A key buzzword in marketing is “mindshare.” You will often hear marketers refer to this word when speaking of a brand “owning” a piece of real estate within a desired audience’s head or mind. Positioning to obtain this real estate is key, and many marketers spend countless hours trying to move into this real estate. Small business CEOs and entrepreneurs must also pay close attention here.
Bob Donnelly is the editor of the online Entrepreneurial CEO column for Chief Executive magazine. Following is a guest column from Mr. Donnelly that talks about getting inside the mind of your audience.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Brands exist in the mind. I have always contended that the mind is a “mental product grid” like a gigantic ice cube tray with cube spaces for brand images.
The mind has also been described as a “word locker” wherein words are associated with value concepts that have been developed over our lifetime. Malcolm Gladwell in his excellent book “Blink” explained that we form instantaneous images of everything that we see thousands of times a day by matching these word-value relationships that have been imprinted in our minds since we were born.
So when we hear, see or smell, a conscious or unconscious image is formed. These can be favorable or unfavorable images, or often confusing because they do not easily “fit” with the correlations that already exist. In these cases we quickly mentally erase them because “we don’t get it.”
The implications of this natural process has immense implications for marketers. Obviously, if you want to be successful in winning the battle for the customers mind you need to understand this basic concept or else you will waste enormous resources using the wrong words to promote your brand value proposition.
Let’s explore a few classic examples of what I mean. Almost everyone involved in marketing watches the Super Bowl - the annual Academy Awards for successful advertising and promotions. Every year about half of the ads are great because they resonate with viewers, but the other half are awful because the same viewers wonder what the ads were about and why the advertiser wasted so much money as they didn’t “get it” at all!
In addition, USA TODAY publishes the ratings of all the ads from best to worst using the same basis.
How about the recent election campaign? Early on Obama selected the word CHANGE for his value proposition. What could have been better? The economy was in turmoil, Bush made little sense and Obama’s competitors were touting confusing value propositions. Change resonated with the electorate and Obama’s position was reinforced every time his competitors used the word that he was the first into the mind with.
In conclusion, when you hear the familiar Intel “bing” you don’t need to wait for the “bong.”
Editor’s Note: Bob Donnelly is the Editor of the online Entrepreneurial CEO column for Chief Executive magazine.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Special thanks to Bob Donnelly for a great guest column.
John and Bob thanks so much for the excellent insight on mindshare. I was a Corporate marketer before becoming an entrepreneur but as a small business owner I discovered new challenges and opportunities for gaining mindshare. Articles like this reinforce the need to do so and provide that spark of inspiration that true marketing is not limited to large corporations. Thank you.
Hey Bob,
Thanks so much for picking up on my Mindshare Branding concept and linking to my blog.
Keep up the great work!
Best,
Libby Gill
Author, You Unstuck