Three ways to make brand consideration more useful
When LinkedIn's algorithm fed me Peter Buckley's post titled, "Is Consideration a Con?", I was in a hairsbreadth of ignoring it, even though he had referenced me by name. "Not another ill-considered swipe at attitudinal metrics," I thought. Well, I was wrong. And not just because it references a paper that I co-wrote with my colleague Andy Farr.
After pointing out that consideration correlates with market share Peter states that it is not irrelevant but needs better context. Agreed, but I think it is worth re-iterating why consideration matters and have suggestions for how to make the raw metric even more useful.
Why does consideration matter?
Because changes in consideration often lead changes in purchasing
"Duh!", say some. "Garbage!", say others.
For the record, there is plenty of evidence that consideration leads purchasing in many product and service categories. Thanks to Prof. Koen Pauwels for sharing his paper on the topic in the comments to Peter's post. If the absolute investment and risk are high, most people research their purchase before making it. Here is Dale Harrison's take on the importance of consideration in B2B.
And even if consideration lags purchasing, it is a pretty good indication that people find your brand acceptable, otherwise they would not consider it again. (This said, most brands offer a decent experience, so do not expect rejection rates to be large.)
Because consideration anticipates which brand people search for
Peter Buckley mentions that action-based metrics like search might act as short-term indicators of long-term growth.
Over the last few years, marketer's attention has focused on the relationship between changes in organic Share of Search (SOS) and changes in market share, but what brands do people search for? The ones they can think of and consider. Whatever the product or service category, most buyers have a set of brands that they will consider for purchase and usually end up buying one of them. See Koen Pauwels paper if you don't accept the logic.
(Does search anticipate long-term growth? Given that search is likely limited to in-market buyers, I think that assertion only holds for the typical consideration window.)
Because consideration allows you to get inside people's minds
Most marketers today seem to prefer basing their insights on behavioral data not attitudes. "Behavior does not lie!", they proclaim. Yes, it does. Behavioral data is rarely representative, often dirty and out-of-date, and very much subject to the marketer's interpretation (which is why so many like it).
By contrast, attitudinal data is your one chance to get some insight into why people do the things they do (or not do). To Peter Buckley's point, consideration data lets you understand which brands people would consider in relation to specific needs or Category Entry Points (CEPs).
If that does not convince you that consideration is worth using, time to quit reading. However, if you are at least open minded, read on for how we might use it better.
How might consideration be made more useful?
Use Excess Share of Consideration (ESOC)
Peter Buckley's number one recommendation is to look how consideration deviates from market share. Spot on. Here's how to do it.
When we analyze share of voice, we subtract market share to see if a brand is spending more than its fair share. If a brand has a higher SOV than its SOM – referred to as ESOV or Excess SOV – then market share is likely to grow next year. We do the same when we are looking at Share of Search. Why not consideration? The same logic applies. Create a share of consideration, subtract the brand's existing share of usage, and you will have a measure that predicts growth based on all category buyers, not just the ones who search for a brand by name. Let's call it ESOC.
(If a brand is strongly associated with specific CEPs, then buyers may head straight to the store, the brand's website, or the e-commerce platform of their choice rather than searching for it. The proportion of buyers that skip the search process will vary from category to category.)
Analyze in-market and out-market buyers separately
Peter Buckley suggests separating buyers of a brand from non-buyers, this recommendation is a complement to that strategy.
Surveying all category buyers is likely going to be less sensitive to change than SOS because most of the people interviewed are going to be out-market, i.e., they are not actively engaged with the buying process and may change the brands in their consideration set by the time they do get round to buying your category. (Prof. Koens? This is why you find attitudes are a long-term predictor.) Solutions might be to limit your survey to people likely to buy soon or to have a big enough sample to focus on active buyers. However, this would likely only give you a marginally different understanding than SOS.
The advantage of asking brand consideration of out-market buyers is that the objective of brand marketing is to reach and influence out-market buyers so that when the time does come to buy your brand is included in as many people's consideration sets as possible. So, it is still useful to know if your ESOC is positive or negative because it might signal longer-term opportunities or threats. Further, a survey allows you to take the analysis down to the CEP level to see which ones are more strongly associated with your brand.
Take price point into account
Someone commented in reply to Peter's post that they would consider a Ferrari but not buy one. Duh! If a Ferrari cost $50,000 I might buy one, but given that they are outside my budget, I'll stick to my Hyundai Ioniq 5 thanks.
If nothing else, in categories with a clear price segmentation, ask what the respondent's likely budget is going to be, factor in the price point of the brand, and only ask about brands they can likely afford. Get the competitive context right, do not include a Ferrari in with a Ford.
