Eight lessons to better connect with customer journeys

Carol Foley, Carolyn Wetzel and Brian Samar

This article examines how marketers can best study brand decision journeys, emphasising how critical it is to take into account product categories, as there are important differences between these that affect many aspects of the consumer journey.

In March 2009, we published research in Admapthat demonstrated how, in the digital era, theories of advertising effects had fractured into four distinct models, based on the nature of the product category. Our insight was drawn from survey research involving over 6,000 regular users/brand decision-makers in 150 product categories. Respondents had been asked to indicate their agreement with a variety of statements reflecting the essential nature of the category (high stakes or trivial?; habit or passion?; static or dynamic?), how they viewed brand decision-making (quick or considered?; easy or complex?; rational or emotional?), and what they believed the...

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