Brand Research 101: Clearly Differentiating Non Users

The value of differentiating between non, never, and lapsed users.

by Joel Rubinson
President at Rubinson Partners Inc

Individuals not purchasing your brand fall into one of three categories: current non-users, lapsed users and never users.

It’s brand research 101: measure and compare brand penetration rates across brands, knowing who qualifies as a user and who does not.

Start with the survey question: I find that the typical question is subject to telescoping. That means you will always get overstatement. Typically, if a national brand really has 15% annual penetration, a question like “which brands did you buy over the past 12 months?” will elicit 25% or more claiming purchase. Now, there are some tricks you can use to trap telescoping.

1. Use a longer time frame that you don’t care about. That way, a consumer can state positivity about the brand but give you a better answer. I used to ask, “which brands have you bought in the past 12 months?” and then “which have you bought in the past six months?”. Doing it that way, I found that the past six-month responses matched closely to recorded purchasing for 12 months.
2. If the client has first-party customer data, onboard that CRM information to the survey panel provider and match whether or not they really are a customer. Self-perception and reality about being a customer don’t always align, as I found out in a recent study.

Even with better ways to get accurate information on brand buying, this is still not enough to do an insightful analysis. What else would we want to know?

Measuring consumer’s propensity to purchase

Well, I might want to know a consumer’s propensity to buy my brand, and whether or not they bought it is an outcome. Someone could have a significant propensity to buy it but not yet actually be a buyer. Targeting those who have a propensity to buy your brand but have not yet bought it is the best way to develop a cogent new buyer strategy. Research I have done shows that those without propensity towards your brand are really hard and unprofitable to convert. However, there is a sizeable pool of non-buyers who actually have favorable thoughts towards your brand. Target them and you might be in business!