All posts filed under: Consumers

Passing the feedback test

By Mark Di Somma

Conflict resolution is one of those huge opportunities that so often goes begging. Ask yourself how many times you’ve been in, or watched, this scenario unfold. A client is upset with something that’s happened or has voiced concerns about a brand or some element of the service. The immediate, almost instinctive, reaction is to jump to your own defense; to justify in your own mind why things have happened, and to look to foist that justification on the complainant. You want to clear your name. Of course. No-one wants to be, or even to feel, like they are in the wrong. Here’s the thing. As my colleague Janelle Barlow puts it so well in her book, “Complaint is a Gift”, if someone bothers to complain, they do so because they feel emotionally engaged enough with what is going on to interact. The opportunity here is that they are giving you feedback and they are looking for, and judging you by, your response. Every complaint is a test – a test of your commitment to the …

Will they or won’t they?

By Mark Di Somma

So often it seems to me brand owners hope to bring about change rather than planning to bring about change. They see persuasion as an awareness issue rather than as a behavioural issue – often because they regard their product as the obvious choice that somehow, miraculously will spark a “road to Damascus” moment as soon as consumers encounter it. To that end, they pad out their media schedules with as much presence as their budgets can muster and throw huge amounts of energy and disarming levels of resource into whatever’s trending on social media. So I was very interested in an article on willpower in the NZ Listener recently that refers to key elements that persuade us to behave differently. It includes some great thinking from David Thomason and the planners at Draft FCB who, like more and more of us in the marketing sector, are looking to the behavioural sciences for clues on ways to shape brands and the behaviours that make brands gel for people. The article quotes from psychologist Robert Cialdini …

Absolute quality loses to perceived quality

By Mark Di Somma

This post by James D. Roumeliotis and Violetta Ihalainen of Whitefield Consulting, absolutely challenges my worldview as an unabashed meritocrat, but includes some fascinating points – particularly that absolute (objective) quality is far less important for consumers in their decisions about brands than perceived quality. As the authors explain, “perceived quality” is your customers’ view of the quality of a product or service both in terms of what they expect and also in comparison with how they perceive the quality of competing offerings. That means “perceived quality is defined as a measure of belief”. So – if consumers believe you are the best, then you are. Regardless of the measures you may put in place. Regardless of what the critics might say. Or the awards you may have received. For those of us who believe in the power of intangibles, this makes complete sense on reflection but it also contrasts with how we probably believe quality should work – or tell ourselves it does work. “Why can’t they see that our goods are better?” is …

Cancelling the brand: what has Qantas really grounded?

By Mark Di Somma

The ramifications for the brand after Qantas’ decision to ground its entire fleet over the weekend are obvious. It’s a move that has no doubt put tens of thousands of people in a very bad mood and set the scenes in my view for an ongoing internal war that may well prove unrecoverable. In brand terms, Qantas has done something equally damaging. In looking to force a regulatory decision, it has handed its competitors the perfect bridge: actions that discredit trust; and a prompted opportunity for customers to try out the opposition. One of the most powerful incentives for change is doubt – that nagging, unrelenting feeling that somehow a brand is not what it used to be, or even worse that it cannot be taken at its word. The other incentive is access to another channel that is viable, credible and that offers an opportunity to vent emotion. Both incentives exist here. Meaning people now not only have a reason to walk, they have lots of gates to walk to. Domestically and internationally, competing …

Finding an obsession

By Mark Di Somma

When you apply the concept of provenance to brands, it becomes a concept centred on systematically and competitively ‘localising’ what you’re about rather than diversifying to try and meet the generalised needs of the wider world. So it’s about having a narrowcast brand: one focused to the point of obsession on a specific area of passion. Provenance is also about those other valuable ideas that the word in its original meaning conjures: focus; love; purity of thinking; authenticity; deep knowledge. That obsession can then be marbled through every aspect of the brand: language; environment; innovation; strategy … People may worry that such devotion to a single idea will stifle adaptability, but my experience is that brands that see the world through the lens of an idea they subscribe to passionately are also able to find latitude and opportunity within that idea whilst growing a strong and devoted following. Far from being restrictive, being obsessive provides a framework for creative approaches. The way I see it, brands increasingly have three powerful emotive strategies going forward: they …

When sales go wrong: the real cost to brands of bad sales

By Mark Di Somma

A car salesroom should be like Disneyland – a place of magic, where life smells wonderful and dreams really do come true. So much resource goes into making that possible. The warm environment, the sparkly cars, the people, the music, the freshly brewed coffee … Everything should be an unapologetic charm offensive designed to inject reassurance and a sense of joy. When it’s done properly, it’s a show stopper. But over the weekend, my trip to start searching for a replacement to my very tidy but ageing Peugeot turned into something closer to Nightmare on Elm Street: a clipped salesperson talking to me in a patronising tone and treating my spouse with disrespect. No charm. Just offensive. Which meant in effect that all the hard work and huge money that the car brands had invested for all those years to entice me to consider them was decimated in less than ten minutes. No introduction, no familiarisation questions, no needs assessment, no scenario setting, no credentials, no storylines … This guy needed a skills upgrade and …

Lessons from a great party

By Mark Di Somma

After some time away travelling, last night I was fortunate enough to be invited to a fantastic event on the Wellington waterfront. The place was packed with the renowned and the influential alike. I understand why it is regarded as the party of the year in the city. The event itself served to remind me of two things. Firstly, that networking complements talent and profile, and that if you are not out and about working your brand with key influencers, you are essentially neglecting your marketing – an observation that’s as true for how consumer brands need to network and engage with their supply chains and customers as it is for individuals. Affinity increases through dialogue. It’s not good enough to be good at what you do. You don’t grow your reputation by looking in the mirror. Secondly, there are at least two distinct networking strategies – wide and open, or focused and intense – and they seem to permeate every aspect of how we choose to make and retain contact. I follow very much …

Are you indecisive? I’m not sure …

By Mark Di Somma

Edward Boches pointed me in the direction of this thought-provoking article by John Tierney on “decision fatigue”. Decision fatigue happens when ordinary people are asked to make decision after decision after decision. Such processes run down the mental batteries that power our self control. Eventually it seems, we start looking for shortcuts – either by acting impulsively or by opting to do nothing. Research on what tires us out the most shows that people would rather compare and contrast options (without making a decision) or verify a decision that has already been made by someone else than make the decision themselves. Once consumers reach a certain level of mental tiredness they stop negotiating. Instead, they make decisions based on the thing that is most important to them. Decision fatigue, it seems, breaks down our reluctance to explore or commit. People soon opt for default settings or suggestions. And the more tough choices there are early in the process, the quicker people opt for the path of least resistance. All of this has major implications for …

Critical mass: understanding what drives fluctuations in likeability for brands

By Mark Di Somma

Whilst I continue to question the financial returns from social media for brands, there is no denying their ability to galvanise. In fact, social media is the driving force behind “critical mass” – the ability to bring together consumers from many places to form a significant mass of opinion, in support or against, based around an issue they consider critically important to them. For brands, critical mass can be a powerful forum for advocacy, feedback, testing, support and, perhaps most importantly, a way to stay directly attuned to what Mr and Mrs Consumer are feeling. But a critical mass also makes for a powerful enemy: as we’ve seen this past week, a group of people united by a single idea can turn on a brand with extraordinary ferocity. Critical masses flock and disperse in response to ideas. People join, leave and link at whim. So these groupings are constantly forming, dissolving and reforming on a global scale. They are not one constituency. And the density of the mass and its duration derives directly from the …