How Do Things Actually“Go Viral?”
Folks from Stanford & Microsoft analyzed the spread of over 600 millllllion things on Twitter during 2011-12: news, videos, photos, etc.
Turns out, the the biggest hits aren’t ‘viral’.
Are you dead-set on refreshing your brand?
If you’re doing a brand refresh, there’s one key rule: if you have any equity in your brand, don’t throw it away.
Pleeeeeease.
Instead, build on what’s already in people’s minds.
Are you tracking trends for long enough?
Covid changed everything. Except when it didn’t.
F’rinstance, weekly new business applications in the US are now up 40% vs pre-pandemic. And that number doesn’t look like it’s going back down.
How bad is the “average” ad?
How bad is the “average” ad?
Turns out it’s, uh, pretty bad.
And it’s even worse for B2B brands.
Did “Got Milk?” Got Sales?
The “Got Milk?” campaign is famous, lauded, & iconic.
Nearly 300 celebs participated over 2 decades. Even Yoda had a milk mustache in ‘99.
But did it work? “Look at the data, you must.”
Is 100% brand loyalty normal or freakish?
We love to fantasize about the brand loyalist.
You know: the one who only ever ever exclusively buys Levi’s, or Tito’s, or Sony. (Sony’s?)
But for nearly every category, they’re the outliers. They’re the freaks.
What helps new brands grow the most?
Launching a new brand is harrrd. And most new brands fail.
But of all the things you can do, what drives growth the most?
Ataman, Mela, and van Heerde dissected how the 4 P’s of the Marketing Mix impact brand launches (not line extensions).
Do people know about your cause marketing program?
All 87 of these popular brands DO have cause marketing programs. Some are long, well-established programs & campaigns.
But DoSomething Strategic polled 1,900 people aged 13-25 & found out that most of The Kids — don’t forget, “they buy based on values!” — have no clue.
Why do People Forget About Your Brand?
This is essentially the first Law of Brand Science: you’re trying to get people to buy your brand, and the first hurdle is, they can’t even remember where they put their keys, much less remember your brand.
How Much Do B2B Buyers Really Shop Around?
To find out, Bain & Company surveyed over 1,200 people at US companies who help procure hardware, software, logistics, equipment, cloud services, marketing, etc.
Turns out, 80-90% of them already have a clear set of brands in mind before they even start shopping.
And 90% of them pick a brand from that initial consideration set. (That’s like 70-80% of all B2B buyers.) Yowza!
Should you use ROI to measure your advertising?
(Especially don’t trust in-platform measures of ROI. They’re incomplete, speculative, and, well, designed to make the platform look good.)
To boot, 99% of your future buyers are building consideration sets in their minds today for purchases they’ll make next [week month year].
So maybe use ROI to measure ad efficiency.
What are the odds your small business will survive?
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has data for 19MM small companies born over the past 30 years.
About half make it past their 5th birthday. And 1 in 5 make it to legal drinking age (21).
But “survival of the fittest” applies too: the odds of living for another year hit 90% after 4 years, and plateau at around 95.5% after 17 yrs.
Is first-mover advantage a law of brand science?
is it even a real thing?
But second, is it a scientific law (as some assert)?
Lots of data suggest it’s… complicated.
Is it time to ditch generational labels?
Should we stop making sweeping statements about Gen-Z and Boomers?
F’rinstance, Pew Research Center found that there are absolutely generational differences in the probability of 22-38-yr-olds being married. The Silent Generation had a 68% chance of being married in that age range, whereas Millennials only have a 38% chance.
But those shifts were basically smooth & LINEAR
How small is your shopper’s consideration set?
How many brands in your category do they even consider buying?
McKinsey found that initial consideration sets for major purchases can be tiny: 3.8 for cars, and only 1.7 for computers.
And we only consider 1 or 2 more brands while we shop.
What recurring trigger could your brand stick to?
Most ads have a very predictable ‘exponential decay’ in their impact — if they get noticed at all. They spike & then fade away.
One brilliant thing you can do: link your brand to a RECURRING TRIGGER that comes up regularly in people’s lives.
Geico did just that with their ”Hump Day” spot, where Carl the Camel goads his colleagues into saying “Hump day”.
How much should you fear brand haters?
9% of the time, haters aren’t your biggest issue.
The good folks at @CivicScience surveyed over 27,000 people about their opinions of Dick’s Sporting Goods and R.E.I. (the 2nd and 11th largest sporting goods retailers — in the world).
It turns out, haters are usually dwarfed by the indifferent: people who have no opinion or never heard of you.
Are you “controlling for size” in your brand studies?
You do a brand tracker or a U&A. You ask people how the brands rate on all the category attributes: “good for my family”, “trustworthy”, “healthy”, etc.
You find out that 2 brands are about tied, and the third brand (in orange here) has lower scores across the board.
Do you freak out and think, “Oh man! Orange is a weak brand!” Nope.
Do nonprofits follow the laws of brand growth?
Does brand science apply to charities and foundations and donors and stuff?
TL;DR: yes.
F’rinstance, all brands have a banana curve of buyers. Not a bell curve. Not a flat line. Not a loyal lump.
Big brands have bigger *ahem* bananas than small ones. But they don’t have a different shape or distribution
Well, if you swap ‘customers’ with ‘donors’, you see the same laws apply to nonprofits.