Page 27 - HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategic Marketing

EDELMAN
Idea in Brief

Consumers today connect with purchase worked pretty well in the
brands in fundamentally new past, consumer touch points have
ways, often through media changed in nature. For example, in
channels that are beyond many categories today the single
manufacturers’ and retailers’ most powerful influence to buy is
control. That means traditional someone else’s advocacy.
marketing strategies must be
redesigned to accord with how The author describes a “consumer
brand relationships have changed. decision journey” of four stages:
consider a selection of brands;
In the famous funnel metaphor, a evaluate by seeking input from
shopper would start with several peers, reviewers, and others; buy;
brands in mind and systematically and enjoy, advocate, bond. If the
narrow them down to a final consumer’s bond with the brand
choice. His relationship with both becomes strong enough, she’ll
the manufacturer and the retailer enter a buy-enjoy-advocate-buy
ended there. But now, relying loop that skips the first two stages
heavily on digital interactions, he entirely.
evaluates a shifting array of
options and often engages with the Smart marketers will study the de-
brand through social media after a cision journey for their products
purchase. Though marketing and use the insights they gain to
strategies that focused on building revise strategy, media spend, and
brand awareness and the point of organizational roles.

Evaluate
The initial consideration set frequently expands as consumers seek
input from peers, reviewers, retailers, and the brand and its com-
petitors. Typically, they’ll add new brands to the set and discard
some of the originals as they learn more and their selection criteria
shift. Their outreach to marketers and other sources of information
is much more likely to shape their ensuing choices than marketers’
push to persuade them.

Buy
Increasingly, consumers put off a purchase decision until they’re
actually in a store—and, as we’ll see, they may be easily dissuaded at

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