Last year I wrote an essay on advertising’s effectiveness. I looked at the extent everything from television commercials to billboards had on consumer decision making process. Because it was an extremely expansive topic and I didn’t spend a lot of time with it, I didn’t come out with any particularly concrete answers. But since I wrote it, I’ve constantly been thinking about the influences advertising has on people in the form of Mind Share.
Basically, mind share relates to the extent to which a brand holds the attention of a consumer. I don’t have any scientific evidence, but I believe products that have a greater share of my brain jump off the shelf at me. For example, when I go into Safeway to stock up on chips and soda I naturally spot Coca-Cola and Doritos first. Definitely not because they have the sharpest designs, I’d say Kettle Chips are nicer to look at from what I remember, but I digress… I see the Coke products because there are a million choices all within the same price range and all with marginally different tastes. It’s just too much effort to consider all my options when the Canucks game is starting in 15 minutes. I can’t spend time analyzing brands of soda that I’ve never seen or tasted before. I go with the one I trust simply for the sake of getting on with my life.
In that scenario, I think mind share plays a massive role in my selection.
When I really start thinking about it, I feel as though the concept of mind share can be broken down into several parts. First, advertising attempts to impose qualities and attributes they desire their brand to have. Depending on which chip flavor I go into Safeway craving, the brand that best represents that tasteual experience will jump out at me. The other side is the visual side, probably more realistic and tangible. The more I see advertising from a company and experience their colors, tones, logos, etc., the more likely I will be to pick those out of a massive aisle filled with competing products. I suppose it really goes hand in hand with the psychological attributes of a brand. The logo or packaging is merely used to ignite those psychological qualities.
What best demonstrates this concept is when I walk into the Asian foods aisle. I never see advertisements for noodles and spices (do Soya Sauce makers even run ads?!). Therefore when I walk down this aisle I am completely unencumbered by knowledge that, first of all may be a complete fabrication and secondly may unwittingly influence my decision. So when I am looking for Soya Sauce, I actually spend the time analyze what I’m buying I look at everything from its name and logo to the calories and cooking instructions on the side.
It’s quite a treat shopping for something new, because you realize there’s more to the world than the products you see on television.
It’s both a blessing and a curse being influenced by advertising. On the one hand I make it home for the opening faceoff, but on the other hand I am probably missing out on a lot of great alternatives to things I buy without a second thought.
It’s funny that the amount of choices we have in life really become moot because, well… lets face it, there are just too many choices.