The study was reported in a 1966
article in HBR (Harvard Business Review).
A major Dichter finding, very relevant
today, was the identification of four motivations for a person to
communicate about brands. The first (about 33% of the cases) is
because of product-involvement. The experience is so novel and
pleasurable that it must be shared. The second (about 24%) is
self-involvement. Sharing knowledge or opinions is a way to gain
attention, show connoisseurship, feel like a pioneer, have inside
information, seek confirmation of a person's own judgment, or
assert superiority. The third (around 20%) is other-involvement.
The speaker wants to reach out and help to express neighborliness,
caring, and friendship. The fourth (around 20%) is
message-involvement. The message is so humorous or informative that
it deserves sharing.
Looking at the social media role in
brand building, I suspect that these same four motivations explain
why some brands have been successful in using social media. It
suggests that, in the absence of exceptionally entertaining
communication, in order to employ social media effectively a brand
needs to deliver extraordinary functional, self-expressive, or
social benefits. That is more likely to be the case when the brand
is associated with an offering that is innovative in a way
that truly resonates with customers. It is unlikely to happen when
the brand represents a me-too offering in an established category
or subcategory. So it comes back to creating and leveraging
innovation and differentiation.
A second finding was that listeners
are primarily concerned with two conditions. One is that the
speaker be credible with experience and background that is
convincing. A person does not need to be an expert although that
can help, people that have an intense interest in a subject
resulting in relevant experience and access to relevant people and
information will qualify as well. Another is that listeners also
are skeptical of the speaker's motivation. They want the speaker to
be interested in the listener and his or her well-being without a
bias. Is the speaker's intention to sell a product or help me? What
is the speaker's relationship to me? An implication is that a firm
promoting its own brand needs to be aware of its status and
emphasize facts instead of opinion, represent the right culture and
values, and have a balanced perspective.
Another implication is that a firm
should promote a dialogue because a listener will be more likely to
accept judgments from someone with whom there is an interaction
going on. With a dialogue, it is much easier to communicate
expertise, interest in the subject matter, and the right motivation
because there is a chance to build up a relationship and use
reassuring cues. In contrast, a one time, one way communication
will have a harder time demonstrating credibility and
motivation.
A third finding was that recommenders
had on average a huge impact on purchase running to 80% for some
products. The classic and even earlier work of the sociologists
Katz and Lazerfield reported in their book Personal Influence had
already documented the impact of social influence has a two-step
flow but this study brought the ideas to the level of purchase
decisions.
It is amazing that the nearly
forgotten theory and practice of word-of-mouth communication and
influence from five decades and more ago can be so relevant
today.
David Aaker is the
Vice-Chairman of Prophet and the author of Brand Relevance: Making
Competitors Irrelevant and the blog: Aaker on Brands.
This was first published on hbr.com. Published with
permission.
Four motivations for communicating
about brands:
-
33% product-involvement
-
24% self-involvement
-
20% other-involvement
-
20% message-involvement