Abstract:

The ideal of targeting and promotional effectiveness is to deliver to those individuals who are most open to brand switching the message or benefit that most satisfies their preferences, and to do this in the most appropriate executional and media context. The validated principles of disaggregated choice modelling are used to focus on individual differences in motivation and how consumers can be aggregated according to their probability of switching brands in response to different promotional messages. Consumer responses vary also according to the communication strategy adopted. A finite number of individual product motivational patterns are revealed that can vary in their distribution, regionally and nationally as well as by the more usual social demographics, lifestyles and product usage patterns. The degree of similarity between countries determines the extent to which products and advertising campaigns can be "globalised". By taking this individual approach to determining product motivations across cultures, solutions to international product design and promotion opportunities can be specified for maximum effect and least compromise. Examples are taken from several markets.