How consumers buy brands: the new decision journey (i)

The consumer decision journey has evolved from the early days of brand building. To successfully build brands today, marketers should have a solid understanding of the new path to purchase.

The digital brand ecosystem and the sheer volume of behavioural insight data available have changed things dramatically.
Many businesses traditionally thought consumers followed a linear journey to brand purchase. The naïve consumer first became aware of a brand, learned of a desirable quality it had (perhaps through advertising), and consciously decided to purchase it. After personally experiencing the benefits for themselves they became loyal buyers. Market research measured the proportion of consumers who had achieved each of these progressive steps and presented the facts to marketers in the shape of a funnel.
It’s likely that consumers were always more complex than this, but the arrival of digital brand ecosystems and the insights gained from behavioural economics and neuroscience have proven that brand builders need to move on to a more accurate model of consumer decision journeys. The concept of shifting from a ‘funnel’ to a ‘cycle’ (first illustrated by McKinsey[1]) makes sense.
Some of the key factors marketers now have to consider include:
· The fact that ‘fast’ decision-making (or System 1 thinking as Daniel Kahneman calls it) is preferred by the brain whenever possible. It uses heuristics to make choices in the simplest possible way – and ‘brand’ may not be a critical factor.
· Online information – both brand driven and consumer generated – about brands, products, and the companies that make them is readily available and leads to two-way conversations.
· The disruption created by the fragmentation and multiplication of consumer touch points, especially online and mobile.
· Brands are stored in memory as a loose network of known facts, experiences and emotional associations. Context determines the extent to which these associations are brought together and reflected upon, and when they are used explicitly to make decisions in a more active or slow (System 2) thought process.
· The importance of situation for the consumer – what am I doing, who am I with, what is the occasion? – in any evaluation of a brand and consequent purchase. The lack of consumers’self-identifying with most brands: loyalty is an instinct or habit rather than a conscious action, making penetration critical to driving brand growth

Graham Staplehurst