Creating Better Advertising Through Laddering Asha Sen Alok Shanker INTRODUCTION

How would a new entrant advertise his brand in a cluttered market? Can one brand be differentiated from another through advertising in a product category where there is little or no real product difference between one brand and the other? Traditional research tools are good at mapping how existing brands are perceived by consumers and point to the dimensions on which brands are differentiated in the consumers mind, be they on product attributes or benefits or on imagery/personality. However, having told us what positions are occupied, and on what battlefronts the brand battles are being fought, they do not provide very much help on what can be done to differentiate yet another brand. In an attempt to overcome this problem, creative solutions are sought either from creative people in ad agencies or from creative consumers in exercises such as creativity groups. However, the outcome of these exercises are not often empathised with by the typical consumer who thinks differently. One such technique which is capable of addressing this problem is laddering, which develops an understanding of how consumers translate the attributes of products into meaningful associations with respect to self, following the Means-End theory (Gutman, 1982). The linkages or ladders represent combination of elements (attributes, consequences and values) that serve as the basis for distinguishing between and among products in a given product class. This paper demonstrates with the help of an illustrative study on tea and edible oils, how laddering can be used to find winning consumer empathetic routes of differentiating a brand from the rest of the cluttered market, create better advertising and proactively segment markets using the consumer as the starting point rather than only the creative person. The paper is presented in two parts:Section 2 consists of the methodology and a description of the basic output from laddering.

Section 3 contains our interpretation of the findings and demonstrates the usefulness of the technique.

METHODOLOGY AND THE BASIC OUTPUT Methodology of Laddering

Laddering involves a structured interviewing format using a series of directed probes, mainly the question, Why is that important to you? By causing the respondent to think critically about the connections between product attributes and personal motivations, sets of linkages are determined between the key perceptual elements across the range of attributes, consequences and values. The questions are open-ended. Responses are recorded verbatim, but analysed in a structured manner. This results in a summary table representing the number of connections direct (relations among adjacent elements in a ladder) and indirect, between the elements. This obviates the painful choice that often has to be made between the rigour of quantitative analysis and the sensitivity of qualitative information. This crossing over from the qualitative nature of the interviews to the quantitative way of dealing with the information, is one of the unique aspects of laddering. From this Summary table, the dominant connections are graphically plotted, resulting in a hierarchical value map (HVM). To elaborate with an example from our study: Respondents when asked to elaborate what they considered important in an edible oil state attributes such as taste low fat, refined, clear. Therefore, most advertising for edible oils shout features about the oil. But no link is made to the personal relevance of these features advertisers forget to tell consumers what the product features mean to the user. Laddering does first that in the following manner. The first attribute taste is taken up and by asking the question, Why is that important to you? and by repeating the question for each subsequent response, laddered responses are obtained till no further responses are forthcoming from the respondent. The second attribute low fat is then laddered, the third and so on. For each respondent, the various individual attribute ladders are aggregated to give the Direct (Relations between adjacent elements) and Indirect (Relations between non-adjacent elements) relations between various elements. If a respondent said she cooked in Refined oil because it was light and therefore easily digested, and hence resulted in good health which resulted in here being active/fit and looking good and therefore feeling good about herself Self esteem. The following chain would result:

Self esteem Active / Fit / Look good

Good health

Easily digested

Light

Refined

The linkage between Refined and Light would be a direct linkage as also Light Easily digested or Good health Active / Fit / Look good. However, the relationship between Refined and Easily digested or Good health would be indirect. All such ladders are aggregated across respondents and all Direct and Indirect relations for each element summed resulted in a square matrix, which displayed the number of times each element led to each other element. A part of the matrix is reproduced below, showing number of direct and indirect linkages (the figure before the decimal point representing the number of direct relations, and the figure after the decimal point the number of indirect relations): Less/ no fats Refined Light Pure Clear 7.02 4.01 1.01 1.02 Do not have to heat 0.04 0.00 0.00 0.00 Vitamins are not destroyed 0.02 0.01 0.00 0.00

As seen above Refined has seven direct linkages with Less / No fats and two indirect relations. Similarly, it has only four indirect linkages with Do not have to heat and no direct linkage. All relations above a cut off level are mapped resulting in the hierarchical value map (HVM), described in detail later in the paper.

