# Brand Research 101: Clearly Differentiating Non Users

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

by [Joel Rubinson](/content/insights/authors/jrubinson/index.html)  
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](/content/insights/brand-loyalty-the-link-between-attitudes-and-behaviors/index.html), 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!