March….
Evoked set of responses for the month of March….spring, green beer, perhaps regional weather conditions, but almost assuredly: March Madness. In researching the origin of March Madness it appears that basketball pairings accompanied by insatiable fans has been around since 1930 when Henry V. Porter coined the term March Madness as the title article written for the IHSA magazine Illinois Interscholastic.

If you haven’t already completed your brackets, or thrown a few bucks into the office pool, you may not get the gist of this month’s blog. But if you follow positioning and competitive review, stand by; it will all be covered.

Observing my son and my husband collaborate on the science of bracketology was an ethnographical study for which I was ill prepared. For I had presumptuously thought that the strategic selection of who would advance to the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, Final Four or Championship would have been based on a solid competitive review of statistics, coaching, historical perspective, trend analysis, pairings and perhaps even the scouting reports of experts. Not so. Duke was eliminated simply because my son and husband refused to allow themselves to place those four letters alongside each other as that would somehow cheapen their allegiance to UNC. Alas I have in my midst newly pledged brothers of the Binghamton Bearcats fraternal fan base, or perhaps they are fully initiated members of the Alpha Beta Delta chapter….Anyone But Duke.

After watching the process of selection by these two brilliant men; one mid -forty with the mindset of an engineer and one nearing adolescence with the mindset of victory at all costs, I witnessed a strange phenomenon rarely expressed by these two. They were actually acting upon….emotions. Emotions and loyalty and experiences were being pulled into this process, even though a clear investment was on the line.

Now how can this be?

This is the behavior of consumers who consciously or subconsciously associate themselves with specific reference groups and also have a sagacity of who or what to disassociate themselves with/from. Remember Sully and his life saving ditch on the Hudson? Those Bostonians were certainly grateful to be pulled from the water, but watch the interview…it pained them that New Yorkers….Yankee fans….were part of the process. They have spent their lives being dedicated loyal Red Sox fans and being rescued by a Yankee fan…well it certainly added some interest to the news story.

As we approach our intended audience, buyers or consumers, we must realize that a number of emotions, experiences, and linking ideas are swept into the decision process. Focusing on the tangibles of our offerings prevents us from providing our customers with the entire storyline to our products and services. We must develop the plot, the setting, the characters of the pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase experiences so that our consumers are not simply reading or watching our story. They must be a critical role and be a part of the story to ensure that our brand and offerings are flagged and stored into memory with emotion. We must also understand what types of emotions are linked to our competitors by the same set of decision makers. You product may not seem “peppy” or “sincere” but ask your consumers to describe your product in terms of emotions and other intangible characteristics and you may be surprised by your findings. Determine what they say about your competitors....even better.

As buyers we do not intend to act emotionally on our purchases. We approach the decisions with information, personal historical perspective, opinion leaders’ recommendations, a full array of formal or informal research to help us make the best choice. We believe that we are being rational; we also think we are prudent and careful, just as economics teaches us to be. But in the moment, when it comes time to associate ourselves with a product or distance ourselves from a product, it isn’t always isolated to specifics, details, attribute, features or prices. It comes down to which purchase is more satisfying to our psyche. Which item fits into the “position” in our mindset?

My father-in-law likes to argue with me about this concept. He claims he pays no attention to advertising or anything that might cause him to act irrationally. He insists that he always buys the private label brand just to “show” those name brands…hmm…doesn’t that sound like dissassociative behavior? Knowing that he is also a trivia buff, and after waiting about a half an hour after his initial “I am a rational consumer” assertion. I said, “Daddad, does your bologna have a first name?” He immediately started singing a familiar jingle…and I responded with “aha”. Though he is adamant that advertising has no effect on his purchases, he could not argue that it did not have an effect on his memory. Private label loyal consumers still must have identified the other choices in order to evaluate. Daddad could not remove that jingle from his memory and therefore the association with bologna was not the store brand, but the name brand. And by the way, private label loyal consumers are not different than brand loyal consumers. The loyalty, the reference group and the consistency of the behavior is what we as marketers hope to achieve. Daddad is part of the private label loyal consumer storyline and his attitude, “name brand ads have no effect on me” helps build that character profile. Giant Foods, Publix, Kroger…they spent just as much time ensuring that the Daddads of the world have a positive experience with their private labels, they just don’t bother to craft catchy jingles…yet.
Duke went on to win, and my husband and son moved back several positions in their pool. Without a doubt it was ultimately very satisfying to hope that Duke might have lost. For it is better to lose money in a pool, rather than to ever elevate Duke up a bracket. Madness!

If you are weary of the madness displayed by your audience, and you would like your consumers to be a part of your storyline, just ASK. dcolemanaskcommunications@gmail.com