BRANDING,MARKETING & DESIGN


of sensory signals at once and attach meaning to them without being aware. The more experienced consumers become through increased exposure to these stimuli, the more efficient their sub-conscious decision- making becomes. They select the same brand time and again, even when good alternatives are available. Consumers may not be able to


explain it, but they display this seemingly irrational shopping behaviour because it feels right. The recurring brand experience provides emotional rewards (such as excitement, sophistication and trust) that make them repeat purchase. Such emotional reward may not present itself until several weeks or months after the purchase event and even then, the full extent of the reward is unlikely to be fully apparent to the consumer. The true consequence of the


brand interaction resides deep in our sub-conscious. This makes this element of brand loyalty, indeed any long term consumer behaviours, difficult for many market researchers to detect and predict, especially if they base their conclusions on fleeting interactions in a typical consumer test. Understanding the frustration


involved in finding research that uncovers brand decisions, we at MMR ResearchWorldwide (MMR) decided to get to the heart of the matter.We wanted to establish a new and deeper understanding of the consumer decision-making process, building on our extensive knowledge as sensory scientists and consumer researchers.We believe that although a consumer’s ability to recognise and explain what they are seeing, tasting and touching etc. is an important element, it is only the tip of the iceberg. Our hypothesis is that the


important, and most often largely missing, part of the process is how we decode this recognition into meaning, and ‘conceptualise’ the sensory signals.We know that consumer research is starting to focus on consumers’ sub-conscious and emotional response. However, emotional responses can be impractical to gather and misleading due to being context driven and so are likely to change on a minute-by-minute


basis. In contrast, what products, packs and brands mean to the consumer on an emotional and functional level is far more stable and accessible to research.We refer to this interpretation as conceptualisation. Brands that succeed,


communicate a promise to the consumer and then activate this at every consumer touch-point. Advertising, promotion, sponsorship, packaging, point of sale, product experience and consumer support all reinforce the brand values. Presuming that the proposition is sufficiently motivating, we believe it is ‘consonance’ or a harmony between each touch- point that brings the consumer back time after time.


ACCESSING THE SUBCONSCIOUS The challenge is to develop research tools that can effectively access consumers’ sub-conscious; probing them to think more deeply, but without over-rationalising their decisions. MMR developed a suite of


tools that we call Brandphonics®. At the heart of the process lies a master lexicon of emotional terms, developed to cover the full spectrum of emotional equities associated with brands. In parallel, choice- based, comparative research techniques were developed to elicit quantitative emotional and functional profiles for brands, packs and unbranded products. In fact, the tools can be used to create profiles for anything! These profiles provide a quantified hierarchy of equities that are communicated to the consumer at any touch-point. The benefit of these profiles


is that they are replicable and can be used to establish brand consonance and track brand values over time. It allows brand owners to ensure that any new initiative is on message every time. We recently investigated the


rapidly growing dark chocolate market, to understand the emotional and functional equities of different brands currently on supermarket shelves, and the relationship between brand consonance i.e. what the brand promised vs. what the product experience delivered, and ‘liking.’ A range of dark chocolates


were included in the study, each


with around 70 per cent cocoa content. The liking performance of Bournville Deeply Dark stood out from the rest. Having only been recently launched, a blind taste test showed the product was highly liked with one of the market leading brands, Green & Blacks, performing much less favourably. However, the conceptual profiles generated by the packaging and brand communicated a clearly defined set of emotional equities which were poorly aligned with the conceptualisations generated in the consumption experience. What the brand offered, and the experience of the product delivered, were very different. Soon after our study,


Bournville Deeply Dark was withdrawn from sale. We can only hypothesise at the reasons for Cadbury’s decision to do this, but it is clear from our research that what the brand promised the consumer was not delivered by the product. We believe this led to customer confusion and disappointment. By the same token, Green and


Blacks, whilst not as liked in a taste test, delivered what it promised and enjoys longevity on supermarket shelves as a result. There is much more to a brand than meets the eye. At MMR we recognise that to successfully lead brand decisions, research techniques such as Brandphonics®


“The challenge is to develop research tools that can effectively access consumers’ sub- conscious; probing themto thinkmore deeply, but without over- rationalising their decisions.”


need to


extract brands’ true meaning and ensure the product on offer is in tune with consumers. The subconscious is difficult for consumers to explain, but failure to address it could come at a cost that manufacturers cannot afford. 


Bourneville Deeply Dark Waitrose Swiss Galaxy Divine


Tesco Finest Montezuma


Waitrose (Std) Cote d’Or Lindt


Seeds of Change Tiri


Green & Blacks 1 6.8 6.3


6.1 6.1 6.1


5.8 5.7 5.4


5.1 5.1


4.7 4.7


10


FMCGNews.co.uk | FMCG News | 23


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52