Where It All Begins 

Some years ago, I experienced a stunning example of this. I went out to Los Angeles to do a focus group for a mass merchandise chain. The screening question, chosen by the client, was: "Are you familiar with ____Stores?" Seems logical. When I began the group and asked when the participants had shopped there last, not one of them knew where one of these stores was located in the LA area; they knew this store from other places where they had lived, or by just having heard the name. They were "familiar" with it. So, in the first minute of the group, I had identified the client's primary challenge--awareness, or lack thereof.

This is one of those times when research is premature or unnecessary. Working in a company, or at a certain location, can produce tunnel vision. We begin to believe that EVERYONE must know where our business is, and what we do. Not so. It takes effort--and resources--to build awareness, and that must come first. It is not uncommon to measure awareness FOLLOWING activities designed to increase it. Sometimes a company conducts a survey before an awareness campaign, and another one following the campaign to see how much the needle has been moved. That will indicate how effective that campaign was in increasing awareness.

If that is the objective, the company should be prepared for low numbers in the first wave and a fairly modest increase in the follow-up wave. The size of that increase will depend on the size and scope of the campaign, as well as the nature of the product/service category. If it is a high-profile product or service such as consumer electronics or accounting services leading into tax season, there may be a fairly substantial increase. But if it is a fairly low interest category (say, socks) or a service that people need only episodically (say, home health care services), the increases can, indeed, be modest.

Even if the increase in awareness is just a percent or two, that doesn't mean that the awareness campaign was a failure. It just means that the road to high awareness is longer than was envisioned. Take the example of home health care services: people don't need these services all the time, but when they do, they will call the first provider they can think of. That means that awareness needs to be reinforced consistently. That takes time and resources.

If a company assumes that it is well-known in a certain industry, or by consumers in a certain demographic category, it may be wasting time and resources by skipping ahead to evaluative research or programs that offer special pricing. In the current AADD environment, people who want success immediately, without putting in the time and money may wind up tripping over their feet. Stop, take a breath, and go step by step.  It'll be better in the long run.

Preview of My Speech in Detroit