My date with branding.
At my disposal the three dating services that popped out at me were Plenty of Fish, Lavalife and E-harmony. In short, Plenty of Fish resembles the traditional night club of the dating scene, Lavalife’s positioned as a urban online lounge or a trendy coffee shop and E-harmony has replaced the traditional “meeting through friends” scene. Not only are the on-line dating companies specialized and target specific, I too was becoming a commodity.
After a couple of weeks of sending smiles, “ping-ing” people, or checking profile photos and passing judgement, I found myself browsing and selecting potential candidates with no substance or merit. I was picking out my ideal man like I was shopping at the grocery store - looking for good colour, freshness and ideally, some firmness.
In the end I came to the conclusion that online dating only succeeds through our failure and desperation of finding the “happily ever after”. It does amaze me how consumed we - social interactive beings- have been trained to communicate with the least amount of effort ever. We have become a digitized generation, lowering our social skills through the use of social online networks.
After my experiences online this fabulous commodity has gone offline, appreciating the real life - with real people.
To be continued....
Is Bing a good name for Microsoft's search offering?
Cause for a good business
Understanding why we buy—Words Matter
"The way a question is framed can strongly influence how someone responds, especially when there is risk involved, for example the purchase of an expensive item.
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman pioneered research in this area and are famous for their Asian flu experiment, where two groups were asked to select a program to combat a fictional flu expected to kill 600 people in the U.S.
Group 1 were presented with a choice between two programs:
- Program A: "200 people will be saved"
- Program B: "there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved, and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved"
72 percent of participants preferred program A.
Group 2 were presented with the choice between:
- Program C: "400 people will die"
- Program D: "there is a one-third probability that nobody will die, and a two-third probability that 600 people will die"
78 percent preferred program D.
Altering the way the two options were phrased did not just change, but actually reversed participant's perception of the two options.
The way that you frame your marketing message can have a powerful impact on its ability to influence your customers, particularly if a decision comes with financial risk."
A jam experiment conducted by Sheena S. Iyengar and Mark R. Lepper demonstrated that more choices might attract more attention, but fewer choices increased sales.
The researchers set up a tasting booth for exotic jams at a high end grocery store and rotated the display so that either 6 or 24 flavours of jam were on display. All consumers could sample as many of the jams as they wanted and everyone who approached the booth was given a coupon.
Ivengar and Lepper found that having a bigger selection of jams attracted more people to the booth: 60 per cent of the customers who passed the booth stopped when 24 varieties were on display, compared to 40 per cent when 6 jams were out.
Yet when it came to sales, the smaller selection won the day. Thirty per cent of people who stopped by the limited selection actually purchased a jar of jam, compared to just 3 per cent for those who stopped by the table when 24 choices were on display.
"This is kind of the conundrum of too much choice," said Ariely. "It attracts to people but then they end up doing nothing."
If
you are trying to sell something you have to understand how complexity
is working both for and against you. For example, having too many
choices on your website may encourage customers to browse, yet deter
them from actually buying.
Reducing the number of choices can not only increase sales, but it may help you save money as well as you will be focused on a small portfolio of products and services.
Packaging vs. Product
Your product failed – and I love it!
Companies spend a lot of money creating awareness and desire for their brands. Building positive expectations before the purchase. And so they should.
But here’s the catch, if the company fulfills its promise (price, service, quality, etc.) it merely lives up to what is already expected from its customer base. The customer is satisfied, but is not turned into a raving fan, passionately promoting the experience and the brand to anyone who cares to listen. There’s not a lot of brand equity to win by just doing what’s expected.
Now, at some point most products or services (if not all..) will fail in some area. Or, to put it in brand lingo terms, the product does not live up to its brand promise; the battery on your Mac laptop suddenly dies, the air-condition in your Toyota goes cold, the concierge at your hotel forgets to give you that wake-up call.
Not only is that annoying in itself, but the process of fixing the problem is in most cases the real pain in the...
For instance, your 14 month old vacuum cleaner sucks.. and not the way it’s supposed to. The mouth piece breaks in two and all you can do is vacuum small circular areas the size of a golf ball.
Now, subconsciously you’ve already gone through the scenario: Trying to find a relevant phone number on the manufacturer’s website, figuring out the specific part number, navigating through their phone maze, shipping the broken piece and finally getting the new part delivered straight to your front door - when you are not at home. In other words, you expect an experience you could do without.
And, this is where the opportunity is. The vacuum cleaner manufacturer has a perfect occasion to turn you into a raving fan of the brand by having a post-sales system in place that eliminates those steps mentioned above. Simply because you don’t expect to be wow’ed.
Here’s an example from my own world. I recently had a new faucet installed in my kitchen. About six months later the shower head (yes, it came with that..) didn’t work and I was immediately dreading an experience similar to the vacuum cleaner spiel. But to my great surprise, and relief, it turned out to be a completely hassle-free experience. No sending parts back and forth, no trying to find the receipt or arguing that it was covered by warranty. Just a quick phone call to a very nice sales person, and three days later the part was delivered to my home at a scheduled time.
I had never heard of this particular brand before, had no emotional connection to it, even though I use the faucet every day. But the fact that it broke down, or rather, the fact that Pegasus (for that is it’s name) had a system in place that completely wiped out my (negative) expectations, and transformed me from a brand ignorant to a brand evangelist for the company. No marketing dollars they could have spend, could have placed the brand so effectively on my short list as this post-sales system taking advantage of my pre-conceived, negative, expectations.
And next time I, or anyone I know, need a product within their range, you bet I’ll be a passionate Pegasus brand evangelist. The product failed, the brand prevailed.
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Recent Posts
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- My date with branding.
- Is Bing a good name for Microsoft's search offering?
- Cause for a good business
- Understanding why we buy—Words Matter
- Queensland 1, Alberta 0
- Packaging vs. Product
- Your product failed – and I love it!
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