+2%

BRAZIL
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
TOP 50 MOST VALUABLE LATIN AMERICAN BRANDS 2015
NEUROSCIENCE:
HELPING BRANDS
MAKE THE
CONNECTION
FRANCISCO BAYEUX
Global Innovations
Millward Brown, Brazil
Francisco.Bayeux@millwardbrown.com
2015 has been a challenging year for Brazil
so far. Inflation is increasing faster than
predicted, and it’s not clear when the
economic downturn will pass.
Maybe this is all a reflection of the
current political crisis in the country
as many expert analysts point to, but
whatever the cause, one thing is a
certainty: brands will need to work hard
to make consumers pay a premium for
them.
And what is the key thing to take into
account to maintain a strong brand in
a scenario like this? Before answering
this question, let’s take one step back
and get some context for the consumer
response to this, which is to understand
how a purchase decision is made.
Neuroscience has taught us that both
the intuitive and reflexive parts of our
brain play a role in decision making,
but that we pay more attention to the
intuitive/automatic portion of our brain.
The reason for this is very clear, it is
because it takes more energy to access
the reflexive portion of our brain.
However, it’s fairly obvious that in
difficult economic periods, people
will think more about the things they
need to buy, be it by questioning the
importance of making that particular
purchase or wondering if they need to
spend less money on certain categories
that they are used to buying.
But this doesn’t mean that in this
scenario brands will need to work
harder on their ‘rational’ justifications of
why they are a good purchase, because
as explained before, people will continue
to initially react instinctively to a brand
before reflecting on the reasons to buy
it. The one thing that gains importance
in this period is making the bridge
between the intuitive associations a
certain brand may have and the rational
arguments of why to buy it.
A WELL
CONNECTED BRAND
The Brazilian beer brand Skol is a great
example to help understand this (once
again, it’s top of this country’s brand
ranking with a positive variation of
20% in its brand value). If you ask any
Brazilian what they think of Skol, they
will probably instantaneously mention
things like ‘fun’, ‘playful’, ‘happiness’,
‘friends’. These associations have been
built over the years that the brand has
been communicating under the ‘Desce
redondo’ big idea (something that
can be translated as ‘easy to drink’).
Making the connection between these
emotional/positioning aspects with
the product functional benefit of being
a light beer to drink really cold is quite
natural. It is in just this kind of situation,
when people are having fun, that
they want to drink a beer with these
characteristics – therefore, the rational
arguments to buy the brand come
even more easily to mind because
of the intuitive, automatic footprint
that it has built, mainly through its
communication efforts.
It is these clear connections
between the brand proposition and
the positive functional benefits
that will help brands maintain a
strong relationship with consumers
as they seek more justification for
their purchasing decisions. And this
may mean an even more important
role for the brand communication
efforts, as it is the best way you can
reinforce or build these associations.
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