What is Brand Switching?

Brand conversion is when consumers stop buying the brand they are using and buy another brand. Generally speaking, brand conversion mainly refers to the behavior of turning out. Turn-in rates are sometimes called brand attempt rates.

Brand conversion

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Brand conversion is when consumers stop buying the brand they are using and buy another brand. Generally speaking, brand conversion mainly refers to the behavior of turning out. Turn-in rates are sometimes called brand attempt rates.

Brand switching behavior is when consumers stop buying the brand they are using and buy another brand.

Consumer brand conversion behavior can be further divided into two categories.

A. A certain individual or group of consumers used to buy things in your category. He does not buy yours now, and instead buys products in the category of competitors. This is called brand-out behavior. The proportion of the number of people in the total sample is called the brand turnover rate.

B. Consumers did not buy your items before, but now they are buying you. This is called brand transfer. The proportion of sample transferred into the total sample is called brand transfer rate.

The first is the purchase environment. If consumers do not find a brand they are accustomed to using in a particular buying environment, especially those products with lower value and higher frequency of purchase, generally they will passively switch brands.

Secondly, it is the influence of marketing mix elements. At present, most domestic FMCG markets are rapidly maturing, the number of products or brands is rapidly multiplying, product innovation is becoming more and more difficult, and the degree of product homogeneity is getting higher and higher. Few products are irreplaceable.

In addition, the refurbishment promotion methods brought by fierce market competition have given consumers great excitement and temptation, which greatly shaken the consumer s

Market research can be roughly divided into four parts: consumer attitude and behavior research, category research, brand research and competition situation research. Consumer research mainly explores consumer demographics, lifestyles, attitudes to life, values, behaviors, psychological needs, mental traits, cognition and needs for specific products, and so on. Category research mainly includes category cognition, category structure, and brand development trends. Brand research content is quite extensive and can include research content in any area of brand value and marketing activities, such as price testing, product testing, brand image checking, etc. Brand conversion research is only a small part of brand research. Competition research appears mostly in the form of industry research reports and competitor research reports.

Understanding exactly what consumer brand conversion behavior and behavior classification are, and then adopting appropriate methods to obtain a detailed understanding of consumer brand conversion behavior are important prerequisites for correctly deciding how companies should respond to consumer brand conversion behavior. What is the brand conversion behavior has been introduced earlier, and the research on consumer brand conversion can be summarized as the three steps shown in the figure below, in order to achieve a deep understanding of brand conversion. Based on scientific and rigorous brand conversion analysis, companies can formulate corresponding countermeasures based on market competition and competitors' competitive strategies.

[Edit] Design and conduct market research on consumer brand switching behavior

To understand consumer brand conversion behaviors in depth, only through quantitative market research methods of sampling nature, can we obtain comprehensive, objective and real consumer brand conversion behavior data. Generally speaking, companies will include the main content of brand conversion and category conversion in the annual regular brand market research, but it is not excluded that some companies design a brand conversion aspect separately in order to solve serious problems in brand conversion. The possibility of special research.

Brand research can be global, national or regional. The consumers faced by brands have regional differences, and there are both commonalities and individualities between regions. Therefore, when companies conduct annual brand market research, they often take into account the representativeness of the regional sample in the selected area (city or town). Market research must select regions that have typical representative significance for research. The purpose is to accurately reflect the overall situation with samples and save research costs. The number of samples required for effective analysis in market research has statistically minimum requirements. It is generally believed that only a minimum of 30 samples can be used for statistical analysis of the minimum sample size, and more than 60 are the best. Therefore, the annual brand survey must consider the representativeness of the selected survey area, the quantity ratio and minimum sample size of different consumer samples in each survey area, and detailed and accurate analysis of all surveyed consumer samples. To ensure the reasonableness and accuracy of the survey sample. Many companies in annual brand surveys often choose one or two typical urban or township markets in major geographic regions of China, such as North China and Northeast China, and each market draws 200-300 target samples based on statistical methods. For quantitative analysis.

Brand conversion analysis must rely on quantitative market research. The so-called quantitative research is to classify and evaluate consumer behavior by quantifying all consumer research information. For example, in the questionnaire we designed ten questions, and the quantitative analysis required:

1) Standardize the answers to each of the ten questions, such as one out of five, or non-standard answers must be classified according to certain criteria,

2) Quantitative analysis of different answers to each question,

3) Cross or corresponding analysis of the answers to the related questions in the ten questions, etc. The final survey results are submitted to the marketing management department or entrusted customers with reports and analysis text of quantified data.

