C-ing is believing

Editor’s note: Isabelle Albanese is founder and principal of Consumer Truth Ltd., a Hinsdale, Ill., research firm.

The ability to communicate clearly and to identify effective communication has never been more important than today in our hectic, fragmented world. And while there are undoubtedly thousands of books written, papers published and philosophies espoused about how to communicate effectively, I’ve developed a simple framework called the 4Cs of Truth in Communications, which was designed to offer researchers and clients a way to objectively evaluate consumer response to stimulus.

Using a template we’ve created, which is explored below, clients follow consumer feedback easily by instantly assessing how the stimulus performs on each of the Cs. When it comes time for the debrief, all of your clients have a consistent format for structuring feedback, which makes the debrief session flow very smoothly.

The 4Cs process was developed eight years ago for a presentation of insights to a new campaign idea for a venerated brand. The clients in the room appreciated the way we categorized the learning. The 4Cs structure enabled everyone at the table, from sales people to promotion people to HR, to understand the learning in a way that made sense. And the ad agency creative folks felt it was an objective way to think about consumer reaction to advertising ideas. Having spent 16 years in the ad agency business working with creatives, I can tell you this was a personal victory! They are not easy to please, especially when it comes to listening to consumers evaluate - not always in a generous way - their “babies.”

The 4Cs are: comprehension, connection, credibility and contagiousness. Together they capture what everyone connected with the project needs to know about consumer response to stimuli. Separately, they provide clarity for ourselves and our clients, and a simple way to categorize consumer response.

They form a model in which you ask a series of questions about how the consumer responded to stimuli. In the answers (as well as an understanding of how to use the model) lies the direction you and your client are looking for to move forward.

Comprehension

Questions: Is the main message clearly communicated? Simply put, do consumers get it? 

The comprehension C is exactly what you think it is - there’s no hidden meaning or great deal of explanation necessary, although it is obviously quite fundamental to basic communication. On the surface, this is a simple assessment of whether the intended message is being understood. Simple, in theory, but not always easy to achieve, because sometimes marketers and advertisers seem determined to make consumers work exceedingly hard just to get the message. How many times in showing advertising to consumers have you heard them say with frustration, “What are they trying to say to me?”

Consumers just don’t have the time. No matter what category we’re delving into - from ice cream to clothing to coffee, shampoo or insurance - consumers are basically saying to us, “Please don’t make me work that hard. I am very busy.” They’re perfectly willing to listen to your message. In fact, many want to hear it. They just don’t want to work hard to get it.

Connection

Questions: Does the message resonate with consumers? Is it persuasive? Does it communicate that the brand knows them simply by the way it is talking to them? Does it motivate purchase?

These are all critical questions in determining the extent to which any form of communication connects with its intended audience.

Connection is often an emotional response - something that is felt but can’t be explained. A genuine rapport has been established, so it’s no longer advertiser talking to customer or politician to voter, it’s a message from someone who really knows me and understands what matters to me. So much so that I feel that the message is speaking directly to me on a personal level.

Connecting with the consumer means you have begun to establish a relationship with them via your communication. And how valuable is that? It means something you said or showed to them has resonated - has reached them on some internal level, whether that’s in a rational or irrational way - and so the communication resonates too.

The message somehow has tapped into an existing consumer truth for them in their lives relative to the subject, and it usually always extends deep downward to something emotional, or at the very least, something which is not entirely rational: frustration, excitement, anger, passion, joy, happiness, sadness, resignation, etc.

I once worked on communications evaluation for a Suave hair care campaign. At the time, we were aiming to communicate a completely new message based on a new positioning and tapping into a newly-discovered consumer truth. Four print ads depicted “mom” (the target) in various family situations:

•  in the kitchen multitasking by making a PB&J sandwich while having a phone conversation - with her kids all around her doing various real-life kid-type things;

•  in the bathroom sitting on a (closed) toilet and helping her three-year-old with potty training while her four-year-old is brushing his teeth;

•  in her daughters’ bedroom playing dress-up;

•  in the hallway helping her young daughter get her boots on.

All were very plausible, real-life situations. Of course, you say, if you hold a mirror up to someone they are likely to say “I can see myself!” So what? That doesn’t necessarily mean they like what they see, are moved emotionally or otherwise motivated by that image. To be sure. But in this case, it did mean that. One mom looked at those four ads and said, literally as she pointed to each one of them, “That’s me, that’s me, that’s me and that’s me!”

