Doubting Customers Reevaluate Brands

Lately, McDonald's mailed discount coupons, so I decided to eat lunch at a newly revamped restaurant. A once over of the menu, revealed salads and healthy food choices. More kinds of offerings than hamburgers, the Big Macs, and fries laden with fat calories I associated with the brand. A major change. Interestingly, many customers listen to marketing messages and, like me, give older firms another try. Have you reevaluated any brands lately?

New research shows that most consumers crave clear understanding of brand images related to companies and products. Consumers may be "swinging between doubt and closure more often than we think," claims Susan Shavitt, University of Illinois marketing expert. When customers read fine print or face other constraints with products, they're more open to new messages. “Consumers expect a strong sense of understanding for those brands," Shavitt adds, "and when that’s threatened it can lead them to be more open to reevaluating a brand.”

Four tactics to tempt customers to reevaluate brands

1. Create a sense of struggle through polls, surveys and contests with new information that counters a brand’s long-established image. McDonald’s, a brand used in the study, instilled doubt by asking consumers how many salad varieties appeared on menus or the sodium content of its burgers and fries.

2. Develop a logo projecting brand character Interestingly, even the briefest exposure to well-known brand logos can cause people to behave in ways that mirror those brands’ traits. For instance, when people see the Apple logo, they behave more creatively.

3. Outdistance Well-Established Brands by Using Distinctive Features Consumers more strongly associate common characteristics with traditional brands and unique traits with brand new brands, according to Cunha and Laran's research findings. They noticed a stronger connection between the unique feature and the new kid on the block's brand may result in an advantage when the unique features are more valued than the common characteristics.

4. Repeated unconscious exposure to a brand increases people's likelihood to select it How many times to you see someone walk down the street with a Starbuck's coffee or mow their lawn with a John Deere mower? All your exposures to a brand register subconsciously in your brain and affect what brands you pick. How is your brand exposure working beyond paid advertising?

Many parts of human brain activate as people select brands. Advertising and communication experts say that seeing the process in the brain and how it works will help organizations learn what people really feel about something, whether an ad or other stimulus. Novel stimuli tend to activate the hippocampus more than familar stimuli do. Because the element of surprise triggers release of dopamine, it creates stronger connections that lead to long term storage.

Keep in mind that novelty stokes memory. "Not surprisingly, memory strengthens and the brain’s rejuvenated in the presence of novelty," Ellen Weber reports. You can see exactly why uniqueness for brands is top consideration.

How do brands grab your attention and change your choices?