This paper gives an integrated framework for marketers to create a truly integrated marketing program that covers the truths of consumer branding, shopper marketing, and social media.

1. F E ATURE
Bridging the
Gap between
Consumer and
Shopper Marketing
Perspectives
Joel Rubinson
The consumer insights/brand teams and the shopper insights/shopper marketing
teams have conflicting perspectives on brands.
The consumer insights team is likely to present a view of to purchase is critical. This worldview leads marketing to
the brand in which market share performance is viewed as realize the importance of shopper marketing and eventually,
the result of consumer preference based on beliefs about when it is mature enough, mobile marketing that facilitates
various brands. Improve performance on driver attributes the shopping process.
and share goes up. This relationship encourages the brand To think introspectively about the limits of brand
team to believe that the brass ring is to engender a strong engagement, keep a one-day brand-use diary. I did so and
level of engagement with consumers, implying that engaged found the following:
consumers account for the (great) majority of brand sales.
In a social age, the marketing teams that follow this line 1. I used an astounding number of brands in a day (nearly
of thinking will try to move as much money as possible 100 by 2:00 p.m.).
out of paid advertising, and place their priorities on social
media engagement. Such brand teams aspire to maximize 2. The great majority of these brands have little meaning for
their Facebook fan base as well as their followers on Twitter me (e.g., the brand of countertop, the maker of the coffee
and now Pinterest. In this worldview, shopping is basically mug, the brand of slippers on my feet).
regarded as the chore someone has to get through to acquire
the brands they prefer and therefore planned to buy. 3. Of those brands that are meaningful to me, most have
acceptable substitutes.
The shopper insights teams would temper this enthusiasm about
engagement marketing. They know that the most preferred 4. Only a handful (10 per cent for me) are brands I care
brand is not automatically bought. about so much that I would have a sense of deprivation if I
The facts: Estimates are that as high as 70 per cent of lost access to them (for me, the short list included Twitter,
brand decisions are made in-store; my own research across 19 Facebook, a particular news channel, Dove, Pantene, Diet
consumer packaged goods categories showed an average of Coke, The New York Yankees).
50 per cent of brand decisions made in-store. Even for loyal
buyers – for example, those buying a brand 50 per cent of If we focus exclusively on brand engagement marketing, we
the time or more – the retention of loyal buyers over time is will not create an effective marketing plan to address the
suspect. Half or more of those loyal to a brand in a given year 85 per cent of brand buyers who are not going to become
are not loyal to the same brand one year later (this finding is extremely attached but who account for half of sales.
consistent between my own brand equity research and analysis If we focus exclusively on shopper marketing, we run the
of Catalina frequent shopper data). risk of not creating meaningful brand differences that can
The implication is that consumers usually have acceptable generate engaged consumers who will be much more valuable
alternatives to consider, so constant persuasion along the path to the brand and, ultimately, of fighting commoditization.
20 vue November 2012

2. F EATUR E
Loyalty Framework: Reconciling the Two Brand Figure 2: Source of growth for a typical 10% share brand
growing to 15%
Growth Perspectives
How do marketers reconcile these perspectives, each with its
own truths, and bring them together into a holistic plan for
brand growth?
I propose that we utilize a framework based on loyalty
segmentation of consumers, and I will show how this
framework brings together the two perspectives, consumer and
shopper, around some surprising insights.
The beta distribution is used to model the distribution
of probabilities of purchase by individual consumers with
respect to a particular brand of interest. For a typical brand
with 10 per cent market share, the distribution of its share
of requirements (i.e., a brand’s share of purchases by a given
consumer) might look like what is presented in figure 1. loyalty. While there is some upshifting, it is not so great, and sales
still must increase from that segment.
Figure 1: Share of requirement distribution for a typical 10%
share brand; avg. category purchase cycle of 12x/year Pinpointing Media Strategies to Affect
Loyalty Segments
Now, the next question is whether or not all media
touchpoints are effective against each of these segments. The
answer is “Unlikely.” A recent analysis of Compete’s data
regarding Facebook fan effects suggests that new Facebook
fans of a brand are already predisposed to the brand, and
therefore the updates or social impressions they see are
disproportionately directed to those who are already loyal.
In other words, Facebook appears to be a touchpoint that
reinforces the brand beliefs of those in the two most favorable
segments, but does little to influence the other segments.
Returning to the discussion of shopper marketing at the
start of this paper, about half of purchase decisions, on average
(depending on the category and brand), are made in the store.
However, it is likely that such shopping styles are characteristic
About 15 per cent of “fringe” buyers will buy your of the two middle groups (“acceptables” and “preferreds”).
brand at least once during the year (at a one-month category Hence, effective shopper marketing and promotional practices
purchase cycle). As such, surprising to many, half of a brand’s will disproportionately affect those in the middle of the curve,
buyers come from this fringe segment, while less than 20 per an effect that is illustrated in figure 3.
cent of buyers are engaged, that is, buy the brand 75 per cent By looking at a brand’s loyalty distribution, we can see how
of the time (or greater) and account for less than half of the shopper and consumer marketing frameworks can dovetail.
brand’s sales. If we add together the “preferred” and “engaged” Shopper marketing operates primarily to win the purchase at
groups, we see that those who prefer a brand still give about 25 retail against the middle of the curve, where consumers have
per cent of their purchases to other brands. more than one acceptable brand and where their preference for
Now let us consider what happens to this distribution if the any given brand does not dominate the decision process.
brand grows to a 15 per cent share. Figure 2 shows what that Consumer marketing’s role is primarily to move people into
would look like. more favorable loyalty segments, and retain them there, based
While the engaged segment must grow the most (the double on brand beliefs.
jeopardy effect), notice that share must increase from each of Consumer and shopper marketing share a responsibility that
the loyalty segments, as opposed to an alternate hypothesis is central to branding and is in common across all segments:
which states that the sales increase would come from engaged the need to give the brand a certain meaning. Brand meaning
and perhaps preferred segments, and that the fringe segment gives shoppers an ability to anticipate, to predict if a potential
contribution would actually go down as people upshift in their purchase will serve their needs.
vue November 2012 21

