Branding in the Digital Age

Branding in the Digital Age (David C. Edelman, Harvard Business Review): 

Since moving to a digital age, the way that consumers interact with products and choice has changed drastically and consumers connect with brands in a fundamentally different way. The way that consumers used to engage with brands was described using a funnel metaphor. The consumer begins with many brands and options to choose from and over time they funnel down their options to fewer and fewer brands until they make their final choice and purchase. In June 2009 David Court and three co-authors at McKinsey and Company described a more nuanced approach to how consumers interact with brands: the “consumer decision journey”. Essentially this model describes 2 feedback loops. The outer loop is how a consumer engages with a new brand, they consider the product, evaluate it and then buy. If they are satisfied they will engage in a smaller loyalty loop where they enjoy the product/brand, advocate for it, bond with the brand and repurchase from that same brand. Furthermore, in the digital age, consumers are overwhelmed by the sheet amount of choice. Companies tend to spend 70%-90% of their marketing in advertising and retail promotions, hitting the consumer at the buy stage, however, in the digital age, consumers are much more influenced during the evaluate and enjoy-advocate-bond stages, thus more attention should be allocated to those steps. Additionally, companies must consider owned media which is media the brand controls and earned media which is customer created channels. Thus, a company must effectively influence consumers during the influential stages and also consider media that is not only owned but earned for maximal consumer outreach, retention and loyalty.

The Loyalty Loop Graphically