The focus of the NAB presentations centred on Brand Salience, the propensity of a brand to be thought of in a buying situation. Several interesting revelations came out of these workshops, items, values and methodologies that can be implemented in any media or creative agency.
Romaniuk explains: "The most important part of the buying process, the part that should be of greatest interest to marketers, occurs almost entirely without anyone noticing. Buyers, in effect, 'decide' not to consider the vast majority of brands on the market."
This 'screening out' is natural behaviour, people do it all the time, she says. "It matters little to buyers that there were many brands that they did not consider, because the ones they did consider performed well enough. It matters enormously to us as marketers however, because we need our brand to be noticed/considered. On the flip side, this screening out does benefit marketers as it creates loyalty.
"Getting noticed is one of the biggest on-going battles any marketer faces, particularly to gain the attention of light, occasional and non-customers. Buyers have too many more interesting (non-marketing) things to think about. Even brands with plenty of customers still have to fight hard for the attention of those customers. Building brand salience is therefore required for maintenance as well as for growth.
"This happens through developing and refreshing memories to increase the scope of the brand network in buyer memory – the brand's share of mind."
Romaniuk says a brand's share of mind refers both to the quantity and quality of links to the brand in the buyer's memory. Despite this, it is increasingly fashionable for consultants to tell marketers that they should be aiming to make their brand famous and not just highly salient in buying situations.
"This is a romantic, if not entertaining distraction from the realities of real-world marketing. Marketing's task is to reach beyond the few heavy customers and out to the great masses of occasional light or 'non' customers, and ensure that they keep thinking about the brand. Building simple awareness and a positive attitude isn't enough. It is reasonably straight-forward to teach consumers that the brand is a good example of the product category that they buy. But to ensure that they keep thinking about this is a difficult and on-going task.
"This is why we urge that marketing communication be distinctive and interesting/likeable. It should generate an emotional reaction, but a very simple and mild one – interest or willingness to listen. And it should be impossible for viewers not to know which brand is being advertised. These goals should be reflected in the pre-test criteria. Everything else is secondary, and advertising briefs to agencies should make this clear."
She says that once these fundamentals are in place there is still the complex objective of building associations to the relevant cues that occur in buying situations. When building brand salience, the object is to be thought of more often by more people. Going down the positioning route and continually focusing on a single attribute is likely to limit the brand's ability to be thought of because it restricts the brands cues that are linked to the buyer's memory.
"If you always tell buyers your brand of snack food is healthy, they will have a chance of thinking of the brand when 'something healthy' is the cue. However your brand will have little if no chance of being remembered when 'something quick' 'something easy to prepare' or 'something that will last till lunchtime' are cues being used." Romaniuk says.
Media strategy also takes on a whole new importance under a brand salience perspective, she points out. Issues such as when, where and how often to advertise are vital to the effectiveness in upping the propensity of the brand to come into mind in a buying situation. There is much to learn about issues such as how most consumers unconsciously miss ads and a greater need for R&D into media strategy.
"As a final point, we should not overestimate the importance brands have in the lives of buyers. Yet it is because brands are trivial things to buyers that brand salience, marketing and marketers are important," Romaniuk concludes.
Owlhurst Communications on behalf of Newspaper Advertising Bureau (NAB)
