Changing Communication and a New Perspective on Brand Theory: Part 1

 

The advent of smartphones changed consumer behavior

──First, please tell us about your respective areas of interest.

Kubota: I primarily research customer loyalty. Marketing can be broadly divided into two types: immediate, short-term actions that directly drive sales, and long-term, gradual approaches. My focus is on the latter—specifically, how to enhance customer loyalty over the long term. Companies also use various tools to communicate with customers to boost loyalty. For example, advertising is one form of communication, and so is brand or product design. I consider the relationship between such communication and loyalty to be my area of expertise.

Akamatsu: Professor Kubota, you went to graduate school for your research in the 1990s, right? What was brand theory like back then?

Kubota: Back then, marketing textbooks might have dedicated a single page to brands, if that. The importance of brands was scarcely recognized. In Japan, it started gaining attention around the mid-1990s. Shortly before that, the term "brand equity" emerged, and finally, brand theory began to gain traction. After that, the focus shifted from brand theory to digital and social media. Rather than brand theory fading, it felt more like it became fundamental knowledge, absorbed as the foundation of marketing.

──What is your area of interest, Professor Akamatsu?

Akamatsu: I'm researching the consumer decision-making process. It involves recognizing a problem, setting a goal, searching for information, forming an attitude, making a purchase, and then deciding whether to share word-of-mouth. I'm currently writing my doctoral dissertation on this entire sequence.

Kubota: Has the consumer decision-making process changed over time?

Akamatsu: Yes. With the advent of smartphones, I feel the decision-making process has become much shorter, especially among younger people. In the past, someone might see a product on TV, then turn on their desktop computer to search for it, or look it up in a magazine. There was a significant time gap between obtaining one piece of information and the next, during which they would think things through and form their attitude. The process from initial interest to attitude formation involved "searching" for information, "interpreting" it, and then "evaluating" it. There was time for interpretation between searching and evaluating.

However, since smartphones became prevalent, the time for interpretation has shortened, and there's a stronger tendency to evaluate information immediately after searching for it. The barrier to information search has lowered. People now search on their smartphones while watching TV, constantly encountering new information. Consequently, I feel there are increasing cases where attitude formation occurs before people have time to think for themselves.

Kubota: If consumer decision-making processes become shorter, will brand loyalty also change?

Akamatsu: Since people evaluate brands without time to think for themselves, I feel the very structure of brand value is changing from what it used to be. There's a model Kevin Keller proposed called the "Brand Resonance Pyramid," right? It used to be called the "Brand Equity Pyramid" (Figure 1). Keller divided brand building into four levels, from "Salience" to "Resonance," explaining that brands are built through both rational and emotional routes – the head and the heart.

With smartphones, knowledge accumulates rapidly, so the rational route fills up quickly. However, since consumers aren't deeply reflecting on it themselves, the emotional route isn't keeping pace. When the heart isn't engaged, the relationship with the brand is weak. That's the impression I get.

Kubota: Keller's pyramid organizes tasks and challenges for brand managers, not consumer minds. So I'm not sure if it directly applies to forming consumer loyalty toward a brand, but I understand what Professor Akamatsu is saying.

Akamatsu: Attitudes formed quickly probably change just as quickly. For example, even if someone likes a brand after getting some information, encountering different information can shift their attitude. As a result, consumer behavior seems to be increasingly characterized by variety seeking, not sticking to one brand.

Kubota: Professor Akamatsu, you're quite young, truly part of the smartphone generation. When you shop yourself, do you also engage in variety seeking?

Akamatsu: Yes. For beer-based drinks, I often buy Clear Asahi, but when a new product comes out, I'll try it. I also frequently "cheat" on other brands, so I'd say I'm close to variety seeking.

According to research data from my mentor, Professor Satoshi Shimizu, people with higher information sensitivity tend not to stick to one brand but instead try and buy from several brands in a balanced way. From a company's perspective, it's now difficult to become the sole brand for a customer. Some infidelity is unavoidable, so companies must aim for a positioning as the core, preferred brand within this variety-seeking behavior.

Kubota: I see, that's fascinating. Another point is whether the consumer behavior of people in their 20s and 30s, who hop between various brands, continues into their 40s and 50s as their life stage changes. Maybe as they get older, they develop favorite brands and stop being unfaithful. We need to look closely at that.

Figure 1: Brand Resonance Pyramid