Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Try this https://bit.ly/BrandPerception.

But be warned, the length of time it can take for a customer's perception of a brand to change can vary, and in many cases (as with my personal perception of American Airlines, which since 2006 I've referred to as "Couldn't Give a Crap Airlines") the timeline can be never.

And I have similar feelings about United.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
Wilmington, DE, USA

Here's another example (you'll need to watch the video to get the full sorry tale ) https://bit.ly/UnitedBreaksGuitarsVideo

The brand in question could EASILY have saved itself lots of negative PR and over NINE MILLION video views if they'd simply made everything right to begin with.

But they chose not to,

And it's cost them.

Dearly.

Gary Bloomer
The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
Wilmington, DE, USA

It's hard enough to create a perception from a neutral position. Getting over a negative perception is much harder, especially based on how much your prospective customers have been personally affected. This has been well studied in psychology - it takes ~20 positive touches to overcome a single negative one.

Another article:
https://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BDW/is_30_40/ai_55301214/

Hi
Thanks for your response-I appreciate you taking the time to get back to me. I still cant nail anythign down that has specifics. It may not actually exist...

It DOES exist!

Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence.

The only way you're going to find statistical proof is by asking people the following questions:

1. "Of any brands that have let you down, how much time has elapsed since you last used that brand?"

2. Of any brands that have let you down, would you give them a chance to meet your needs again?"

3. "If the specific brand met your expectations and renewed your faith in their services, would you carry on using their products or services?"

4. Write a few more questions like these, then ask people and create your own statistics.

Gary Bloomer
The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
Wilmington, DE, USA

Once you complete Gary's suggested research, you'll have a collection of responses each of which will be specific to a different situation, an individual's unique perceptions and values, and a point in time.

When you average all of that out, you'll have a dog's breakfast, and the average time of 2.759 years (to restore a brand's damaged image) will be representative of nothing.

Besides, each of those prior experiences will relate to a situation in which the company took (or failed to take) a different action, so it will be useless for your purpose. Save your time, effort and money.

Instead find a down-to-earth consultant who has experience repairing damaged images and let him/her guide you through these rapids.

Hi Everyone
Thank you again for your responses. What I am gathering is that every situation is unique, no set rules but time and patience.
A

The answers to those "dog's breakfast" questions (or any similar questions) are not designed to create some neatly measurable, CPA-based, spreadsheet view of the world, they're designed to
get the questioner thinking.

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics, and when it comes to loyalty, statistics prove very little.

My suggested questions are also intended to put a halt to all any nonsense bleating about brand favour being nonexistent.

They're designed to generate some form of evidence that the questioner can then use to tell stories—because at the core level, brands need stories.

A brand without a story is sterile, sterility leads to the death of anything of value, and when value dies, commerce becomes a series of banal exchanges: one sum handed over for a sack of stuff or for a box of dull widgets. And when all THAT happens, the real or imagined need for marketing goes out of the window and we're all out of a job.