WHY really matters in influencing consumers buying habits

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business Values, Innovation 01/06/201601/09/2025Comments are Disabled

WHY Customers’ BUY

WHY really matters in influencing consumers buying habits in today markets. Back in the early 1980’s customers used to buy what companies made, went where they sold it ,and bought what they promoted. That was the age of big marketing and sales budgets, when big adverts worked. Driving demand through pushing products down channels, offering promotion and celebrity endorsement to generate business.

By the late 1980’s the age of the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) dominated: we are special because….. so you will buy’! So the world did as it was told: “we make what you want because we tell you want you want because we know about your needs”. This relied upon trust in a brand by the public, which in a pre-internet world gave complete control to the brand and the consumer relied on marketing messages coming out.

People buy if they trust the brand they are buying from. In the 1980’s people trusted brands because no-one questioned them. A lack of information coupled with a belief in household names meant that people’s buying decisions were based upon a limited width of information upon which all buying decisions were made.

Today the world has changed. The sources of information have increased dramatically. The transparency required by companies is now at a level of how the organisation operates. Every aspect of what and how a company operates is under total scrutiny from a whole range of pressure and interest groups. Every aspect of ever action is recorded, analysed and evaluated. Business leaders today live in a totally transparent world, and the measures of trust are now very different.

Trust, the intangible combination of character and competence which all successful brands must develop and sustain is mad cup of a whole series of complex elements. The importance of ethics in today’s business is an essential characteristic which purchasers expect their brand to portray in envy aspect of its behaviour. That makes it a key priority for leaders’ to focus on within their role.

Honest is Essential in WHY Consumers Buy.

Ethics came play such an important element of purchase decisions at the same time as the age of information changed what people could find out about a brand. As the internet began its infancy, the power of globalisation was laid bare by the internet. People asked as much about how companies did things as well as what those products did for the buyer?

Where products were sourced, made, shipped and by whom now became important. Why were the premium footballs, such as those which David Beckham kicked, being made by blind children in India for a few rupees. Why were the clothes models wore being made in sweat shops where workers earned less than for a dollar a day? Honest is now essential not just in how a brand portrays itself but in its complete supply chain, marketing activity and in its contribution to the world it operates within.

A Business Cannot Hide its Activities

The internet changed how the media could communicate, explaining how household names operated and could afford those huge marketing budgets. This forced companies to change their practises (and their internal policies) by educating and fighting back against the likes of Naomi Wolfs’ No Logo expose for example. The brands who recognised that they could no longer hide their activities became more open and honest and developed trust, while those which did not, suffered public shaming and demise.

How business operated mattered, and so in response companies upped their awareness of their social impact and visibility through corporate social responsibility. How people did things mattered not just when the likes of Bhopal and Exxon Valdez disasters struck, but in everyday life.

Fair-trade has become a household name in consumer goods, with high street stores vying for credibility of having an ethical policy, supporting local goods and having transparent policies of how they operate. This gives more confidence but leaves companies open to further scrutiny and often to unsatisfactory answers to vital key questions, not at least within developing countries, who are now the fastest growing emerging markets for many brands.

Ethically; WHY should I buy from you?

The biggest question which consumers and business now asks people is why businesses are doing these things. Everyone has become so empowered with information sources that people want to buy the WHY, not the what. Buyers want to understand the ethics of the company and importantly the people behind the decisions it takes. Customers want to know that these decisions accurately reflect the real cultural and values that company has, not just the marketing hype, which the brand portrays. Today this is the real power of the internet.

What’s the real purpose of the company, who and what is driving it and what does it really believe in and stand for. No longer is a small donation to a local charity enough to say it supports the community, customers want to know how much, who gets involved, is it company wide and deep or just a year-end tax saving. In today’s world the importance of ethics in today’s business cannot be understated for leaders to focus upon in their role.

Ethical Values Being Lived

In fact the world has changed completely, confidence comes not from what you say but why you are saying it. The educated and informed world means that it’s not just politicians who have seen their reputation tarnished but any business in any sector who does not explain it why factor.

It’s not just whistle blowers who expose mal-practice in today’s world, everyone is communicating through so many channels, from traditional word of mouth, through social media and beyond into a connected world, where reputations must be transparent. As everyone’s voice matters, being ethically transparent, open and honest is now essential if a brand is to be trusted.

Winning Life-Long Customers Requires Integrity

Winning customers is no longer all leaders have to focus on. Finding talented staff, channels partners and customers is now a multifaceted challenge for leaders to deal with. Ethical short-cuts damage brands reputation and those damaging allegations now stick, and become magnified to stakeholders as statements are now online, like a bad trip advisor review, it never goes. A tarnished reputation is exactly that.

No matter what sector you are in, understanding the power of the internet in sustaining your reputation is essential and never more so than in explaining why you are in business and why you matter. The importance of ethics in today’s business has never been so important to establish and maintain.

So does WHY still matter. YES more than every before in a global world honesty, transparency and integrity matter in building and retaining trust with consumers more than every before.

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Values matter in BUSINESS more than ever

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, competitive advantage, Dumfries and Galloway, Marketing, Strategy, Vision 13/04/201401/09/2025Comments are Disabled

Values in Business must be transparent

Business leaders face many challenges, some immediate and others which are not so obvious but can be far more dramatic to business success. In today’s business world the way you provide your product or service and to whom, says more about you than how much business you do. How you do your business now determines your current credibility and future success. Credibility is as much about your values in becoming successful as about the success you have. Values in BUSINESS must be transparent and lived by everyone inside the organisation.

