SENDING CUSTOMERS THE RIGHT SIGNALS

My wife and I are celebrating our second wedding anniversary on June 2nd. Last year, we started a new tradition. We decided that we would write new vows each year and put them in a box with a good bottle of wine. On each anniversary, we would read the vows and drink the wine to celebrate our love.


Last year, to kick us off, I decided to go get us a really good bottle of wine. The problem is that I don’t know much about wine. I know that we both prefer red wine, and that we like it more on the dry side rather than sweet. But I could not tell you the difference in quality between two reds. So to complete this important mission, I did what everyone does. I looked for signs that send a strong signal for good quality.


The first sign I used was the store. I decided to go to a wine cellar, instead of the drug store or supermarket. I am sure those two other places also sell good wine but I didn’t want to take any chances on this important mission. A wine cellar is a strong signal for good quality wine.


The second sign I used to determine quality is price. It’s true for wine and virtually everything else in society; most of us assume that price and quality have a positive correlation. The higher the price, the better the quality, although this is not always grounded in fact. Brands with high equity, for example, can command premium prices for exactly the same quality as their competitors. But the fact remains that, when we are unsure how to judge quality, most of us use price as a signal.


The third sign I used was packaging and labels. Marketers know just how important great design and brand identity (the sum of all the visual elements of a brand like logo, name, colors, typography, etc.) are. In my wine-buying experience, I looked at the shape of the bottle, the name of the wine, as well as the look and feel of the label.


After years of brand exposure, most of us have developed an intuitive sense for what quality and premium should look and feel like.


Which one of these two bottles is more expensive: left or right?

The most fascinating part of this exercise isn’t whether or not you got the answer right but, rather, how you arrived at this answer. The expression look and feel itself has always been fascinating to me— the idea that a label or a design creates a visceral response. (The answer to the wine question was right by the way. But most of you probably got it right).


The fourth sign I used was the origin of the wine.


I should probably go for a french wine. I told myself.


In the wine world, France sends a strong signal for quality. In fact some people only know France for its Eiffel Tower and its good wine.


I finally made my choice and headed to the cash register. The sommelier greeted me with an enthusiastic excellent choice, thus validating my instincts. I paid for the wine and left the store proud and full of confidence.


Looking for those signs, what exactly was I looking for? I was looking for certainty. And that’s exactly what every customer is looking for. They too use all the tools available to them to make sure they are making the best purchasing decision based on the needs they have.


People have no direct access to who we are as individuals or brands. So they rely on signs, and the signals they send at various touchpoints, to stitch together a coherent story. That’s how perception is formed.


So it’s important to know how we want to be perceived as a brand and what signals we are trying to send. If we were competing in the wine category, then we better know that customers, just like me, use all the same signs I used to determine wine quality.


Ultimately, as human beings, we all use mental shortcuts to navigate our increasingly complex and intricate social systems. Every customer, in every category, uses signs and signals to make the right purchasing decisions. So it’s important for us to understand what signals we are trying to send, and know the right signs to use to communicate those things about our brands.