Takeaways
After pointing out that consideration correlates with market share Peter states that it is not irrelevant but needs better context. Agreed, but I think it is worth re-iterating why consideration matters and have suggestions for how to make the raw metric even more useful.
Why does consideration matter?
Because changes in consideration often lead changes in purchasing
"Duh!", say some. "Garbage!", say others.
For the record, there is plenty of evidence that consideration leads purchasing in many product and service categories. Thanks to Prof. Koen Pauwels for sharing his paper on the topic in the comments to Peter's post. If the absolute investment and risk are high, most people research their purchase before making it. Here is Dale Harrison's take on the importance of consideration in B2B.
And even if consideration lags purchasing, it is a pretty good indication that people find your brand acceptable, otherwise they would not consider it again. (This said, most brands offer a decent experience, so do not expect rejection rates to be large.)
Because consideration anticipates which brand people search for
Peter Buckley mentions that action-based metrics like search might act as short-term indicators of long-term growth.
Over the last few years, marketer's attention has focused on the relationship between changes in organic Share of Search (SOS) and changes in market share, but what brands do people search for? The ones they can think of and consider. Whatever the product or service category, most buyers have a set of brands that they will consider for purchase and usually end up buying one of them. See Koen Pauwels paper if you don't accept the logic.
(Does search anticipate long-term growth? Given that search is likely limited to in-market buyers, I think that assertion only holds for the typical consideration window.)
Because consideration allows you to get inside people's minds
Most marketers today seem to prefer basing their insights on behavioral data not attitudes. "Behavior does not lie!", they proclaim. Yes, it does. Behavioral data is rarely representative, often dirty and out-of-date, and very much subject to the marketer's interpretation (which is why so many like it).
By contrast, attitudinal data is your one chance to get some insight into why people do the things they do (or not do). To Peter Buckley's point, consideration data lets you understand which brands people would consider in relation to specific needs or Category Entry Points (CEPs).
If that does not convince you that consideration is worth using, time to quit reading. However, if you are at least open minded, read on for how we might use it better.
How might consideration be made more useful?
Use Excess Share of Consideration (ESOC)
Peter Buckley's number one recommendation is to look how consideration deviates from market share. Spot on. Here's how to do it.
When we analyze share of voice, we subtract market share to see if a brand is spending more than its fair share. If a brand has a higher SOV than its SOM – referred to as ESOV or Excess SOV – then market share is likely to grow next year. We do the same when we are looking at Share of Search. Why not consideration? The same logic applies. Create a share of consideration, subtract the brand's existing share of usage, and you will have a measure that predicts growth based on all category buyers, not just the ones who search for a brand by name. Let's call it ESOC.
(If a brand is strongly associated with specific CEPs, then buyers may head straight to the store, the brand's website, or the e-commerce platform of their choice rather than searching for it. The proportion of buyers that skip the search process will vary from category to category.)
Analyze in-market and out-market buyers separately
Peter Buckley suggests separating buyers of a brand from non-buyers, this recommendation is a complement to that strategy.
Surveying all category buyers is likely going to be less sensitive to change than SOS because most of the people interviewed are going to be out-market, i.e., they are not actively engaged with the buying process and may change the brands in their consideration set by the time they do get round to buying your category. (Prof. Koens? This is why you find attitudes are a long-term predictor.) Solutions might be to limit your survey to people likely to buy soon or to have a big enough sample to focus on active buyers. However, this would likely only give you a marginally different understanding than SOS.
The advantage of asking brand consideration of out-market buyers is that the objective of brand marketing is to reach and influence out-market buyers so that when the time does come to buy your brand is included in as many people's consideration sets as possible. So, it is still useful to know if your ESOC is positive or negative because it might signal longer-term opportunities or threats. Further, a survey allows you to take the analysis down to the CEP level to see which ones are more strongly associated with your brand.
Take price point into account
Someone commented in reply to Peter's post that they would consider a Ferrari but not buy one. Duh! If a Ferrari cost $50,000 I might buy one, but given that they are outside my budget, I'll stick to my Hyundai Ioniq 5 thanks.
If nothing else, in categories with a clear price segmentation, ask what the respondent's likely budget is going to be, factor in the price point of the brand, and only ask about brands they can likely afford. Get the competitive context right, do not include a Ferrari in with a Ford.
Takeaways
If you really want to know whether your brand is likely to grow or not, do not rely on short-term behavioral data. Take pride in being old school and conduct a survey, ask for brand consideration, but do it right and analyze the data appropriately. You never know, you might learn something new!
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