April 1, 2008
Marketing familiarity can breed contempt
Michael Skapinker says in his latest column that the visit of Nicolas Sarkozy to the UK has been a marketing coup for Emirates. The airline’s name adorns Arsenal’s football stadium, used as one of the venues for the Franco-British love-in last week. This meant that Emirates, which paid more than £100m for the “naming rights” to the ground, was frequently mentioned in the press.
The thinking behind naming rights is that people encounter the brand in a positive context, creating a rosy glow of familiarity that translates into higher sales. But are the purchasing patterns of consumers really influenced by the myriad things that they see as they go about their daily lives?
They can be, according to new research by Jonah Berger, an assistant professor at Wharton business school, and Grainne Fitzsimons, of Canada’s University of Waterloo. However, I’m not convinced that their findings add much to the marketer’s arsenal.
The two academics decided to investigate whether environmental cues had an impact on consumer behaviour after Mars, the chocolate bar maker, noticed an unusual increase in sales of Mars bars in the summer of 1997, when NASA landed the Pathfinder spacecraft on the surface of Mars.
The professors say their experiments have shown that exposure to certain colours and objects can prime people to be receptive to associated products, to the extent that awareness of Reese’s candy was heightened shortly before October 31 because its packaging is orange - and orange pumpkins are everywhere in the run-up to Halloween.
They even claim that the presence of dogs on the street can make people more receptive to Puma sportswear, even though Puma has a big-cat logo. In their opinion, the traditional association between cats and dogs means that there is a convoluted “see dog, hanker after cat-shoes” dynamic at play.
To make products more appealing, they suggest that advertising could contain cues that are commonly found within the target consumer’s environment - palm trees for the US west coast audience, mittens for a Minnesota car dealership etc.
I’m sceptical. For a start, the allure of many brands is based on images that transcend the shopper’s day-to-day experience rather than echoing it. In a famous ad campaign in the UK, Bacardi showed footage of a Caribbean paradise alongside ironic captions such as “the Dog & Duck”. They didn’t show footage of vitamin D-deficient Brits getting hammered at their local.
It might be the case that some bovine consumers would buy more spinach if supermarkets were carpeted in astroturf but this sounds like a prop for the most commoditised products only. Any decent brand relies on a more complex interaction with its audience.
After all, Dove, the soap maker, started using overweight women as models in order to show its understanding of the love-hate relationship many people have with their bodies. It wasn’t trying to cash in on the obesity epidemic by saying “look, we’re fat too”.
You can read a summary of the Wharton/Waterloo research here, while the full paper can be downloaded here.
WHAT ARE BRANDS FOR?
Posted by: osu akande LONDON | April 3rd, 2008 at 11:54 am | Report this commentEither familiarity breed contentment or contempt will be a matter of reputation and perception.Question will run through consumers mind whenever he/she sense anything, there will only be three responses and this are to either familiarize, to take flight or to ponder, either way decision will be made in a split second.If the Pathfinder was problematic when landing on Mars,will the chocolate Mars suffer.My submission is that, what will happen with familiarity will be minimal if the reputation of the brand is not incognito in the first instance
I agree with the columnist and the commenter. This new Wharton/Waterloo research is marginal at best, and beyond stating what is fairly obvious, does not seem that useful to marketers. There are many innovative and excellent marketing campaigns that use unfamiliar backgrounds/themes, which call attention to something specific. Some use no theme at all, Apple’s PC vs Mac uses very neutral even completely white backgrounds. But even there some degree of familiarity exists, in looks of the actors, or body language, or apparel, even language. How do you recognize the effects of those? Familiarity is a matter of degree which cannot be measured precisely.
Jalal Alamgir
Posted by: Jalal Alamgir | April 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 pm | Report this commenthttp://localandglobal.wordpress.com/
What kind of love/hate relationship is that?
Something like: I hate my fat gut but love how soft my skin is after using Dove?
If yes, how does the author know - from a person directly involved or is it his educated guess
Not being sarcastic here - I’m genuinely curious.
Posted by: Dmitry | April 8th, 2008 at 12:22 pm | Report this commentHi Dmitry. Happy to clarify. I used to write about Unilever and its marketing for Dove was designed to chime with the resentment many women felt towards the ideals of steely, skinny beauty that were often the default setting of the cosmetics industry and its advertising. This resentment was founded on a sense that people should be comfortable in their own skins, no matter how lumpy their legs and middle might be. The market affirmed that emotion. So that’s the love (or at least pride) part of your question covered. However - and this is my interpretation - this positive, I-am-who-I-am emotion still lived side by side with a certain amount of insecurity. After all, if the buyers of Dove products were so secure about themselves, why would they need affirmation from an Anglo-Dutch consumer products group? Hence my love-hate characterisation.
Posted by: Adam Jones | April 8th, 2008 at 12:40 pm | Report this commentDear Mr. Jones (apologies, it was rude not not to address you personally in the first message)
Posted by: Dmitry | April 8th, 2008 at 1:02 pm | Report this commentThanks very much for you answer.
It does make a lot of sense now that you’ve explained the rationale behind your suggestion.
Like I said I was not being sarcastic - I had my thoughts on the subject and wanted to know what someone with more knowledge on the topic thought.
No problem Dmitri. Formality not needed, and your comment wasn’t taken as sarcasm at all (it would have been okay if you had meant it sarcastically, anyway - journalists ought to have thick skins). Best, Adam
Posted by: Adam Jones | April 8th, 2008 at 1:50 pm | Report this comment