Ehrenberg-Bass News

Businesses often keep valuable reports and plans for only a few years. They lose them, or delete them, thinking the past is no longer relevant. But doing so throws away important organisational memory.

Marketing Week editor Russell Parsons speaks to Professor Byron Sharp, the influential author of How Brands Grow and director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute at the University of South Australia. Through his work there and his book How Brands Grow he has the attention of some of the world’s biggest brands, many of which have adopted his evidence-based approach. His work is not without detractors though, with many taking issue with his black and white approach.

Marketers know consumers are shocked at the level of Facebook user data that Cambridge Analytica acquired, but they can say nothing without admitting they have been targeting people in the same way for years.

If you want to know if your customers are satisfied, ask them about satisfaction. If you want to know about actual word of mouth recommendation, ask about that. But don’t ask ‘would you recommend’ – for all the reasons outlined above. Rather, ask ‘have your recommended that company to others in the past week or month’. That way you’ll understand how much actual positive word of mouth is occurring for your brand.

As today’s retail environment grows ever more competitive and the variety of products in our shops increases inexorably, those who know where and how shoppers are most likely to choose a product have a clear advantage.