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Make Customer See The Invisible

‘Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go’, said Oscar Wilde.

Regardless of which one you belong to – ‘some’ or ‘others’ – we all wish to leave behind a trace of our presence. Why then, don’t we want our brands to do the same!

Human memory is short. Publics’ even shorter. More so when it comes to brands. Especially the ones that either don’t have a physical manifestation or those that don’t leave a hint of their existence once they are consumed.

Some brands are publicly observable. The car you drive, self-introduces to others. The jeans you wear talks to others even before you do. The laptop you carry logs in its presence every time you open it. Reason why these brands lend themselves well to better word of mouth. People see them. They talk about them.

Some brands are private. The lipstick you sell, ironic for something that’s put on the lips, stays silent. It may be attractive but it doesn’t tell others its name. The bank you bank on, may make your money talk, but it doesn’t speak about itself to others.

Such brands struggle to generate the word of mouth that comes easily to brands that are publicly visible. They are out of sight and out of mind. Since they are out of mind they are out of mouth!

If you want your ‘invisible’ brands to be remembered, recalled and relished even after they are used, you need to make them talk. And make people talk about it. For which you need to make the brand leave behind a reminder.…. a Behavioural Residue!

Behavioral residue is a physical indicator that you either let your brand have or a leave behind that reminds people even after it’s installed, consumed and not visible. It’s a smart marketing ploy to ensure your brand is seen even when it remains hidden!

There are two ways to increase the visibility of your ‘invisible’ brand. You could make the private brand and the aftermath of its consumption public. Or you can make it advertise itself through smart thinking.

If you are smart, you will do them both. Together!

Rocotile is a roof tool tile that is laid on the terrace of buildings that wards off sunlight and cools the room temperature below by a good 11 degrees. Once the tile is laid on the terrace, there is nothing about it that reminds the customer or the visitors. Rocotile, once sold, becomes invisible. To make matters difficult, Rocotile doesn’t advertise much either. And if these weren’t enough, the category is filled with big brands with bigger budgets. Yet, how does Rocotile succeed and surpass all of them?

Rocotile promises customers that their home will feel like Switzerland when they lay the tiles on the terrace. Contrary to most empty marketing promises, in this case, customers actually feel the difference. It does cool the home as much as it claims.

When customers get what they are promised, they not just happy but they also feel obliged to the brand. That’s what Rocotile capitalizes on. Post installation of the tiles, Rocotile offers the customer a gift. A well-designed aesthetic plaque with the words ‘Welcome to Switzerland’. A plaque so beautifully done that customers happily hang them at the entrance or in their halls.

It not only reminds the customer about Rocotile, it also becomes a conversation starter when visitors come home. And, invariably, the customer explains about Rocotile, how they had it installed on their terrace and how it has made the home feel a whole lot cooler etc. A simple behavioural residue that turns into a smart marketing tool.

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Rationally speaking, emotions win!

In the mid-70s, hundreds of supermarkets across America were busy serving two unmarked glasses of cola to unsuspecting customers. Unknown to them, one was Coke and other was Pepsi. People were asked to taste both, without knowing which one was which, and were to tell researchers which tasted better.

More than half the respondents preferred Pepsi. Even Pepsi was surprised. Researchers, academicians and practioners were stunned. How can Coke that was beating Pepsi almost three to one in the market trail the very same brand in blind tests!

Many theories were proposed about what came to be known as ‘The Pepsi Challenge’. Every one of them had their share of critics. The reason remained a mystery like the Kennedy assassination or Area 51.

Twenty-eight years later, Dr. Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Lab at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, decided to do the test once again. Only this time he used fMRI to measure the brains of people who were made to taste Pepsi and Coke in another blind test.

Again, more than half the respondents preferred Pepsi. Not just their mouths, their brains voted for Pepsi too. There was activity in the ventral putamen region of the brain – the region that’s stimulated when it likes the taste!

In the experiment’ next stage, Dr. Read let everyone know what they were actually tasting. Put simply, the respondents were revealed the identity of the brand before they tasted it.

This time 75% said they preferred Coke. That was not the only funny activity that was noticed. fMRI noticed a marked change within respondents’ brains. In addition to the ventral putamen, there was activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, the region for higher thinking and discernment.

Do you see what’s happening here?

The two different areas of the brain – Rational and Emotional – were engaged in a fist fight. A rational thought – taste – was competing with emotional thoughts – Coke’s history, it being seen the original cola, childhood memories etc – and was winning!

Dr. Read’s verdict: Emotion trounces rationality.

Not to be left behind, psychologists at Princeton University did another experiment. Random students were asked if they would take an Amazon gift voucher for $15 right away or if would they would wait for two weeks to get a $20 Amazon gift voucher.

Brain scans done by the Princeton psychologists revealed that both gift options triggered activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex, the brain area that generates emotion. But the choice of getting a gift voucher right away caused stimulation in the limbic areas of the brains that’s primarily responsible for our emotions.

Simply put, rationality was on a warpath with emotions again, inside the brain. Guess what happened?

The more the person was excited, the more he or she chose the immediate gratification of opting for $15 gift voucher. The $20 voucher should have been the logical choice but emotions were trouncing rationality lock, stock and barrel.

Heart rules. Head bows!

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