Underpants Gnomes Marketing

The Underpants Gnomes are characters in the popular South Park cartoon series. And they have a simple three-step business plan

Steal people’s underpants

 

Profits

They haven’t quite figured out step 2 yet.

 

 

As humorous as this is, many marketers follow the same approach to marketing.

Increase awareness and perceptions

 

Increase sales

We take it on faith that SOMETHING will happen at step 2 to generate a purchase. I call this “Underpants Gnomes Marketing”.

 

This is the old model of marketing: fill a customer’s mind with awareness and positive perceptions and it will eventually translate into sales. But every marketer can point to awareness campaigns that did not increase sales.  

 

Sometimes increased awareness and improved perceptions will result in increased sales, especially for low-involvement purchases like gum and breakfast cereal. But Underpants Gnomes Marketing will lead to increased sales, only if

 

1. The customer’s purchase behavior is driven primarily by brand perceptions. This is frequently not true. Behavioral scientists point out that customer behavior is complicated. People often make unreasonable decisions, driven by emotion or convenience or even driven below conscious thought. Customers may purchase the product that is available at their favorite store, or that their neighbor showed them, or that is being sold by the most attractive sales rep.

 

2. Advertising significantly improves brand perceptions. This is often not true. Customers are very efficient at filtering the hundreds or thousands of marketing messages they are exposed to every day, and brand perceptions may be driven more by their experience with your product than with your banner ads.

 

There ARE situations where the customer’s behavior is not driven solely by the brand, and where advertising is not the best way to influence the brand in any case. In these cases, we need a new model for marketing.

 

Step 2: Change Behaviors

 

Step 2 should be “Change Behavior.” In fact, I would argue that the goal of marketing is NOT to increase awareness and improve perceptions, it is to change behavior.

 

Sometimes increasing awareness is the best way to change behavior. But often, it’s not sufficient.

 

Before releasing their marketing campaign, marketers need to ask themselves three important questions

1. What behavior is this going to change?
2. Is this campaign realistically going to change that behavior?
3. Is there another way to change that behavior that would be more effective?

 

Try this as an experiment.

1. Imagine you are in a room watching the customer make a purchase decision. Maybe you sell computers and want to influence sales in the retail store. Imagine your customer strolling the aisles, looking at the Dell and Toshiba and Acer machines, the sales clerk is hovering nearby.
2. Now ask yourself – what behavior do I want to change in this scene? Do I want the sales rep singing the praises of my machine over all the others? Do I want the customer demanding my machine and refusing to look at any other?
3. Now imagine you could physically step into this scene. What would you say to make that behavior happen? (or, imagine someone else could physically step into this scene. Who would this person be? The store manager? A famous celebrity?) Perhaps the best way to influence the customer would be to have Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie sitting at a table and doing a demo of your machine.
4. What emotion does that generate in the customer? Excitement to meet a celebrity and have something to brag to your friends about? Sexual attraction? Awe? This is really important. Emotion is more effective than logic for changing behavior. Notice that nothing in here has anything to do with how your screen is 15% brighter or your laptop is only 4.5 lbs. Product features are not always strong motivators to change behavior.
5. What tactics could generate those same feelings? Can you play a video on each of your machines with Brad and Angelina speaking? Can you hire celebrity impersonators to work in the stores once a month?  

At a minimum, you will have a more realistic idea of what it will take to change the behaviors you need to change, and a way to evaluate and direct your current marketing programs. At a maximum, you may develop a breakthrough marketing campaign that has a significant impact on sales.