*supercollider

Tom Asacker over at A Clear Eye points out that anyone in the design and marketing field should consider themselves a Choice Architect, as ultimately that’s our job: influencing consumer choice.

At my previous company I spent a lot of time trying to push viewpoints in a similar direction: ultimately we should be aiming to create preference for a brand, advocacy of that brand, and loyalty to that brand.

Seems obvious right? The problem was those attitudes and actions are a lot harder to measure than the traditional metric of awareness, which takes a single survey. Often agencies wouldn’t even bother with the survey, and just rely on metrics like reach and impressions. The problem is that measuring reach and impressions tells you very little, and awareness not much better. None of those things actually tell you what if any impact the marketing is actually having. I can be aware of the Ford brand, but it definitely doesn’t mean I prefer it, and the comments in this AdAge article really show the difference.

For brands to be focused on awareness as a goal in and of itself seems like a colossal missed opportunity. Start from the place you want to end up, and then build your brand with that in mind. If you want people to advocate and continue to purchase your product over your competitors, then you need to look at providing a customer experience that is positive from start to finish. Marketing fits into that — it should add value to the customer somehow rather than just adding to the existing signal pollution like most ad campaigns still do.

If you start from the premise that all you want is for customers to be aware of your ad campaign, then don’t be surprised when that’s the sum total of the business impact you’ll have.

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preference, advocacy, loyalty, brand, awareness, reach, marketing