“How do consumers choose what brand to buy?”

By Dr Ned Roberto with Ardy Roberto

Q: We attended the Senior MRx-er’s Consumer Insighting seminar last April. In one portion of the seminar, you dealt with the question of how consumers choose what brand to buy. You presented a consumer decision making model that the image section of the UAI (Usage-Attitude-Image) market survey has been using for the longest time. Your example was about brands of toothpaste.

We’re in the household appliance business. We just had our UAI on refrigerators completed. We looked at the image data together with our dealers. No sooner had we finished the last Power Point slide when our dealers challenged our implied assumption of the data about how ref buyers choose the brand of ref to buy. They said they have yet to see a ref buyer who in choosing a ref brand lined up the available brands. They then evaluated each brand on a set of preselected ref attributes that they have prioritized in importance. Then the buyer’s choice goes to the brand that the buyer rated highest versus other brands on the top priority 2 or 3 prioritized ref attributes.

The dealers’ observations say that buyers’ choice is much simpler. Inside the appliance store, a ref buyer looks over one brand that catches her attention. Then after a cursory inspection outside and inside the ref, the buyer decides to buy. If the buying decision is suspended, the buyer goes to just one other brand. She then does the same cursory inspection and then decides between the first and second brand.

Of course, we remember your telling us that the UAI-based model is just one of many models of consumer decision making. But what should we do now? How do we validate with research our dealers’ version of the “more realistic” way ref buyers choose a ref brand? – Perplexed appliance entrepreneur

A: To start with, we have to say that we’re happy about two things in your note. First, you’re willing to listen to your dealers. After all, they are the ones in direct contact with your buying customers. They know and have a personal understanding of those customers. Second, you have learned the discipline of pretesting in making your own decisions. The father of direct marketing, Bob Stone, says: “To be sure, test, test again, and test some more.”

Let’s now proceed to your question. We’ll first diagnose the two conflicting models of how ref buyers choose the brand of ref to buy.

The UAI-based model assumes that the buyer’s decision strategy is to serve her goal of making the best choice by considering all the alternative ref brands along her prioritized criteria for a good ref brand. If the ref buyer were doing her shopping online, and visiting all the available ref brands in their respective Web sites, this consumer decision making model would probably have a good measure of reality. But in the setting of the appliance store, it obviously would be inferior in explaining ref buyer brand choice as compared to what your dealers had observed.

Romancing vs No-Brainer

Our own research supports your dealers’ model. The ref buyer’s decision strategy is a process of inspecting just one brand or two. Here’s what our observation study had revealed.

The buyer goes to a ref brand that had impressed her. She walks around this ref knocking every so often on its outside panels. She then stands in front and opens the door and then closes it. She again opens and then closes. Then she takes out a piece of paper from her bag and tries inserting it where the door clings to its ref body base. Then she opens again, and looks inside the freezer compartment after opening its vertical cover. She checks if the ref is on and then feels with her hand the floor, sides and ceiling of the freezer compartment. Then she shifts her attention to the bottom drawer where the vegetables and fruits are usually contained. She pulls out the drawer completely and inspects the drawer’s shape and inside space. She then puts back the drawer, closes the ref door and proceed to look for a sales ref to talk to.

When we obtained permission to interview this buyer, we got the following eye opening answers to our several why-questions. She said she was knocking on the outside panels because she wanted to check how thick or thin that “steel” or “aluminum” panels were: “Baka sin nipis lang sila nang Ligo sardine cans” (They might just be as thin as the Ligo sardine cans).

She was inserting the paper to find out if the door seals tightly: “Kasi pag medyo maluwag siya, sasayangin niya ang kuryente na lulusut sa puwang na kahit nipis na nipis lang” (If the door doesn’t seal well, the ref will just waste the coolness inside that will escape out even in the thinnest opening). Her hand was feeling out inside the freezer because she wanted to check if there’s ice forming. When told that the ref brand she was check was “frost-free,” she didn’t ask what that meant. Instead she just said: “Anong klaseng ref yan kung walang yelo” (What kind of a ref doesn’t have ice)?”

When she pulled out the entire vegetable drawer, she said she was disappointed. She said the rear of the drawer could not contain much because the entire rear curved in to a third of the length of the drawer. When it was explained to her that the eaten space was to give way to the ref’s engine, she simply said: “Basta ang daya nyan” (That’s cheating).

It should be clear that for your brand, its advertising communication as well as its sales rep’s selling script will differ according to which consumer decision making model actually prevails. In the UAI-based model, to persuade consumers for a brand choice, the ad message and the selling script will focus on the brand’s satisfaction of the ref buyer’s priority ref attribute or attributes that the brand distinctively satisfies. On the other hand, in the inspection-processed-based model, the focus will be on “the big story” about the ref buyer’s “romancing of the outside and inside of the ref brand she is inspecting.”

From the foregoing, no one should conclude that consumer decision strategies are limited to just these two models. The applicable consumer decision strategy depends on the product category and how consumers have gotten used to buying and using the product. For example, consider the simplest case where the use of the product requires the least or absolute minimum of knowledge as in the case of a penlight or toy battery. Here, the consumer has gotten used to a 2-step “no-brainer” process of inserting the battery and then switching on. Whenever the consumer does this, the penlight works and the so does the toy. In this case, consumer brand choice will be restricted to battery brands she has tried. New brands will have a hard time entering the consumer’s decision “rules” because consumers will look at them as too risky.

Other examples: Memo shirts to Ayala Condos

Our research has identified yet another consumer decision making routine for the purchase of shirts. When tempted to try some other brands of shirt, buyers of Memo shirts (a brand of Penshoppe) compare these other brands to Memo. They don’t compare and evaluate all brands including Memo to one another as in the UAI-based model. If another brand compares well with Memo, then the shopper entertains the decision to try this other brand. A definite decision to try comes when the comparison leads to the conclusion of superiority in some priority dimension in favor of another brand.

According to our research, the buying of a house or a condo points to yet another consumer decision process. In considering the purchase of a house, for example, a prospective homeowner will first take into account only brands that meet some “must” requirements. Examples of such “must’s” would be: (1) it must be located in an exclusive village, (2) the village must be far from the pollution of Metro Manila, (3) the area must have access to clean and safe water, and (4) there must not be any squatters or slum areas nearby. In one research, we in fact found a couple who had only one such screening “must.” This couple said: “We won’t consider buying in any real property development unless it’s by Ayala.” Once this screening stage is passed, the consumer then considers only those brands that passed. Then she chooses a brand on the basis of some other criteria like aesthetics and pricing, or even “trivial” reasons like “the country club swimming pool has a life guard who’s a Piolo Pascual look-alike” or “there’s a Chow-King by the entrance to the Village.”

So where does all these leave you and your question?

Firstly, you have to accept the idea that consumers follow a variety of decision strategies that differ by product category and consumer decision-making style.

Secondly, to find out which of these different decision strategies apply in your specific situation and brand, you should observe and talk to your customers. Observe them in action as they are in the process of buying and talk to them about things you cannot explain from what you’ve observed.

If you want to be persuasive to your customers and motivate them for purchase, craft your advertising communication message and sales script for your brand according to what your observation and interview data require.

Repeat your observation and interview efforts every so often. Keep in mind that even consumer decision routines and decision strategies change over time and on different occasions.

For those of you who have been waiting for it, it’s finally out. The Best of MarketingRx (volume 1 for Entrepreneurs) was released this week by InquirerBooks. Available soon at National, PowerBooks or FullyBooked. Keep your questions coming. Send them to us at MarketingRx@pldtDSL.net or post them on our new blogsite: www.marketingrx.org God bless!