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Branding Laws · Internet Marketing · eMarketing · Internet Advertising · Online Branding |
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The second law is an extension of our first law. This law is also very powerful and most definitely differentiates you from competition.
The law says if A causes B,
A ===== > B
then
A + (just a very small A or C) ===== > much, much Larger B
This law states that if effort A has caused the outcome B, a very small addition of the same effort A or C will results in much better outcome B.
This law is behind the science of advertising. Advertisers are usually interested in tracking where they spend money as to which advertising outlet produces the higher results. They then increase the advertising money in the outlet that produces more results.
This law can also apply to your website or product. By just becoming a bit better in certain areas, you can improve the results significantly. A bit more effort might get you much better results; a bit more motivation, you might get all the sales.
Improvement in market knowledge, buyer power, product acceptance, where and how the product is bought and used, who buys the product, and who uses the product can make a big difference.
Opening yourself up to new ideas may be as easy as furrowing your brow or reading blurry print, according to the research of a Kansas State University marketing professor.
Kyoungmi Lee, an assistant professor of marketing, found that consumers were less likely to hold onto existing ideas about a brand if they were made to feel a sense of difficulty thinking about it, especially when they are time-pressured. That is because a sense of difficulty can lead consumers to doubt their understanding of a brand.
Lee said it's the same thing that happens at a busy fast-food restaurant. If you feel time-pressured to make a decision because there is huge line of hurried people behind you, anything that makes you feel that you don't understand the brand -- a new menu, a redesigned logo or a change in packaging -- may prompt you to choose your meal quickly based on whatever information you have, including in-store advertising telling you the menu item is "new" or "fresh."
Lee's research was conducted with Sharon Shavitt, a professor in business administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They studied consumer perceptions about the healthfulness of foods offered at McDonald's. Their research will appear in a coming issue of the Journal of Marketing Research.
When Lee began the research, the documentary film "Supersize Me" was drawing attention to some of the consequences of an all-McDonald's diet.
"I kind of felt sorry for McDonald's in that everybody thinks it's just junk food. Consumers think they know the brand," Lee said. "But I visited their Web site, and they provide a lot of nutritional information. McDonald's is not perceived as being healthy, but they're trying hard to change that perception."
For many consumers, McDonald's is defined by foods like the Big Mac, regardless of how many salads or wraps the restaurant adds to its menu. Lee set out to study how brands like McDonald's that have an established identity can motivate consumers to listen to new information. She hypothesized that consumers don't listen to marketing claims because they think they already have a sufficient understanding of the brand.
"I hypothesized that if I made them doubt their level of understanding that they'd be more motivated to listen to new information," Lee said.
To test this hypothesis, she asked consumers to list five characteristics of the Hallmark brand. She had some of the participants contract their facial muscles so that their brows were furrowed while taking the survey. When consumers frowned, Lee said that their sense of how well they knew the brand changed.
"It's not just about concentrating more," Lee said. "People infer their own knowledge level. If they're uneasy, they think it must be because they don't understand the brand well."
Lee also had consumers take a survey in which they were asked about options for healthy living. It included a question that asked them when given a choice of food at a food court, how likely would they be to order from the "wide variety" available at McDonald's. Some of the consumers who took the survey were given one with blurry print that made it more difficult to read in order to create doubt about their level of understanding of McDonald's.
"When working with blurry print, or especially when they felt time pressure, people are more motivated to have some closure," Lee said. "They try to seize on any information, like 'wide variety.' In a normal, familiar setting, they don't pay attention to marketing."