The Study Details

The rest of this paper is based on a study on edible oil and tea which was conducted in Delhi among 60 housewives in the income group of Rs. 3000-5000. For tea, we looked at users of Brooke Bond, Red Label, Taj Mahal, Taaza and Tata Tea and for Oil, users of Sundrop, Flora, Sweekar, and Vital since these brands are widely known to be competing brands in their respective product categories.

What emerged
The two focus group discussions conducted to determine important attributes of the product class, also gave a good assessment of how these brands were not differentiated on attributes and somewhat differentiated on personality, but did not answer the question of how a new brand could differentiate itself from the rest of the pack or where, and how features and personality were interlinked.

The outputs (or the summary table) results of all the laddering interviews conducted subsequently for both the product categories are given in Figure 1 and Figure 2

Figure 1 Hierarchical Value Map (HVM) for Edible Oils

Pride in being good mother Children Successful Look after children better Look after home well/raise std. Of living Work done properly / in time Social circle widens No tension stress No medical expenses Praise Good health Satisfaction / Accomplishment Saves time Happiness / Contentment Can do other / more work Self reliance

Rest / relaxation/ recreation

Remain within budget

Do all work by self

Self esteem

Save money

Feel active / fit/ good looking

No stomach problem Easily digested No cholesterol / B.P. / heart problems No heaviness / light Natural / pure Good food Eat well

Feel like cocking Does not congeal Looks good Light (A3)

Refined (A1)

Pure (A2)

Clear (A4)

No/ light colour (A5)

No smell (A6)

Taste (A7)

Figure 2 Hierarchical Value Map (HVM) for Tea

Satisfaction accomplishment

Happiness / Contentment

Importance Rest / Recreation Status Free time Belonging Praise Social circle widens Selfreliance Money saving Time saving Less quantity used/ lasts longer Good mood / Good day No hesitation in serving Everybody likes it Work done properly / in time Cheaper Economical (A8) No tension Look after home / family better Good health

All work done by self

Refreshes / relaxes

Satisfaction Morning cup (A6)

Good quality / reputed co. (A7) Strength (A5)

Feel like drinking For guest (A1) Taste / flavour (A4)

Aroma (A3)

Packed fresh (A2)

The Second Level Output :

As can be seen, the hierarchical value map (HVM) is structural in nature and represents the associations across levels of abstraction (Attributes consequences values). The second basic output after having drawn the HVM would be the identification of the dominant chains. For example, for edible oil, having plotted all relations, when we look at all elements in the map in terms of other elements leading into them and in terms of their connections to higher order elements, both direct and indirect, the dominant chain that emerges is given below:

Happiness / Contentment

Work done properly

No tension

Good health

Eat well

Light (A)
The summary of direct (XX) and indirect (YY) relations for each element (XX.YY) is given below:

Elements Light Eat well Good health No tension Work done properly Happiness / Contentment

No. of relations leading from 63.252 141.238 226.362 64.58 73.102 3.00

No. of relations leading into 0.00 148.192 272.398 74.160 82.214 150.506

In fact happiness / contentment at the values level has the most elements leading to it among all the elements at the values level, and might be seen to be the core value of the product class.

Similarly for tea, one of the dominant chains is given below:

Satisfaction / Accomplishment

Look after home / family well

Good mood / Good day

House work done well / in time

Refreshes / Relaxes

Strength (A)
When, we look at the Direct and Indirect relations for each element, the core value appears to be Satisfaction / Accomplishment since it has the highest number of elements leading to it. Elements Strength Refreshes/Relaxes House work done well in/in time Good mood/day Look after home/family better Satisfaction/ Accomplishment No. of relations leading from 54.180 214.495 185.288 57.72 79.30 4.01 No. of relations leading into 0.00 223.71 196.303 65.135 89.236 87.257

