Buying a tube of toothpaste should not cause anxiety

Overwhelmed by choice
We have all heard of 'The Paradox of Choice', but Paul's post drew attention to a real life example. And he is not alone in feeling anxious when choosing toothpaste. Unless I can see what I normally choose, I am forced to actively consider the alternatives. Do I want Tom's, Crest or Colgate? Do I want whitening, breath protection, or something for sensitive gums? Do I want gel or paste? Fluoride or peroxide? What flavor? I am sure all these options look great on a planogram but, guess what, in-store they just look overwhelming.

People do not care about brands
Here is some more of Paul's post. It was accompanied by a photo of shelves crowded with tubes, boxes and bottles.

"You can't see the entire range of Colgate toothpaste in the aisle of this modestly sized Tesco.
I simply don't need this level of choice.
I don't want to have to take reading glasses with me, use my phone as a barcode reader and analyse my toothpaste purchase after joining a specialist forum to ensure I have wisely invested my £1 earned as a DWP statistic. I can only suppose that this is a poorly constructed product testing display."

I suspect Paul's comments are entirely representative of most normal human beings when it comes to brands: they do not want to think about their brand choice. Most people really do not care about brands that much. When we test people's instinctive liking for brands most of them fall in the range of neutral to mild affection, a total contrast to most marketing directors tested using the same technique. People do not care about brands anywhere near as much as the people who derive their livelihood from them.

Recognition triggers response
Rather than forcing people think about their brand choices, marketers need to help people respond instinctively. Ideally, a brand is so easily recognizable that it is immediately obvious to the buyer, triggering an instinctive response to pick it up. This response is particularly strong in frequently bought product categories, where the default decision is "buy what I bought last time." Failure to prompt immediate action will trigger a more deliberative mindset as the person searches for what they normally buy, increasing the risk that they might find a more attractive alternative.

Forced to think
The disaster of Tropicana's packaging redesign in 2009 is often cited as a demonstration of how important distinctiveness is to brands. Removing the iconic orange with a drinking straw stuck in it from the front of the juice's package (amongst other changes) led to $30 million decline in sales and a rapid return to the old packaging. But what really happened? I believe the real problem was that failure to recognize Tropicana forced people to think. For the first time in years many shoppers were forced to deliberate on a choice that had otherwise been largely instinctive. In doing so they saw new, more attractive alternatives that they would otherwise have ignored.

There are three takeaways from this post that packaged goods marketers would do well to think about.

1) Less can be more
Most research I have come across looks at the likely return of adding new line extensions to a range. In the process the new item might replace one that has lesser appeal, but in general more is considered to be better. In contrast, some companies have discovered that less really is more. In the crowded confectionary category, both Nestlé's Kit Kat in the UK and Hershey's Reese's in the U.S., cut back the number of extensions and saw an improvement in sales and equity. In the two years after Kit Kat simplified its line-up in the UK, sales were reported to have grown by 19 percent. A report by Landor suggests that Reese's equity improved dramatically following its simplification.

Why do sales increase when less items are on display? Because it becomes easier for people to choose. The temptation will always be to add new variants to a brand to make it attractive to different types of buyers, but occasionally it might be a good discipline to test whether less variants might generate more sales.

Make the most of your brand's distinctive assets
Of course, while you can control the number of items offered by your brand, you cannot control what the competition does. Faced with hugely crowded displays like toothpaste, cereals, and shampoos, marketers need to make sure that their brand is the obvious choice. How do people recognize your brand? What makes it distinctive? Which elements are most important? Know what makes your brand easily recognizable and make sure it is featured prominently to trigger that all important instinctive, positive reaction.

Build your brand's bias
People will not respond positively to your brand unless they have some familiarity with it. Sheer distinctiveness might get it looked at, but to trigger an instinctive reaction there must be some instinctive, emotional response that guides people's decision making. For existing brand buyers, experience and habit will create that response, but the response of new buyers will be guided by past, incidental exposure to the brand. The quicker something meaningful and differentiating comes to mind for your brand the better. Which is why advertising is so important. It is the primary mechanism by which marketers can create the positive associations, expectations, and feelings that bias people's purchase behavior. But only if they can recognize and remember which brand is being advertised.

Make it easier for people to buy your brand

My simple recipe for brand growth is "easier to mind, easier to find, and easier to pay." And when I say easier to find, I do not just mean make sure your brand is physically available. A brand can have 100% distribution and still fall short on its sales potential simply because people do not see it in a crowded display. The quicker people can recognize and respond to your brand, the less anxious they will be, and the more likely to buy it.