Why People Buy. Louis Cheskin

It has quality or lack of quality connotations.

      A package without a brand-identifying image that is appealing to consumers and easily remembered is very rarely an effective marketing tool. Excellent examples of brands with effective brand-identifying images are the following: Standard Oil of Indiana, Good Luck margarine, Dove, Parliament cigarettes and Cheer detergent.

      The logotype is also important. It, too, is vital in building a favorable brand image. Type faces or letters have symbolic meaning. Some lettering styles symbolize strength, some weakness; some say delicate, some denote roughness. Some are static and other styles suggest motion.

      Easy readability is important. A brand name that is difficult to read is a deterrent in marketing. It has to symbolize the character of the product or the company. It has to be interesting and has to communicate literally and symbolically.

      Still another factor in effective packaging is color. The color can also mean either marketing success or failure.

      The right color combination is one that attracts attention and at the same time has appeal.

      Because high preference colors have poor retention in the memory and those that have strong retention in the memory rate low in preference, colors frequently have to be used in pairs, usually in complementary pairs. One of the colors is to attract the eye and the other is to provide the appeal. In choosing a color, we must make sure that it does not have negative associations with the particular product. If possible, it is advisable to use a color that has favorable associations with the product.

      In my books, Color for Profit and Color Guide for Marketing Media, I discuss the problems of color in detail.

      The quality of the printing, particularly if appetite appeal is involved, is also of great importance in marketing. A poorly printed package is a poor marketing tool.

      The present-day package is indeed complex. That is why the best designers have to be employed to develop packages that can be effective marketing tools.

      However, the best designers cannot tell whether a package design will be an effective marketing tool. Packages are complex, and human beings still more complex. Designers are by nature, conditioning and training, the most complex individuals.

      Certainly, designers are not typical consumers. Their tastes, preferences and ideas are not in keeping with those of the masses of consumers. They cannot be, because of the kind of personality, background and experience a designer must have in order to be able to create.

      Therefore, research must be used to determine whether the design is an effective marketing tool. There is no one test that can provide this information because too many factors are involved. We must have tests that determine display effectiveness, attraction power, attention-holding power and brand name readability.

      We must have tests that reveal consumer attitudes and actual preferences, or choices in which self-interest is involved. Mere interviews will not disclose such information. The tests have to be conducted on an unconscious level so that the respondents feel free to express their true attitudes and real feelings.

      I have seen some of the most beautiful packages fail to pass an eye-movement test that measures eye-flow and attention-holding power.

      I have seen some stunning packages that failed the readability test. In other words, the brand name or product name on the package was too difficult to read from the shelf.

      Many appealing, aesthetically fine packages fail in the visibility test, which means that they are lost in the super market. They fail to attract attention.

      There are packages that have great display effectiveness. They pass all three ocular tests—visibility, readability and eye-movement—but they fail in the association or preference tests.

      A package that is effective in display, that has a high percentage of favorable associations and rates high in the preference test, is an effective marketing tool.

      After the manufacturer of a consumer product knows he has a product of the right quality and an effective package, he should examine the advertising problem.

      The Advertising

      Advertising is the number three wall of a marketing structure. The kind and amount of advertising has much to do with the degree of success of any marketing program. Without doubt, the quantitative aspect of an advertising program is a major factor in any successful marketing. However, as I have pointed out, there are many instances in which the sheer weight of a large sum of money was not sufficient for producing a successful marketing program.

      The qualitative aspect of advertising is at least as important as the quantitative one. No one will deny that the character of the campaign, the nature of the marketing theme, the type of printed ads and kind of filmed commercials have much to do with the success or failure of a marketing program.

      Ad agencies have “copy geniuses,” men and women who have a natural or acquired ability to create unusual advertising copy. Like most geniuses, like most creative people, they often talk to their own kind, not to the general public. Many ad agency executives are aware that printed ads and filmed commercials have to be tested with potential consumers to determine their marketing effectiveness. And how do most of them test the printed ads and filmed commercials? They use “playbacks” or “recognition” tests. Such tests are conducted on the assumption that printed ads and filmed commercials affect people, only on a conscious level.

      Studies that have been conducted in the last twelve years show conclusively that individuals are influenced by advertising without being aware of that influence. An individual is motivated to buy something by an ad, but he often does not know what motivated him.

      Most advertising agencies plan all advertising on the assumption that printed ads and filmed commercials affect consumers only on a conscious level. That is why they measure the effectiveness of ads by means of “playbacks” or “recognition” tests. The ad that is recalled or recognized by the greatest number of potential consumers is considered the best ad. Filmed commercials are tested on the same general principle.

      I have known a number of advertising campaigns consisting of ads with high “retention” and “recognition” scores that have failed^ Neither the agency nor the client could understand why the campaign was a flop. The fact that the ads antagonized people did not enter their minds.

      That consumers had unfavorable attitudes toward the ads did not occur to them. That the ads did not motivate people to buy had no meaning. They were impressed only with the fact that a carefully chosen sample of potential consumers of the product remembered the ad once they had seen it and could recognize the filmed commercial after viewing it once.

      Since most people are not always conscious of having seen an ad, billboard or filmed commercial, they cannot always tell about it in an interview. Thus, the most effective, the most motivating experimental ads may have been discarded because they were not remembered or recognized by most of the respondents.

      We have conducted many tests in the last dozen years showing conclusively that people have to be motivated to remember objects or ads and have to be motivated to buy a specific product. Over ten years ago I reported experiments showing conclusively that ads have much more effect on the unconscious mind than on the conscious.

      We have much evidence that for advertising to be effective, it must not merely tell people to buy the product, it must motivate them to buy it. For an ad to be motivating, it must be pleasing, not irritating. It must have favorable connotations and pleasant associations.

      How do we determine the effectiveness of an ad if not by “playback” and “recognition” tests? We have a number of tests, each of which shows one aspect of effectiveness.

      First we put the ad through an eye-movement test that shows how the eyes travel over the ad and where attention is held. If this test is favorable, then the ad is put through two types of association tests, one that shows consumers’ attitudes toward the ad and another that discloses whether the ad upgrades or downgrades the product. The second test is conducted because the ad is not supposed to sell itself. It has to sell the product. In conjunction