In marketing we pride ourselves on targeting. Of finding and focussing on the people who may become buyers. We dismiss everything else as wasteage. But is it?
But what about the people who never will? There is growing evidence that people who will never buy our brand are important as well.
Jeremy Bullmore argues persuasively that “about the only thing that successful brands have in common is a kind of fame”.
Famous people are known by millions of people. By the same token “a brand, if it is to enjoy genuine celebrity, must be known to a circle of people that far exceeds what we in the business so chillingly call its target group”.
Part of this is people’s desire to be conformist; to do what everyone else does. This is a powerful drive. Social psychologists have found people will say black is white if other people say it first.
IPSOS have found a similar process in consumer decision making. Popularity is a major driver of the success of brands. They conclude that there is security in numbers. They use Robert Cialdini’s “Social Proof” concept to explain it: “by observing other people doing something or by knowing that others are also buying a certain product creates positive psychological factors influencing the same thing”. (Gimme! The Human Nature of Successful Marketing by John Hallward)
But that only works if your brand is widely known.
The other reason is that as pack animals what we know about a brand isn’t all that influences our buying decision. What other people think matters as well – even people who have never bought the brand in question. As Jeremy Bullmore so eloquently puts it “what’s the point of your driving about in a £50,000 BMW if 95% of us peasants don’t realize how successful you must be to own one”.
All this argues for the value of advertising your brand broadly in a “spectacularly untargeted” way. Creating a brand perception amongst a broad target will influence those people who may end up buying it.
No comments:
Post a Comment