pay attention to their messages because the unique brand benefit is important to them; it’s something they want.