Alex Woodruff Biz Buzz

Producers of mobile phones, digital cameras, flat screens and similar hi-tech products often have to pump huge budgets into R&D. To get this investment back – and break even as quickly as possible – they tend to “price skim”. This involves using high prices to remove the “cream” from the market before the competitors catch [...]

SCA – who recently bought German megabrand Tempo from international consumer products mammoth Procter & Gamble – seem to think I spend my whole day thinking about toilet paper. No, on Assael’s model for understanding buying behaviour this is bottom right box: habitual purchase. We go to the supermarket, think for a fraction of a [...]

Expensive to make, not dear to customers Toothpaste manufacturers have a tough job trying to interest you in their product. The problem is, you’re not. It’s not a high-involvement product. Well, depending on the consumer. Maybe some people do put a lot of thought into their toothpaste, but for most it’s a habitual purchase. So [...]

Many marketeers are baffled by the things their target audiences remember from their advertising. I once worked on a food ad where everyone remembered that the woman in the kitchen licked her finger (an attempt by us to add appetite appeal). Probably because some people think too much about hygiene. Sadly they remembered nothing about [...]

Indeed what does interest car drivers? Probably a question they ask themselves a lot at Ford. Of course we need to ask which car drivers. The old sexist joke is that some women are more interested in the colour of the car than what’s under the bonnet. Unlike ‘real’ men – who drive a hunky [...]

Holding out in hope. Why does this insurance company keep writing to my home address? They were clearly told to go away. They used to insure the Woodruff car until it became clear that they were offering better rates to new customers. When this was pointed out to them, they failed to come back with [...]

Marketing a product as everyday and unimportant as tissues falls into the area of buying behaviour Assael would call “habitual”. So how do you inject interest? By adding something that doesn’t really make a difference, but at least gives you something to make your product stand out. Or something that could just make you feel [...]

No one could claim that buying a mobile phone is easy. There are so many different options and charges it makes you wonder whether anybody actually finds the best deal possible. This is quite normal for complex buying behaviour. You want to get it right (you might have to live with the consequences of a [...]

The spread many kids grew up with Unilever’s Marmite product clearly falls into a market what would be classified as “variety”. It’s definitely not a “complex”, “cognitive dissonance” or “habitual” purchase – unless of course, for you, this smelly yeast extract (which tastes fabulous on toast) is an everyday product.     If it is [...]

Variety purchase and habitual purchase fall under the category of products that are not really that important to you. With variety products you often see big differences between one product and the next, so you’ll browse, look at the alternatives, maybe try out something different for a change. Unlike with habitual purchases (eg commodities such [...]