Today Newsworks launches a white paper together with research and strategy company house51, exploring the psychology behind consumer decision-making in an online world.
The research shows how crucial it is for consumers to encounter brands in the right context and how journalism can provide marketers with people’s undivided attention. Beyond brand awareness, mental availability is how a brand registers on a customer’s mental radar.
News brands’ trusted, information-rich environments mean that journalism can play a fundamental role in creating mental availability in a crowded media environment – in an era of digital commerce.
Exploring how mental availability works in both online and offline retail involved reviewing academic and planning literature and in-depth qualitative and quantitative investigation, through 16 in-home interviews, two workshops and surveying around 2,000 people across the country.
Newsworks’ insight director Denise Turner commented: “Our latest research provides brands and marketers with further confirmation that where your brand is seen matters more than ever. In a world of hyper-targeting and personalisation, trusted brands and trusted contexts such as news brands give people the reassurance they so desperately need.”
house51’s co-founder Ian Murray added: “Our research is full of real-world insights for marketers. Above all, we’ve shown that brands are so much more than mere marketing devices. In the digital era, they are about personal wellbeing – helping people manage risk and make meaningful choices.”
Key findings:
- Mental availability matters more to marketers now than ever before
- Perceptions of risk significantly diminish people’s feelings of trust, confidence and control when making online shopping decisions
- There is no substitute for the human experiences offered by brick and mortar retail
- Choice overload online negatively affects shoppers
- Consumers don’t always believe that the trade-off in online shopping is worth the risk
For more information on what this research means to you and your company, download the white paper here.
