Most direct marketers don't care about their brands. OK, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, but not by much. It's certainly the impression we give consumers by the ways we typically deliver our products, services and offers.
Our direct marketing for even a single brand is frequently a jumble of pitches, terse communications, deep discounting, diverse logos, and multiple, often inconsistent messages. In our zeal to optimize, personalize and customize, we put the cart before the horse by letting process drive strategy and branding. As a result, the prize assets of our businesses — our brands — go to waste.
In contrast to direct marketers, most consumers do care about brands. To care as much as consumers, we need a better appreciation of the ways in which consumers interact with brands. As Ted Levitt of Harvard has written, consumers don't buy things, they buy solutions to problems. Our marketing success can be improved through more efficient processes, but there is no success at all without brand relevance.
Yankelovich Monitor research indicates that consumers relate to brands along four primary dimensions:
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As a filter and a time-saver for making a purchase decision.
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As an indicator of quality.
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As a source of emotional connections and satisfaction.
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As a signal or badge of status and accomplishment.
Every consumer considers these four dimensions, giving each a varying degree of importance. Consumers can be grouped according to the significance they place on each dimension.
Four consumer groups emerge, each with a distinct approach to brands: Fervents, Emotionals, Practicals and Indifferents. These groups fall along a continuum, with Fervents and Indifferents at opposite extremes.
Ideally, we should tailor our direct marketing to reflect consumers' preferred approaches. Certainly, this is better than ignoring brands, because even the least brand-sensitive consumers get confused by our mishmash of messages. Besides, using information about how consumers approach brands will add lift to our direct marketing by putting the power of attitudinal insights to work in our marketing databases.
We begin with the two groups at the extremes, the Fervents and Indifferents.
Fervents comprise 23 percent of all consumers. Fervents care about brands in every way. They make strong use of brands as filters, as indicators of quality, as sources of satisfaction and as signals of status.
Fervents rely heavily on brand imagery and brand identity to make product and service decisions. Almost three-quarters believe that it's risky to buy a brand one is unfamiliar with. Not surprisingly, Fervents are much more loyal to brands than are other consumers. Fervents also are concerned with staying on top of the latest fads and trends.
At the other end of the spectrum are Indifferents, accounting for 14 percent of consumers. Indifferents have a weak interaction with brands. In all ways, brands play a much less important role for Indifferents in making product and service decisions. For Indifferents, brand is more an indicator of cost than of quality. Indifferents are not brand loyal and are unconcerned with being on the cutting edge.
Fervents will be frustrated, if not estranged, by haphazardly managed direct marketing. And such direct marketing will reinforce to Indifferents why brands don't matter. Indeed, Indifferents aren't insulated from weak brand marketing — for without brands to rely on, Indifferents turn to other sources. To the extent that our direct marketing confuses these other sources, we have weakened our brands across the board.
Over two-thirds of Fervents believe that brand is a signal of quality, but the attendant opportunity to command a premium is lost when the marketing itself comes across as shoddy. Obviously, making the brand name stand out works for Fervents, since that's what they want to see. While Indifferents won't respond to a highly visible brand name, they won't be offended, either. To maximize our opportunities, all marketing elements should work in harmony — designs and logos as much as copy.
It's important to know the extent to which brand matters whenever and wherever we interact with consumers. At each touch point, the best way to know is simply to ask. If brand is not the answer, then other product elements should be emphasized. But when consumers say brand was the factor that brought them in the door, then our marketing must leverage this opportunity by being consistent, compelling and concise.
It's regrettable when we market to all consumers as if they were Indifferents. Too often, our direct marketing treats brands with indifference, thus failing to make brands matter where they can. No doubt, this is why Yankelovich research finds that direct marketing purchasers are no more likely than consumers in general to be Fervents.
More often than not, how direct marketers go about what they do falls short among those who care most about brands.
P. WALKER SMITH is president of Yankelovich Inc., Atlanta.
CRAIG WOOD is president of Yankelovich's Monitor MindBase division in Chapel Hill, NC.
First of two parts. Part 2, covering Practicals and Emotionals, will appear in the March 15 issue of DIRECT.
