With most research focusing on high-involvement product categories (such as cutting-edge products and ‘sexy’ brands), managers of low-involving products often struggle to get their brands noticed; the same rules just don’t apply. This article explores the factors that may influence consumers’ purchase decisions in what could be seen as emotionless product categories. How can marketers begin to re-engage their audiences?    

What is a Low-Involvement Product Category?

Some products may not excite all consumers. For example, for me (and I believe a lot of others),  insurance and antivirus software aren’t particularly inspiring. When selecting products in categories of little interest, consumers are unlikely to spend time assessing which brand to buy because to them, their final purchase decision is of comparatively little importance.  Instead, they may act by habit or simply buy what is top of mind. Their lack of motivation to actively weigh up the pros and cons of the brands means that any actual feelings of like or dislike are often based on subconscious factors.

NFC technology has the ability to transform smartphones into virtual wallets, where users pay for transactions simply by waving their phone at an appropriate receiver terminal. However, it also has much wider applications, allowing for synchronised content and services across the mobile ecosystem [1]. The reward for owning this relationship in the mobile space is enormous, and as a result everyone, from mobile operators to device manufacturers, is fighting for a share.

The industry message seems clear; mobile payments will be big over the next five years – big news and big profits. The technology has been around in various forms for years and, now that leading names such as Apple, Google and RIM are designing and manufacturing NFC-equipped devices, many commentators predict that mobile payments will skyrocket [2].

However, while this will undoubtedly be a major growth area for the future, such reports seldom address the fact that the journey to full consumer adoption is not without its pitfalls.

The past decade has been marked by two revolutions in market research and both are associated with the internet. The first is the move to online research, especially to access panels. Access panels are collections of people who have volunteered to take our surveys. Access panels have allowed us to provide speedy, cost effective research, using the compelling, visual medium of the internet.

The second is the growth of social media. Consumers are no longer passive. They are empowered; they socialise online; they get instant information about brands, often over their mobile. In this new social world the key question is who owns the brand? Brand owners are now part of a real time conversation where customers’ experiences and a brand’s performance are transparent for all to see. These new social media tools are moving us from access panels to increasingly socialised panels and to research based around communities, and they are one of the easiest ways for brands to converse with consumers.

It’s an exciting time to be involved in the digital world; only recently we were still developing .mobi websites, now it’s an annoyance when we get forced to a .mobi on a smartphone browser. We were sending each other MMS messages, now we just email them directly from our email account. Our number one reason to upgrade a phone was for more mega pixels from the built-in camera, now it’s less about the hardware and more about software.

Such rapid changes in technology force the online space to adapt and change to suit how the user wants to access content, one area that has maintained a steady evolution is online video technology.