Companies that want their product to be the dominant choice in the marketplace turn to Leslie Zane. Leslie is the founder of Triggers® Growth Strategy, a brand consulting firm that helps clients accelerate growth by changing customers’ purchase behavior at the instinctual level.
Leslie began her career in corporate America working at Fortune 500 companies. She learned from the best but found that traditional marketing approaches were surprisingly hit or miss. So, in 1995, she founded Triggers® Growth Strategy, the first woman-owned brand consulting firm in the country and built a process to help companies drive revenue growth consistently. Over time, she made a breakthrough discovery: “to grow in the market, you first have to grow physically in the mind.” No matter what the size of your business, the physical expansion of your brand is key to gaining share.
Leslie discovered at an early stage in her working career that our brains are influenced by cumulative memories and associations connected to brands—some going back as far as childhood. For example, when a shopper goes to the supermarket to buy orange juice, they reach for their brand automatically—virtually on autopilot. This is because their “go to” brand has an abundance of positive associations — picking an ripe orange from a tree, the brand their Mother used when they were growing up, fresh taste, quality, ease of opening the container, color, etc. The consumer is driven by this network of associations to choose this one brand over others, automatically.
Leslie explains this phenomenon with the term she coined: “Brand Connectome®” in an article she co-authored with Professor Michael Platt of Wharton:
“The Brand Connectome is a network of connections in the subconscious, filled with positive and negative associations about your brand, product or service. These associations get glued to a brand and dictate people’s choices without they’re realizing it. They affect virtually every buying decision. You don’t control your brand decisions, your Brand Connectome® does.”
By studying brain science, Leslie came to understand the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind and how they affect buying decisions differently.
“The conscious brain is very slow to respond. It’s rigid and resistant to change, as well as, skeptical. When a marketing campaign tries to sell to the conscious brain, it resists, thinking ‘Uh, wait a minute, I am being sold to’ and consequently isn’t inclined to make a purchase.”
If a company continues with such marketing strategies they will ultimately fail. Inherent resistance makes it extremely difficult to persuade the conscious brain to buy a particular brand regularly.
Marketers must find ways to market their brand to the subconscious.
“The subconscious brain is more malleable. Ideas seep in there slowly and become glued to your brand. The subconscious brain isn’t even aware that it is being sold to — it’s on automatic pilot. When you market to the conscious brain, in a way you’re being confrontational, but if you connect with ideas already in consumers’ subconscious, it is much more collaborative. Your brand, or product will receive much better acceptance by a potential buyer.”
The true job of a successful marketer is not necessarily to create a snappy jingle, or slick ad campaign. The marketer must first understand the health of the Brand Connectome® and use every avenue to increase the positive associations in prospective consumers’ minds.
In her Tedx Talk on YouTube, Leslie talks about a time early in her career when she worked at a top baby care company and she recommended that they put the first Father in a baby shampoo commercial. The idea was met with great resistance; it is Moms who most often buy these products, management argued. While this was true, what their research failed to reveal was that when a Mom saw a strong Dad tenderly caring for a fragile newborn baby, it created an abundance of new positive associations in their subconscious about the brand—nurturing, sensitivity, giving Mom a break, modern family, visually unique, even sexy Dad—associations that caused its Brand Connectome to grow. When the company finally put the first Father in its baby care advertising, sales boomed.
Leslie shared that if you choose cues and codes that connect with the subconscious mind, companies of any size—even a start-up– can make rapid gains against larger familiar brands, whether or not they have a lot of resources.
“Companies like, Babyganics, Sun Bum, The Honest Company didn’t spend much on advertising at the beginning. They chose their spots, flooding our subconscious brains with positive associations such as free from harmful chemicals, paraben free, and eco-friendly. They were able to make their Brand Connectomes expand without spending nearly as much money as their competition.”
Telling your story in a way that connects with people’s subconscious is part art, part science. You have to carefully choose use the right Triggers® to create make the Brand Connectome® expand.
“We have a systematic approach to creating the optimal story and imagery. The story has to include an untapped consumer insight, compelling benefit, differentiating expertise and support for why the brand will do what it claims. And you also need to identify the imagery, metaphors, plus various codes and cues that make the Brand Connectome® grow. We call them ‘Triggers®.”
When you think about it, industry has made marketing much more complex than it needs to be. The key to accelerating brand growth comes down to two simple principles.
“1- In order to be chosen repeatedly, your brand must have the largest footprint in customers’ brains. This comes from having an abundance of associations—the more the better. 2- the number of positive associations must be much higher than the negative. If your brand accomplishes these two things, it will grow.”
A good example of a healthy Brand Connectome is that of the Apple iPhone.
Most people would assume that the associations in the Apple Brand Connectome would just consist of the product itself, the logo, ease of use, its design aesthetic, maybe some of its past advertising. But that’s only the beginning. You’d be surprised to see what else is in there.
“Many people teach their Grandmothers to use an iPhone so that they can communicate and keep in contact with them via Facetime. The simple fact of teaching Grandmothers to use an Apple product makes it a positive association in the Apple Brand Connectome. And there are others—Steve Jobs, the many movies we’ve seen about his life, even his black turtlenecks. A brand is so much more than a logo or a clever tagline; a brand is known by the associations it keeps.”
Leslie’s experience in marketing has taught her that a company’s products and services don’t necessarily have to be the cheapest or be substantially different from that of their competitor. It simply needs to have a more positive Brand Connectome®.
Interestingly, her experience with brand-building has enabled Leslie to view the current pandemic through a unique lens. She notes that during times of enormous volatility, consumers are more open to new relationships. That means that this is actually a time of enormous opportunity for brands to grow their market share. In addition, as Leslie explained in Newsweek, to succeed during the current pandemic, they must create an exaggerated sense of safety and protection.
“Companies need to go beyond taking superficial safety measures like disinfecting a counter– they need to overdeliver. They need to make customers feel that they are doing everything they can to protect their health. In order to resume normal spending, consumers also need to feel confident about the future and inspired to move forward with their lives.”
Once marketers understand how the brain works and that the subconscious mind dictates most buying decisions, they can begin to create marketing campaigns that really help grow their business.
To help explain her marketing process and connectomes, Leslie has created a FREE downloadable PDF called the ‘Five Rules of Marketing’ that is available at her website: lesliezane.com.
Leslie Zane received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard. She is a passionate leader, who believes that our potential for success is limitless. Human beings, she says, have an amazing ability to work around obstacles. You can see her doing just that in one of her favorite past times—working out at Contenders’ socially distanced air-boxing class. Leslie’s ever-questioning curiosity and perseverance fueled her search to discover the keys to instinctive customer behavior. Her marketing consulting firm has helped achieve substantial growth for hundreds of companies over the past 25 years and can help your business, as well.
We truly enjoyed our conversation with Leslie, which includes much additional information that is not included here. You can listen to our podcast on iTunes or watch our video on YouTube.
For more information, or to receive her ‘Five New Rules of Marketing,’ visit LeslieZane.com.