Market research is a highly professional job. The exact confirmation of research needs, the design of survey questionnaires, the definition / selection and matching of survey samples, the choice of survey methods, the training of investigators, the management of investigators, the Survey skills and professional ethics, the processing of survey questionnaire data, analysis of survey results, etc. will all affect the final conclusion of the survey. Some companies with strict requirements will appoint someone to follow the working process of professional market research companies from beginning to end, to ensure that mistakes will occur in all aspects, and to ensure that enterprises get a survey result that truly reflects the true behavior and attitude of consumers.

[Edit] Investigation and Analysis of Consumer Brand Conversion Behavior-Brand Conversion Structure and Reasons

Precise and appropriate market research helps us to obtain sufficient, authentic and colorful research data from target consumers, ensuring that our analysis of consumer brand conversion behavior is based on objective and realistic scientific research data, thereby avoiding The decision-making risk that often occurs in marketing analysis is to replace data with experience and to replace objective facts with subjective feelings.

Through professional analysis of the survey data, we can gain sufficient knowledge and understanding of consumer brand conversion behavior. The investigation and analysis of brand conversion behavior mainly includes two parts, one is the structural analysis of consumer brand conversion, and the other is the reason analysis of consumer brand conversion.

Structural Analysis of Consumer Brand Conversion

It mainly analyzes the transfer structure and transfer structure of consumers on a certain brand. The main role of this analysis is to clearly tell the business:

1) Which brands are our competitors and which competitors do our lost consumers go to;

2) Of all the competitors, which are the main competitors, and what percentage of customers are each of them digging away from us?

3) Which brands do the consumers we transfer from come from?

4) What is the proportion of the consumers we transferred from different competitors, who are our competitors with the greatest potential?

5) If there is survey data from the previous year, you can conduct a comparative analysis over the same period to observe the structural change, direction, and speed of the brand transfer in and out.

Analysis of reasons for consumer brand conversion

It is important to further analyze the cause on the basis of the transformation structure. Because the brand conversion structure obtained from the survey is a result, the result is important, but only by combining the cause analysis that produces the result, can we clearly understand the internal reasons why our brand has gained or lost consumers, thereby helping us accurately identify our brand for What are the effective value points or shortcomings of consumers, and then provide highly targeted strategic recommendations for future brand strategies.

Analysis of the reasons for consumer brand conversion will reveal to the enterprise:

1) What are the different reasons why consumers who used different competitor brands switched to our brand? At the same time, it also revealed the weaknesses of different competitor brands in the eyes of consumers and the advantages shown by our brand. Where are the key areas to combat different competitors;

2) Comprehensive analysis of the common factors in the reasons for switching from all different brands to our brand, we can clearly observe that in a competitive environment, our brand can be clearly identified by consumers as unique and valuable to them. Often, the value point that a brand can let consumers generally recognize can become the core value component of the brand that really resonates with consumers. Once confirmed, it can more clearly or modify the core value orientation and composition of our brand;

3) For what reasons did consumers who originally consumed our brand transfer to other different competitor brands, and the different reasons for transferring to each of the competing brands reflected the shortcomings of our brand when compared with it, and the value of the other's attractiveness to customers? Clarify these issues, help us to pay attention to what we should pay attention to when competing with these brands, how to avoid weaknesses, and effectively improve our own competitive strategies;

4) A comprehensive analysis of the common causes of the transfer of all of our brand s outgoing consumers, we can find that under the competitive environment, the biggest flaws and shortcomings of our brand in general, and these flaws and shortcomings are precisely our loss of customers and competition The important reason for competitors to obtain customers, therefore, these common factors must be effectively resolved or cleverly circumvented, otherwise the brand value will not be effectively improved, and the lost customers will be difficult to pull back;

5) If the data permits, we can also subdivide the transferred customers into real brand transferors and returners who transfer back after the brand transfers out for analysis; the returner transfer analysis can be used to analyze the core value of the brand And improving customer loyalty is of great significance.

[Edit] Marketing Implications on Consumer Brand Conversion Behavior-Brand Marketing Suggestions

The acquisition and analysis of real, objective, and representative consumer brand conversion survey data are fundamental but not decisive for the brand marketing recommendations that market research can provide to the marketing management team. Why is this so? The reason is that the formulation of marketing strategies not only requires analysis of themselves and competing brands, but also requires decision makers with comprehensive and systematic marketing management knowledge and vision. It is difficult for any marketing manager without strategic management capabilities to provide the company with the correct marketing strategy. Suggestions, they can only make some local or temporary, scattered tactical marketing suggestions.

This puts forward new requirements on professional capabilities for internal and external market researchers. Enterprises not only require market researchers to provide accurate market research data and statistical analysis to the marketing management team, but also need market researchers to have complete marketing management and even marketing strategy and enterprise development strategy research capabilities, so that they can be comprehensive and holistic The long-term strategic height, "marketing strategy processing" on the basic conclusions obtained from the research and analysis, and put forward to the marketing management team their own professional marketing strategies and strategic recommendations based on market research, so that the market research department is mainly engaged in the market The survey has risen to become an enterprise marketing strategy management research department engaged in the integration of market research, market analysis, and strategy advice.

