How high is high involvement?

Michael,

I love your column, thanks for the daily lesson. I've got a question though and I'd love to get your thoughts.

I work in telecoms and thrash around with the conundrum of whether buying a mobile phone with a particular operator (Telstra for example) is a high involvement or low involvement purchase? I think that my colleagues and I fall into the trap of thinking it is a high involvement but I look at people int he street and think that it could be low involvement. Then again, younger people tend to spend a bucket of money and effort finding the coolest offer when older people don't.

As for the decision to choose which company for one's home phone, I think that different segments of the market probably differ as well.

You'd agree that this would change massively the type of marketing approach one would depending on the involvement level?

Perhaps this could be a subject of a future column - differing levels of involvement for the same product across age groups…

Cheers
Sean

Hi Sean,

Attitudes to a decision about a phone range from plugging in to a utility (land line connection for most people, except perhaps rural users for whom the phone is a life-or-death facility) to a life-changing milestone (a child getting their first mobile) and everything in between. The decision about the carrier is probably low involvement in cases where consumers don’t see a meaningful difference between you and your competitors. What differentiates carriers? Level of irritation, customer service ethic, cost, brand imagery, drop outs/coverage??? What determines the level of involvement of a brand choice? Risk? (Fear) Self esteem? (Craving approval) The level of emotion evoked in the consideration process would appear to be a key indicator of involvement. The context of the decision would appear to determine the level of emotion. You could segment consumers by how important brand is to them in your category. The importance of brand indicates level of involvement.

You could use my Quality Of A Sale Index (QOS) to reveal the level of brand involvement of your customer base vs competitors and consequently the long term stability of your market share. The QOS Index reveals the difference between sales that look the same on paper. A Low Quality Sale is driven by promotions, is churned from another brand, is likely to be followed by flight to yet another brand chasing yet another deal, generates no word of mouth, and does not represent an investment in the future of the brand. A High Quality Sale is not driven by a deal, is based on a brand choice, is a repeat sale to a customer, is likely to be followed by another repeat sale, generates advocacy and represents an investment in the future value of the brand. High concentrations of High Quality Sales indicates that a customer base is an appreciating asset. The reverse is the case with high concentrations of Low Quality Sales. Levels of involvement are also likely to be indicated as correlated with QOS. (I predicted the demise of Mitsubishi in Australia 6 years ago based on the QOS Index, as well as the decline of GMH and the rise of Toyota. QOS is a reliable measure of brand health.)

Cheers!

Michael