Morning!
Wanna hear a funny story?
The 1950s were the golden age of auto manufacturing in America. Chevrolet and Ford were leading the market by a country mile.
Their sales were toe-to-toe, and executives at both companies were convinced that people who drove their brand were different from everyone else.
So, you can imagine their surprise when a study done in 1959 showed that there were no differences in either personalities or demographics among the buyers of either brand.
First, there was scepticism, but when several other studies showed the same results, the marketers at both brands decided to simply ignore it.
Now that’s funny.
Because as marketers, we get so obsessive over proving that our customers, products, or brands are one of a kind.
So much so that we overlook the obvious:
To quote Byron Sharp,
The good news is that your customers are just like your competitors’ customers, and their customers are just like yours.
Create unique and bold brands, but don't stop there.
It’s far more important to be distinguishable than to be different.
The heaviest buyers in a category are also the most knowledgeable and the most challenging to win.
They are also the niche in your category.
And as your category grows, the majority of the customers it will reach will be light buyers.
These are the fickle ones.
And thankfully that’s most of us.
We pick brands based on their recognisability, or because they made us laugh, or they were on offer, or you heard your dentist mention them.
Behaviour is the most powerful driver of awareness, perception, and attitude.
Your behaviour dictates how much and how often you buy a brand - or how loyal you are.
Loyalty cards don’t make people loyal customers, purchase frequency and preference do.
Getting better at growing brands means mastering the virtuous cycle of convincing people to buy from you, converting some of them into loyal buyers, and repeating the cycle.
Because behaviours are built through repetition.
Remember this: all brands in a category have the same customers.
You are not competing for a different type of customer, you’re competing to get attention from people who may or may not be familiar with your brand.
In case you’re wondering if the execs at Ford and Chevy were right to ignore the market research, here’s a nugget for you:
There are certainly those people who won’t ever buy anything other than a BMW. Still, the defection rate among new car buyers is on average around 50% (depending on the brand it goes from 30% to <50%). This means that at any given time, 50% of drivers aren’t loyal to a single brand.
Have a wonderful week!
Aliyar
*Unless that’s how you found this post.
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