What do customers want?

Do you remember the film – a romantic-comedy – entitled “What Women Want” (2000); starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt? In it Nick Marshall (Gibson), an advertising executive, accidentally electrocutes himself while trying / using various women products the night before a marketing pitch for a key account; something he was experimenting with in order to understand better what women want.

The simpler you make the purchasing journey for your consumers the better- Kevin-James Fenech

If you’ve seen the film you’ll remember that he slips into his bathtub while holding an electric hairdryer and wakes up the next morning with this extraordinary ability to hear women’s innermost thoughts. In the words of Dr. Perkins (his therapist “If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, and you can speak Venutian, the world can be yours.”

Obviously, the film is pure fiction and business people, entrepreneurs or managers need not go to such far-fetched extremes to know what their customers want. Recent research by Patrick Spenner and Karen Freeman, in which they surveyed more than 7,000 consumers and interviewed circa 200 marketing executives, representing 125 consumer brands in 12 industries globally, contends that consumers ultimately want just one thing: simplicity.

Let’s be honest: consumers are overloaded with marketing information and messages. We are bombarded with sms messages, requests to “Like” a social media page, newsletters, e-invitations, “gifts”, paid adverts, TV ads, billboards, etc. Consumers are constantly being bombarded by the major brands by up anything in the region of 100-200 times per year by some over-zealous brands.

What, however, these same brands don’t realise is that too much choice or too much information can be off-putting. A survey conducted by market-research firm Yankelovich found in 2004 [and it is probably much worse today] that two-thirds of respondents felt “constantly bombarded with too much marketing and advertising”. If you are interested in the subject please read: “The Paradox of Choice” by Barry Schwartz.

Therefore, the argument goes, the simpler you make the purchasing journey for your consumers the better. In fact, Spenner and Freeman (2012) have come up with what they call a “decision simplicity index”, which in simple words, means the easier a brand makes the “purchasing journey” (how we decide what to buy) the better the score. Their research shows, argues, that the role of brands must be to simplify consumers’ decision making and to help them navigate the purchase journey.

So less is better. The fewer information sources that a consumer must touch as it moves towards making a purchase, the better. The research work that I am referring to quotes a classic experiment of the then doctoral student Sheena Lyengar (now a professor at Columbia University), who set out pots of jam on supermarket tables in groups of either six or 24. About 30 per cent of those who were given six choices made a purchase whereas only three per cent of those given 24 choices did the same. Again what do consumers want: less.

Marketers and brand specialists commonly claim that customers want three things from brands: (1) To have a relationship with their brand of choice; (2) To interact with their brand of choice (and this helps nurture the relationship;) and (3) Frequent interactions (so as to sustain the relationship).

Presumably, this is why they convince their clients to (ab)use (of) social media; to carry out campaigns so as to maximise the number of people that “Like” their brand; To hold competitions for those same people that “Like” (or “Have to Like”) the brand. To place great big, distracting billboards on our main roads; Yet, highly respectable business research shows that this is self-defeating and only serves to “put-off” your customers. If you are still not convinced let me quote some statistics that might change your mind.

According to Spenner and Freeman (2012 First, only 23 per cent of consumers in their study (that would mean just over two out of ten from a sample of 7,000) said they have a relationship with a brand. The dominant view was that “relationships” are reserved for friends, family and colleagues and not brands. Second, interactions do not build relationships between brand and consumer. Only shared values build relationships.

A classic example being Barcelona FC with its focus on social enterprise (typified by its sponsorship deals) and brand of exciting football (they play to entertain and for the beauty of the game). This admirable branding strategy, is something which many supporters, from all over the world, identify with and is what encourages the same supporters and consumers to have a meaningful relationship with the FC Barcelona (which after all and according to its own slogan, is “More than just a club”).

Third, the more you try to interact with customers the more you put them off and/or they become immune to your marketing efforts. I always quote the example of a teenage boy trying to flirt and court a girl, which he likes. The more he bothers her, the more he fusses over her and the more he tries to be ever present, the less likely he is to attract her. The same applies to brands and consumers; more is not necessarily better.

Returning to the question: What do consumers want? It is simplicity. So spend less on your marketing efforts and be strategic, otherwise run the risk of putting-off your customers just like that inexperienced teenage boy.

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Mr Fenech is managing director of Fenci Consulting Ltd.