The current reality in China is that not many people, whether internal market researchers or external market research companies, are truly capable of making marketing strategies and strategic recommendations to companies. Some domestic first-tier market research companies have realized the importance of this issue, and have begun to require the research director to study not only market research, but also marketing, so as to effectively open up market research and marketing strategies and build a successful connection between the two. bridge.

How do marketing practitioners cleverly use this psychology of consumers to achieve their marketing goals? In this regard, market leaders and market challengers can adopt different strategies.

1. For market leaders with a large market share, encouraging existing consumers to continue to use the existing brand is undoubtedly the most advantageous option, so that they can make full use of existing advantages. Market leaders should use a variety of methods to promote consumers to change from buying in search of diversity to habitual buying. To achieve this goal, market leaders need to occupy more shelf space to squeeze the survival space of competing products, reduce the chance of competing products and consumers to meet; at the same time, to ensure the supply of goods, to avoid existing goods caused by insufficient goods supply The passive brand conversion of the company will give the competitors a chance to use it. In the end, it is necessary to use more reminder advertisements.

2. Another strategy that market leaders can adopt is to provide consumers with more product choices. As a result, when consumers consider trying new products, they are likely to choose from different brands of the same manufacturer, or choose between different products under the same brand umbrella. An example that everyone knows well is Procter & Gamble's multi-brand strategy, with brands such as Rejoice, HiFi, Pantene; later, under the Rejoice brand umbrella, Green Rejoice, Yellow Rejoice, and Black Rejoice were successively developed. There are different functional requirements. This strategy successfully fulfills the desire of old customers to try new products and keeps them by their side.

For companies and brands that appear as challengers, they should provide consumers with enough reasons to switch from existing brands to their own. At present, many domestic consumer goods companies are very good at taking advantage of consumers' novelty and seeking different minds, and constantly developing new products and new brands to penetrate the market. Take the beverage industry as an example. Its functional drinks have been popular since 2003, and its players know this. Many brand names seek for differences and strangeness, and at the same time use advertising, public relations and other means to create momentum, which has attracted the attention of the industry and consumers. Sales have risen rapidly and market news has spread frequently. However, after a period of time, sales fell rapidly, and some brands almost disappeared. Excluding other factors, this phenomenon is analyzed from the perspective of brand conversion. This is because: the vast majority of consumers purchase behavior belongs to looking for diversified purchases . Consumers innovation and differentiation are playing a role. As a result, a certain sales boom was formed at the beginning of the product launch; however, after the first purchase, because the product itself is not special, the consumer will have a "but so" mentality and fail to purchase again.

What needs to be kept in mind when using novel strategies is that successfully attracting consumers for a brand conversion does not mean that they can have consumers once and for all, because consumers' brand conversion behavior is not static. After changing brands, consumers have three possibilities for their next purchase: first, being attracted by the brand and continuing to use the brand; second, returning to the embrace of the original brand; third, being other The brand temptation then shifted to other brands again. It goes without saying that a consumer's first attempt is important for the next purchase. In the first attempt, if consumers get a great value experience, the possibility of staying on this brand will increase greatly; otherwise, they will likely leave without looking back. Therefore, the most important thing to keep customers is to see if the brand can provide real value to consumers, whether it is practical value or psychological value. If it is not easy to win the first attempt of consumers with novel gimmicks, it is simply impossible to win consumers in the long run.

3. Another strategy commonly used by market challengers is to use some public relations methods to encourage and educate consumers to switch brands. For example, we often read articles in newspapers, these articles are reminding people not to use a certain shampoo for a long time, do not use a certain product for a long time, and use harmful clouds for a long time. Behind this, I am afraid that some brands operate in secret. Increasing consumer brand switching tends to provide other brands with the opportunity to be selected.

4. In addition, according to the research done by marketing scholar Solomon, each consumer has a list of two brands to six brands for similar products. If a brand is on this list, it may be selected by consumers during the brand conversion process. If it is not on this list, even if consumers often switch brands, it is difficult to have the possibility of being selected. Therefore, for new products and brands entering the market, how to enter the consumer's candidate list is particularly important. A successful example comes from the British Bath International Brewery Company that I used to work for. When Bath's TENNETN'S 1885 beer entered the US market in the 1960s, it faced a market split by five or six strong brands, both American and overseas brands. After understanding the consumer's propensity for brand conversion through market research, TENNENT'S1885 beer is positioned as an alternative to the brand most often consumed by young consumers, and has succeeded in gaining a certain degree in the highly competitive American beer market Market share.