I’m re-reading Naomi Klein’s ‘No Logo’ for the third (fourth?) time, and it’s obvious to me that brands will never again trigger off the blind trust they used to, however hard we try as marketers.
All that we can do as marketers is to accept that we are all cynical post-Nader shoppers, and then work around that reality, like Paco Underhill does, on page 166 of ‘Why We Buy’ —
Another reason touch and trial have become so important is the waning power of product brand name. When consumers believed in the companies behind the big brands, their belief went a long way towards selling things. Now, we are all individualists.
For that matter, we are all post-Nader shoppers — we’ll believe it when we see/ smell/ touch/ hear/ taste/ try it. Depending on what we’re buying and what it costs, there’s a healthy skepticism (or is it a nagging doubt) in our heads that must be put to rest before we can buy at ease. We need to feel a certain level of confidence in a product and its value, which comes only through hard evidence, not from TV commercials or word-of-mouth.
