McBride & Associates: Media, Message, & Branding

"The Medium is the Message." Marshall McLuhan

According to traditional wisdom, products have attributes, but people buy benefits. However benefits are viewed differently by different users and in different media. The matrix below illustrates how

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different messages and marketing communications can be utilized most effectively against different targets for information-rich consumer products.

The Implications for Media and Message Selection

For information-rich product categories such as computers or automobiles, brand users are more susceptible to product attribute based advertising messages, because this information supports and reinforces their brand choice.

Category users are most influenced by benefits their current brand doesn't deliver, and which might be sufficient to induce them to switch brands.

In contrast non-users must, first, be sold on the category by making the experience of owning, having, using the product compelling enough to get them into the market.

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Brand -- and to a lesser extent category-- users have self-segmented themselves based on both their buying behavior and their media usage. Thus more finely targeted and more cost efficient marcom media can reach them effectively. Not surprisingly the extremes on the matrix have the potential to deliver the most compelling sales message to the extremes among the users.