Brand Promiscuity with Devora Rogers | Ep. 175

Welcome to another informative episode of Data Gurus! Sima is excited to have Devora Rogers, Chief Strategy Officer for Alter Agents, joining her today to talk about the book she recently co-authored with Rebecca Brooks, called Influencing Shopper Decisions: Unleash the Power of Your Brand to Win Customers. Devora’s book In the book, Devora and Rebecca connect their journeys, careers, and their boss’s journeys with their historical perspectives to show people how market research has evolved, why it is the way it is today and things we need to rethink due to the way the world has changed. Motivation Devora and Rebecca have worked together as research partners since 2008. Early on in their working relationship, they began working on proving how emerging media was and would continue impacting purchasing decisions because that was not clear at that point. They wanted to give marketers a sense of the roles social media, mobile, or digital out-of-home were going to have on their marketing efforts. Google Fourteen years ago, Google started doing extensive and ground-breaking B2B studies to prove that people were using the internet to research products and buy things. That motivated Devora and Rebecca to begin their research. The foundation of their work The foundation of their work began with the idea that shoppers were doing more research than ever before. Shopper promiscuity Promiscuous behavior is about being open and unbound. Promiscuous readers, for example, will read anything. Davora and Rebecca began to see that behavior in shoppers too. They opened to brands, products, and content, in ways that never existed fifteen, ten, or even five years ago. They are also willing to switch brands- even after a lifetime commitment to a particular brand. What is behind shopper promiscuity? More information than ever before is accessible. More people are consuming the information. More innovation is happening. There is no limit to what is available and when and where they are available. We are surrounded by information and choices. That has impacted us by making us more promiscuous, more open to trying new things, and less loyal to brands. An opportunity for brands to shift Shopper promiscuity has allowed brands to shift to become content creators, PR specialists, and values-driven, and also express what they are committed to and what they are willing to stand up for. Brand narcissism In part of the book, they describe what brand narcissism is. (It is much like going on a date with a needy person, and it no longer meets the needs of shoppers who have changed fundamentally.) Growing brands For brands to continue growing, they need a platform for listening and an approach that allows them to be informed continually because the needs of consumers can change rapidly. A shift in power Retailers used to have all the power. Then, things shifted, and brands began to call the shots. Now, we have reached a point where shoppers hold all the power. Source usage  Source usage is a metric Davora and Rebecca created when trying to understand what people do before they buy something. It refers to the discreet touch-points people use at each phase of their buying process. Net influence Net influence calculates whether a particular source was influential for more people than it was not influential. It produces a quadrant chart that tells marketers where to find the most people or the right people they can influence to say “yes”. It also reveals the marketing campaigns of competitors’ brands. Changing shopper values  One way that shopper values are changing is that there is an overall increase in awareness of issues that impact the supply chain, manufacturing, and best practices as they relate to employee labor practices. Respect for shoppers’ data, and the safety of it, have been increasing over the past year as people become more knowledgeable. Those impacted by Covid are far more likely to rate the corporate social res...