The connection wasn’t made simply because she could see herself in those situations - and here’s the interesting, brand-relevant part - it was made because she saw that each of the moms depicted had great-looking hair. She was able to connect with the message that even though I’m a mom and have a crazy, chaotic mom life, using Suave can help me look good!

And the beautiful epilogue to this story is that in subsequent quantitative ad testing, these ads met all client hurdles for attention, branding, communication and motivation. And the Suave hair care brand experienced share and sales growth.

Credibility

Questions: Does it make sense for the brand to speak to consumers in a certain way? Is the tone and manner consistent with the brand’s position in consumers’ “brain space” based on their experience with and understanding of the brand’s equities and promises? How do you know?

If the message isn’t credible, if it doesn’t conform to the brand’s (or cause’s or platform’s) truth, it’s meaningless. The audience needs to believe who is saying it (e.g., the brand’s voice), what is being said and how it’s being said. Otherwise any connection previously established immediately begins to break down. And I really mean immediately.

•   Who: Does it make sense for your brand to speak to its audience in this way? Does it logically fit, given the equity your brand has developed among its core target and in the marketplace as a whole?

•   What: Is it something your audience expects from this brand? This could be good and bad. If it’s something expected, it could likely get glossed over or even ignored outright. It may fit, but if it’s just “same-old,” there better be enough going on in the areas of communication and connection (and contagiousness, the 4th C) to make up for too-smooth a fit.

•   How: An unexpected message or delivery can bring a lot of energy and attention to your brand, especially if its history or heritage or equity gives it permission to speak in this way. Or even if it doesn’t, it can still be powerful if marketplace conditions and consumer attitudes make it acceptable anyway.

The point is, credibility leads to believability and believability leads to persuasion and persuasion leads to action. So even if it’s not instantly credible, it becomes credible because your audience can see a way to make the message fit. That counts too.

The credibility C is all about your brand’s truth. It’s either going to work for consumers or it isn’t. For a message to really drive the credibility train, it must make sense for your brand’s message to be communicated in that particular way. It gets an immediate head-nod. Not a trace of doubt in my mind. When credibility is there, it removes a potential obstacle to comprehension, connection and contagiousness.

In fact, when it’s instantly credible, consumers don’t even think about it. They don’t usually look at an ad or package or concept which is delivering a credible brand message and say “Yes, that is a believable message from that brand.” In most of the work we do, credibility of the message is not an issue. Most clients know their own brand truth. It’s the fiber of their brand. It’s been built up and ingrained in consumers’ brains and psyches over time.

Contagiousness

Questions: Is there a sense of energy around the message and the way it is executed? Does it offer a new way to view the brand or category? Is it competitively differentiating? Is there something innately memorable about it? Does it evoke a vivid emotional response? Might it have talk potential (it may not always be positive talk)? Does it motivate the target to do something? Does it elicit some kind of highly-charged, demonstrable and visible reaction?

This C is tricky. Tricky, but incredibly necessary. In many cases, it can be all that truly matters.

You know how it is when the room starts buzzing, when the respondents start talking among themselves about what they’ve just seen. That’s when you know the communication is on its way to becoming an unqualified success.

I’ve found that contagiousness, in the positive sense, is often intimately linked to connection. When a message truly resonates with its audience in a profound way, there tends to be a residual contagiousness effect. They simply can’t help thinking about it or mentioning it in conversation. Remember my Suave example - “That’s me, that’s me, that’s me!” For that moment, right there in the room, that woman got excited about the message. She spoke out, her voice rose, she pointed to each ad - she was infected. The brand had found an idea that not only resonated with its target: Moms want pretty hair too! - but executed it in a way that left the recipient feeling empowered and excited by the message. The Suave brand now has the opportunity to sink in with this target - to “infect” the way they think about the brand. That’s contagiousness.

Immediately actionable

No matter what the stimulus, applying the 4Cs can help identify if it really rocks and why, or where it needs help to keep from sinking like a rock. The method is immediately actionable - you can use it in your very next project that involves stimulus exposure.

It’s also a way to get disparate constituents (brand clients, consumer insights clients, ad agencies, etc.) on the same page relative to evaluating consumer feedback - something that can always be a challenge.

The simplicity of the framework is its power; it is easy to remember and easy to use. It can lead to better creative executions and stronger business results.