3. F E ATURE
Figure 3: Mapping touchpoints to loyalty marketing approach that calls for building brand engagement,
placing a premium on social media strategies, is not wrong;
but it is incomplete in light of the high level of active decision-
making that occurs in-store.
Marketers need to develop a fully integrated consumer and
shopper media strategy that is mapped to address each of the
brand loyalty segments. Use advertising and shopper marketing
to build brand meaning that will shift less loyal consumers
toward becoming more loyal. Use social and owned media
to help build a relationship with consumers that will move
their beliefs about a brand to exclusive meaning, leading to
engagement. Use shopper marketing to win the 50 per cent of
purchases at retail that are up for grabs.
From a research point of view, it is important to track the
four loyalty segments. Size the segments, understand what
the key differentiating beliefs are between segments, and
understand how touchpoints map to each of the segments. Set
Brand meaning, if it is exclusive, can lead to moving goals for loyalty segment sizes and purchasing levels, toward
consumers into the preferred and engaged segments. In a brand your brand, such that they tie out to brand growth goals and
equity study, this effect would be reflected by a respondent’s monitor progress. If one of the segments is falling behind its
checking off that a certain brand, and only that brand, stands for goals, it suggests that the part of the marketing plan which
a particular attribute. I call this exclusivity owning an attribute. maps to influencing that segment needs to be dialed up. For
I have found that standing for an attribute versus owning that reason, the tracker needs to be timely, and the marketing/
an attribute is the differentiator between someone’s preferring media plan needs to have the flexibility for adaptive course
a brand versus being engaged with it. However, even if not correction.
exclusive (e.g., I think your salad dressing is high quality, but
I think others are as well), brand meaning feeds the decision References
heuristics that shoppers use so the brand can raise share among Allan L. Baldinger & Joel Rubinson. “Brand Loyalty: The Link
those who only occasionally buy that brand. Between Attitude and Behavior.” Journal of Advertising Research, 1996
(November/December): 22–34.
Brand meaning also can lead to engagement. Brand meaning
can and should extend beyond the functional characteristics of Jack Neff. “This Upfront, P&G May Want to Boost Spend on Piggly
the product. For example, Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty gave Wiggly.” Advertising Age, 2010 (May 3). Available at http://adage.com/
the Dove brand meaning about beauty and female self-esteem, article/news/upfront-p-g-boost-spend-piggly-wiggly/143643/
which reinforced the brand’s values within and beyond the Ooh-tv. “New POPAI Study Shows That 76% of All Purchase
product categories in which it had offerings. Any product with Decisions Are Taken In-Store.” Ooh-tv.com, 2012 (May 29). Available
the Dove name would instantly convey a certain meaning, even at http://en.ooh-tv.com/2012/05/29/new-popai-study-shows-that-76-
of-all-purchase-decisions-are-taken-in-store/
if a shopper did not previously use or know about that product.
How do you influence brand meaning? The obvious answer is David Raab. “CMO Council Study: Customer Loyalty Is Fleeting.”
advertising, but there are other ways as well. For example, brand MPM Toolkit, 2009 (July 6). Available at http://mpmtoolkit.blogspot.
meaning can be built and managed by retail activations where com/2009/07/cmo-council-study-customer-loyalty-is.html
the meaning becomes obvious (e.g., McCormick spices barbeque Joel Rubinson. “Surprising New Study on Facebook Marketing
center, where there is a free-standing supermarket display of a Effectiveness for Brands.” Joel Rubinson on Marketing Research, 2012.
variety of products and spices needed for a successful outdoor Available at http://blog.joelrubinson.net/2012/06/surprising-new-
barbeque). In fact, in 2009, BASES (the leading marketing study-on-facebook-marketing-effectiveness-for-brands/
research service for forecasting the sales potential of new Wikipedia. “Double Jeopardy.” Wikipedia, 2011 (June 5). Available at
products) found that in-store exposure was the greatest source of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_jeopardy_%28marketing%29
brand awareness for new products.
Joel Rubinson is president and founder of Rubinson Partners
Summary and Conclusions Inc., a marketing and research consultancy. He is also on the
By bringing together the perspectives from consumer and faculty of NYU Stern School of Business, where he teaches social
shopper insights into a loyalty framework, we see that the media strategy. Joel can be reached at JoelRubinson@gmail.com
22 vue November 2012