Why you hate Popup’s and Flying banners.

Successful Brands Become Hard Habit For Consumers To Break

That was the title of Karll Greenberg’s article on Omnicom’s BBDO Worldwide’ consumers habits.

The study suggests that injecting your brands into the rituals that define people is critical to making them an immutable part of consumer shopping lists.

It deems brands that are embedded in rituals “Fortress Brands” because once ensconced in peoples’ ritual lives–brushing teeth, buying a beer, or shaving, for example–people are unlikely to remove them.

The study, which took nine months, involved ethnographic research in 26 countries, 2,500 hours of documented and filmed behavior, quantitative feedback from more than 5,000 people, and interviews with psychologists, nutritionists and sociologists. Despite the study’s breadth, it found that people tend to adopt the same broadly defined rituals.

They identified 5 rituals as most often performed:

- “preparing for battle,” which for most of us means girding our loins for work;

- “feasting” or eating meals with family or friends;

- “sexual rituals”;

- “returning to camp”

- “protecting oneself for the future.”

Per the study, the ritual with the most elements is the first, “preparing for battle,” which includes brushing teeth, taking a shower or bath, having something to eat/drink, talking to a family member/partner, checking e-mail, shaving, putting on makeup, watching TV/listening to radio, and reading a newspaper.

The study found that 89% of people resort to the same brands for these sequenced rituals, and three out of four people become disappointed/irritated when their sequence is disrupted or their brand of choice is not available.

When a ritual is “jammed” with various idiomatic steps, there are more opportunities for marketers to find a niche for their brands.

Brands that want to succeed in becoming parts of people’s ritualistic behavior are those that create product, positioning, packaging, advertising and promotions that address both the specific ritual and the underlying function behind it, if there is one.

Does it make sense now why web users hate Popup’s? Why do they click on Sponsored ads? Why nobody likes to have flying banners or spamming content?

Think about it on your next online campaign.

Cheers

Lucio Dias Ribeiro