An Ounce of Behavior is Worth a Pound of Attitudes

We have to build awareness first,” says the neophyte.

A common mistake by advertisers to assume that a new user of a product goes
through these stages: (1) awareness of the brand, (2) favorable attitude, (3)
purchase. So therefore the first purpose of our advertising is to create awareness.
After all, you aren’t going to buy something that you aren’t aware of. And then, the
next step is you must think highly of the brand. And then, we hope, they’ll buy it.

The problem is “Awareness” becomes the empty goal of the ads. Awareness of what?
Some intrusive ads catch your attention by their cleverness. Did you ever tell your
friends, “Hey, did you see that ad where the guy….”? But you forgot what the
product was.

Certainly it’s essential that a brand should earn a favorable attitude, but that’s not
enough. I learned this when I had an ice cream client. When choosing the “Flavor
of the Month,” we had people come into the dairy and taste and rate a number of
new ones. But the “winners” often turned out to be flops in the market place. Why?
Because they didn’t have staying power. We switched to a different method. We
gave them a generous amount of several flavors to take home. Then we visited them
after two weeks and measured how much of each their family had eaten. The
winners were the flavors that were consumed most. So the initial attitude was
trumped by behavior. And that stood up in the real world.

Here’s a way to get the horse before the cart. Start with the reason-for-being---the
one benefit your brand or service brings to the customer, the promise that ends up
with action.. Make that benefit at the hero of your ads.

What I’m suggesting is to compress the three stages mentioned above. Don’t think
of it as a leisurely process. Make awareness/attitude/behavior happen
simultaneously. Make the end use the reason for the awareness, and if that’s good
enough, favorable attitudes will happen at the same time.

The cyber generation expects immediate results.