Baileys reshapes consumer perceptions- A Case study

The latest snowstorm kept me an extra night in Toronto, but it did give me the chance
to pass on this interesting case study. In his presentation at a Canadian Advertising
Research forum on Wednesday morning, Dhan Kashyap, strategy director at Diageo
Canada Inc., explained how a new positioning had boosted sales growth for Baileys.
What was interesting to me was that the repositioning encouraged consumers to
reassess what the brand Baileys is a strong, differentiated brand in Canada that has
been supported over time with effective above-the-line advertising. Positioned for
years as a brand to accompany intimate moments and special occasions, Baileys has
never relied on promotions or price discounting. But after two years of robust sales
increases, the year 2005 brought a rapid deceleration in the brand's sales growth.
Diageo considered various strategies for boosting the brand's sales momentum.
Increasing penetration was not really an option, since, to use Diageo's consumer
loyalty terminology, over 50 percent of target consumers were already "Adorers" or
"Adopters." It was not that people did not like the brand; they simply did not drink it
very often.
The obvious strategy was to try to extend usage to more frequent occasions, but
people who were conditioned to think of Baileys as an indulgence for special
occasions would not feel comfortable ordering Baileys in an impersonal setting like a
crowded and noisy bar. The brand was boxed in by its existing positioning. Yet
repositioning the brand as one being suitable for casual social occasions would put it
into direct competition with many other spirits brands. The question became, how far
could the positioning of Baileys be stretched toward more public usage occasions
without undermining the strong bond it had forged with consumers through its
associations with special occasion.Whatever the brand did, consumers would need to
reconsider what the brand stood for. Challenging goals were set for changing brand
attitudes, including decreasing the perception that Baileys was for special occasions,
and improving claimed past 4 week usage. Aggressive goals were also set for the TV
advertising. The agency brief called for breakthrough copy that would achieve an

Awareness Index of 9 or higher in Millward Brown's Link pretest (well above the
Canadian norm). As Dhan stated later, in order to achieve significant changes in
entrenched attitudes and behavior, compelling creative is a must. You need
breakthrough copy and cannot settle for something that is merely average.
J. Walter Thompson Canada proved up to the challenge. Starting with 10 possible
scripts, five were put into qualitative research. The two that seemed most promising
were turned into animatics and tested using Link. (It is of note that while the new
positioning, "Spread Playfulness," was global, all materials for the campaign were
produced and tested locally.) One of the executions, named "Beach Blanket," featured
friends sitting around a campfire at the beach, dunking flaming marshmallows in
glasses of Baileys. This execution met the established criteria while portraying the
brand in a relaxed social situation, albeit one in which people were sharing a
memorable experience with good friends. From the time the ad aired, sales growth
picked up momentum and perceptions that Bailey's was good to drink in a casual
setting improved. The theme of the "Beach Blanket execution, as well as the tagline
"Let your senses guide you" continued to be used in subsequent commercials, which
continued to boost sales growth. Baileys succeeded by steering a fine course between
stretching people's appreciation of the brand and undermining it. Had management
accepted consumer feedback at face value, they would have resigned themselves to
steady volume sales from a brand drunk on special occasions. Instead they
successfully reframed experience of the brand as one that could be drunk on more
casual occasions with friends. By doing so, they boosted sales. I think there is a lesson
here for both marketers and market researchers. Even though marketers can't control
what people think of a brand, they can and should attempt to guide consumers in the
right direction that is, toward the most profitable positioning for the brand. And for
market researchers, it is yet another reminder that consumer mindsets are malleable.
Our job is not just to measure how things are today, but to figure out how things
might be in the future, whether as the result of marketing activity or simply changing
consumer needs and beliefs.

Effects of Affect on Consumer Behavior a Meta -Analytic

Integration- An Article

Imagine a customer walking into a car dealership. The dealership is playing his
favorite song and offering free cookies, both of which put him in a good mood.
However, when a salesperson approaches and offers to show him a car, he is more
rather than less critical of the automobile. He wants to assess the car accurately and
not to be influenced by the positive feelings created by the dealership environment.
This scenario highlights the complex and consequential nature of consumer affect.
While there is a vast amount of research on affective feelings, the direct effect of
positive or negative affect on consumer behavior is still unclear.
Some research points to an affect-congruence effectwhere positive affect leads to a
favorable consumer response and negative affect leads to an unfavorable response.
Other research points to an affect-incongruence effect, where positive affect leads to a
less-favorable response, as in the example above.
This report by Nancy Puccinelli, Dhruv Grewal, Scott Motyka, Susan Andrzejewski,
and Tamar Avnet is the first to quantitatively synthesize the body of work examining
the effects of affect on consumer behavior.
They integrate 240 studies with a total of 33,057 participants conducted over 28 years
(1987-2015) to provide insight into how consumer affect impacts two outcomes:
evaluation and behavior.
The authors examine whether affect congruence and affect incongruence are
influenced by:
(1) The level of arousal inherent in the affective state,
(2) The information-processing intensity of a task or the processing ability of the
individual,

(3) The accessibility or representativeness of the feelings evoked, and

(4) Social norms related to the expression of feelings.
Their findings support an overall main effect of affect congruence in which positive
(negative) affect leads to a more (less) favorable consumer response. Importantly,
their findings demonstrate several moderating conditions.
For example, they see the strongest affect-congruent influence when the affective
state is low in arousal level, low in processing intensity or ability, high in
representativeness, and when social norms support affective expression.
Other conditions diminish the affect-congruent effect or even reverse it (affect
incongruence). If the product category is highly involving or cognitively complex,
managers may see diminishing returns on investment in a feel-good strategy.
Further, if the feel-good strategy aims to cheer people up and thus engenders a high
arousal affective state, managers might also face disappointing results.
Finally, special attention needs to be paid to the social context (i.e., cultural or group)
as these factors can also interact with consumer affect to reduce likelihood of
purchase.