In my consumer behavior class yesterday, the professor began a discussion on brand loyalty, and how it applies to the decisions we make. She brought up the point that marketers shouldn’t be interested in getting a consumer to “re-buy” but rather should create a relationship that makes a connection preventing the consumer from selecting alternatives.
One particular slide in the deck began to break my brain, but instead of daydreaming the remainder of the class away, I just noted to post here and pay attention to the rest. Here’s that slide:
Both inertia and commitment are valid reasons for brand loyalty, but from the marketer’s perspective, most would rather have loyalty based on the latter than the former. Of course there’s a cost benefit here, and any commitment that is based on inertia is (I assume) cheaper to maintain, but the risk of switching behavior involved between the two is on opposite ends of a spectrum. I’m sure you will come up with whatever brands that you have connections to and see how your loyalties are structured, but for me, almost instinctively, the newspaper industry was the first association that I made.
The Wall Street Journal best exemplifies the notion of commitment and as a result is in the best position to profit in the internet news era. Each of the three bullets of commitment can be clearly connected to the stereotypical biznassman reader. Whereas inertia is far too typical for most of the other big dailies, their inability to create a sustainable relationship with the reader, i.e. a brand loyalty, is one of the reasons behind the failures of Rocky Mountain News et al — and as a result when access to better content, as hammered on here and here and here became ubiquitous why they fell into the dead pool of the past.
At the same time, it’s not just the WSJ that has a monopoly on the committed reader. There is tremendous unlocked value in another market segment of the newspaper industry — community newspapers. Their niche focus is the value proposition that will allow them to make it thru the recession while the larger dailies topple and die. Whether this is a discussion on the notion of community (or lack of one on a larger level) or on brand loyalty is beyond this post, even with the internet, local papers are best suited in providing the needs and wants of their ur-consumer, consistent with coverage of community, and help extend that community by their reportage.
Tags: community, death, media, newspapers, rebirth
I appreciate the shout-out, but I’m not sure the RMN has do much with brand loyalty so much as the second thing you cite — content. Content is king, and the WSJ offers content on a “daily” basis that nobody else does. The RMN and all other dailiy newspapers — as opposed to financial paper(s) — suffers for two reasons: the loss of classifieds, and, if there is a “brand loyalty” loss, it’s because so much news that used to come exclusively from the source (as in world news more in-depth than the TV news) you can get in 3 seconds on the web. You could argue that the RMN was the Chris Dodd of the newspaper industry — they may have closed their operations before other papers, but that doesn’t mean the other papers are doing something smart by keeping their doors open and raging against the dying of the light. Better to figure out what you’re going to do next, and fast, than try to adapt your outmoded content delivery system.
I don’t really believe in brand loyalty, really, btw. Or I acknowledge that it happens, but it’s not something that should be relied upon, because if you’re making an inferior product your spot can be blown up in seconds. My spot was blown up when I moved from Cheese-Itz to Cheese Nips. That’s not really a joke, either. It’s all quality.
I agree that content is king, but the customer matters as well. WSJ does provide fresh reporting, however they know exactly who their customer is and have been able to scale their production to match his needs. Generalizing here, but RMN, Knight Ridder et al, would piggyback content, and throw in some homegrown articles b/c that was the only differentiator between them and the others. Did they have a focused customer, or were they trying to hit every single person? They died not only because of the content, but because they didnt understand the shift in the methodology of consumption. The distribution channel blew up in the last 10 years, and newspapers have been reeling since.
In contrast, the local papers still have their niche, still have their local advertising, and still ahve their local readers. Granted they make no margins, but they do survive.
Right — that’s why the Queens papers still actually make money. (And my magazine as well).
But I think we’re talking about the same thing. “Did they have a focused customer, or were they trying to hit every single person?” is a question the local newspaper industry never had to ask until now because they had a near monopoly on delivery and ad space. The WSJ was created to fill a niche, and thus had asked that question at the beginning. The only two newspapers that “work” anymore are the NYT and WaPo, which had focused customers of Park Slope mommies and the Beltway, respectively, and act basically like trade magazines for those areas the same way the WSJ does for Wall St.