For longterm success your values as an organisation as demonstrated by everyone inside your organisation matter to both existing, and potential customers, in choosing to do future business with your ad your brand. People have choices and they can now exercise them more freely than ever before, that means customers can access information instantly and make choices that are more informed. Examples such as Ikea’s staff misinforming undercover Times reporters about their sustainable and certified sourced products at a number of shops are one symptom of Ikea’s rapid growth and its underlying boardroom culture, allowing the core values to erode and trust in its reputation suffer. The damage to brand reputation from such as activities such as “greenwashing” create longterm brand damage as brands jump on popularity wagons.

Values Must Live in the Moment

Almost everything in life is in today’s world is in real-time and instantly communicated to circles of ever increasing influence and far beyond. A restaurant having bad night can have a poor reputation before the starter has even been cleared away, as customers post live feed back to sites such as Qype or Trip Advisor. Therefore, before the waiter, maitre d’ or chef knows what’s happening the world outside, potential customers already do, through instant social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook, and are cancelling their reservations in droves. Live experiences matter when they happen not in the apology afterwards.

Leadership teams must ensure that their business values are being lived ever day in what is called real time. The real experiences customers face every moment are the living touch points of a brand experience. Asking employees to make decisions and to own the decisions they make is vital for brand to live in the moment, but they have to be supported by the leadership team and not criticised for making the calls they make. If the call they make is in the best intentions to support the customer but is outside the experience you wanted to give the customer then that is not the employees fault it is leadership teams in designing the experience.

Why clean lavatories matter?

The old adage that if you want to know how clean the restaurant kitchen is, inspect the lavatories! This is because they tell you how the restaurant values cleanliness, is a great example of modern customer awareness of living values. Do you live your values or just post them on your website? Is the question customers want to know in establishing and experiencing trust with you, and your brand.

Seeing under the skin of a brand, or behind the marketing facade a brand promotes is now easy due to transparency in legislation, global media sources and a digital world. There are few places to hide as a brand in what and how they undertake their operations. From sweat shop labour, to brown paper envelopes down to paying influencers there are no places to hide, that’s why clean lavatories matter to customers.

Rail companies learning fast

A recent story of the man on the train talking too loudly causing enraged customers to Tweet complaints about his behaviour which was picked up by a duty manager hundreds of miles away who then contacted train’s conductor to track down the loud caller and asked him to quieted down.

This story is very much testimony to the growing demands of customer expectations, immediate online response, not waiting for passing train staff to react. This story is part of the reputation shift that train companies are actively pursuing to listen and understand customer’s real needs and expectations.

Values in Business must be owned and lived from the top.

The values that a business lives really matter to customers and to the brand reputation. Values are not bland statements in brochures, websites or company walls, but living attributes in how people behave (even when no-one is looking). Values start at the top, and must be owned, lived and driven by the leadership of an organisation. It is no-one else’s responsibility but the leadership’s to ensure they establish, spread and re-enforce those values throughout their people.

Learn more about strategy and how to build yours in your business, click here or on the book below.

Strategy: The Leader’s Role by Richard Gourlay

What Makes a Great Brand (Part 2)

by Richard GourlayBusiness culture, Business Identity, Business mission, Business Values, Marketing, Strategy 12/04/201401/09/2025Comments are Disabled

A Clear Brand Strategy

In what makes a great brand (part 2, click here to read part 1 if you missed it), we will look at what makes great brands’ stand out from others.

Being clear and precise is vitally important in the company’s messages for a brand to succeed. A strong undiluted brand message must enthuse internally but must also consistently connect with customers through all touch points. For great examples look at Innocent, Dorset Cereals or Apple as classic examples of touch point engagement. They also demonstrate a clear story delivered with passion about who they are what they do and why they matter.

This focused and consistent message is not just a marketing message but an ingrained set of values which consumers buy into with passion. These brands not only position themselves as premium players in their fields and earn more but they also continuously find new ways to spread their key messages to customers, they have a clear brand strategy to achieve it.

Everyone Must Live The Brand

Another vital aspect of any brand success is that the people within that brand demonstrate what they preach. They live that lifestyle, support the values and aspirations associated with a brand and contribute to its success. It is their lifestyle, it is a part of the way they and their brand do business. This is something I learned at my first full time job at the then privately owned outdoor clothing brand Berghaus. Everyone lived and loved the brand.

Great brands go beyond the logo, to understand its real value to existing customers and also to tomorrow’s customers. Whether it is a family run local shop or a global supermarket chain, great brands position themselves so they develop and hold a market position to develop long-term success.

Great Brands Create Uniqueness

Great brands also develop their own uniqueness. Not just in the product or service but the whole package in how they do business. There needs to be not only consistency but the brand hand writing and value on how they do it. The best brands always develop singular simple signals for customers, cutting through jargon to create clarity without patronisation their audiences. That strategy creates and supports a strong company culture, which the leadership team must then sustain. Successful leadership teams revitalise that culture by refreshing their vision to focus on where they are taking their organisation.

Vision to make change n business by Richard Gourlay

For brands to succeed in today’s global markets then these golden rules have never been more important to businesses, as consumers have never had so much information, but if you follow these simple rules of brand success you can develop and maintain a great business.

Looking for Advice ?

If you want to develop your company’s brand and are looking for some advice on developing your company, its marketing, its sustainable competitive advantage then contact us at Cowden to see how we can assist you, or read more about us in this blog or at @richardgourlay or contact Richard Gourlay