INTERPRETATION CREATING BRAND DIFFERENTIATION WHERE NO DIFFERENTIATION IS APPARENT The strongest chains in the map represent the dominant perceptions, and each unique pathway (i.e. chain in HVM map) from an attribute to a value represents a possible perceptual orientation, which could be used as a basis for differentiating brands. Differentiation by values backed by strong linkages to attributes is more stable in the long term (difficult for competitors to copy) than differentiation based on attributes alone. The following example illustrates how the same attribute could provide two different ways to differentiate a brand:

Pride in being good mother Children successful

Self Esteem

Look after children better

Feel active / fit / look good

No medical expenses, save money, remain within budget

Good health No cholesterol / B.P / Heart problems

Refined (A)
Thus, one refined oil could prevent cholesterol build-up / blood pressure / heart problems, resulting in good health, no medical expenses and therefore, enable you to save money and spend it on your children to make them successful therefore making you feel proud as a good mother, while another oil could still be Refined, prevent cholesterol build up / blood pressure / heart problems and be good for health but make you feel active / fit / look good resulting in feelings of self esteem. Most of the ads today for Refined Oil brands in the market are still at the cholesterol/health stage, each shouting louder than the other or all saying good health without taking the extra step of what can it mean to me. In our example, while both oils are equally Refined, they are in reality two absolutely different oils, in terms of the way they are presented to the consumer. Further, the data suggests ways of using the same attribute but differentiating your oil on the basis of different benefits or values by using the same attribute value combination, but a different route. If we were to look at the tea example, you could have two different brands positioned as follows:

Brand A: A tea wit a good flavour which everyone who drinks likes and praises leading to the housewife feeling a sense of accomplishment. Brand B: A tea with a good flavour which refreshes you and therefore, enables you to do the household chores quickly and well thereby saving time and putting you in a good mood to look after the home and family better resulting in a sense of accomplishment. As can be seen, while both brands talk about Flavour and Sense of Accomplishment, yet they are well differentiated. CUES FOR CREATIVE EXECUTION This method not only uncovers ways / routes by which to differentiate your brand but simultaneously also stimulates rich insights among creatives, giving cues for creative execution. Conventional research methods do sometimes point out to values that are desirable to endow a brand with. However, there is always the question of how does one communicate these values to consumers in a way that is meaningful to them. Such problems can be addressed by this technique. In our example of edible oils, one of the ladders in the HVM suggests that the value of self esteem can be communicated through a creative execution showing glowing health, looking active and fit. RESEGMENTING THE MARKET Perhaps one of the most powerful applications of laddering in the context of creating brand differentiation is its value in helping a marketer gain competitive advantage by changing the rules of the game by resegmenting the market. The HVM obtained through the laddering procedure could serve as a basis for segmenting consumers. For example, while the market is traditionally segmented by variables such as product attributes, user profile and lifestyle, one may look at consumer segment for edible oils in such terms as those seek happiness /contentment, or are self reliant, or who feel a sense of accomplishment. It is also possible to look at attribute value connections, assessing them at the levels used in the HVM or in grouping them together. For tea, the attribute For guests may be seen to be linked to more achievement-oriented values such as status important, accomplishment while the attribute good Quality is tied more closely to happiness / contentment. Once a segmentation scheme has been developed, one could examine in each of these segments the performance and image of existing brands and assess what kind of competitive advantage would accrue should once decide to proactively change the rules of the game.

REFERENCES Values through laddering Journal of Advertising Research February-March 1998 Means-End Chain Model based on Consumer Categorization Processes, Jonathan Gutman, Journal of Marketing 46, 2 (1982) Depth Interview Techniques for Creative Advertising, J.F. Durgee, Journal of Advertising Research 25, 6 (1985) Advertising is Image Management, Thomas J. Reynolds and Jonathan Gutman, Journal of Advertising Research 24, 1 (1984) The Role of Personal Values in Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, D.E. Vinson, J.E. Scott and L.M. Lamont, Journal of Marketing 41 (1977).