Question

Topic: Customer Behavior

Low-high Involvement

Posted by rohit.banota on 4/24/2015 at 6:43 PM ET 250 Points
Can a low involvement category be converted into high involvement category? Why? Give an example.
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  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 4/24/2015 at 8:31 PM Accepted
    My answer is yes. But because the question includes the wording: "Why? Give an example." this sounds less like a forum question and more like a homework question.

    Tell me, Rohit, what do you think? What's your take?
  • Posted by mgoodman on 4/24/2015 at 9:08 PM Accepted
    Doubtful. And we don't do homework here.

    Share your thinking and we will react. That way you are doing the homework (and learning from the experience).
  • Posted by rohit.banota on 4/24/2015 at 9:55 PM Author
    Hi Gary and Goodman

    I meant "how more than why". I meant how can we convert a low involvement category product, for example, like a convenience category product into a carefully considered high involvement product. My take is by educating the consumer.

    I'd love an example of such a conversion to help relate. I am working on exactly such an assignment in my current role, and am trying to keep a hybrid business model , that incorporates both high involvement and convenience for the consumer. ideally, I'd love high involvement only!

    Thanks in advance,
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 4/25/2015 at 12:00 AM Accepted
    All right. Now we're getting somewhere.

    To convert a low involvement category into high involvement category you need three key elements, as outlined in this article by Bruce Levinson: https://www.brandingmagazine.com/2014/11/26/the-fallacy-of-the-low-involvem...

    Levinson gives the examples of insurance, deodorant, and the ale ice bucket challenge—all of which were low involvement brands that shifted into higher gear.
  • Posted by rohit.banota on 4/25/2015 at 2:49 PM Author
    Thanks Gary. That was very informative. I need some time to go work on it before I have follow up questions.

    Thank you all!
  • Posted by saul.dobney on 4/28/2015 at 6:27 AM Accepted
    Understand the underlying customer benefit. Create a distinctive claim that shows how your brand delivers this benefit to the customer and show how it is better than the competitor, so it becomes an important element of choice.

    The classic example is soap - the definitive marketed product, and a deep part of the history of marketing. Soap in the mid-1800s was a large scale commodity product sold in blocks from industrial processes. With marketing, over the years it became more and more differentiated. Washing powders, hand cremes, shampoo, washing-up liquids, which then extends to conditioners (fabric and hair), hand cleansers, dishwasher tablets and the whole panoply of cleaning products. Soap is sold not so much as being clean, but as 'brilliant whites', 'gentle to the hands', heathly/germ-free, perfumed luxury, effort free, gleaming hair, shiny floors, cuts through grime... Any occasion something needs to be clean, combined with the emotional important of what you feel 'clean' means.
  • Posted by rohit.banota on 4/28/2015 at 10:11 PM Author
    Hi Saul

    Thanks, that was very informative indeed! Now, this low involvement category is just like washing powder, dish soap etc. Is there a precedent of turning such categories into high involvement categories, sold within a specialty retail store( without e-commerce) for such household cleaning categories, rather than using the traditional distribution channels, that other CPG manufacturers use.

    This thread is a bit long, and I thank you all for your patience and bearing with my curiosity,

    Thank You
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