Download Using the Benefit Chain for Improved Strategy Formulation

Journal of Marketing, July 1975
72
significant number of consumers want, and will
use, the information disclosed.
Marketing research appears to have two roles
in this program. The first is to identify what information is material, in the sense that I have just
described it. If consumers don't care what
mileage their cars are getting, that is something
that goes to the legal roots of the program and
that can be determined with the aid of marketing
research.
There is another, more constructive, role for
marketing research in these proceedings: to determine the most effective way of communicating
material information. Several surveys, for example, have established that a significant number of
consumers want, and will use, information about
the nutritional value of the foods they are buying,
that such information can influence buying
habits. Experience has shown that it is extremely
difficult to develop an effective way of conveying
that message. But it is by no means impossible.
With the help of creative communicators using all
of the tools of their trade, including pretesting
alternative messages, I think the key can be
found.
Conclusions
My hope is not only that the state of the art of
marketing research is very far advanced but also
that it will take quantum leaps in the future. For
whatever hazards that poses in terms of a "meaning substantiation " requirement, I think the
hazards are greater if it does not happen. I am
convinced that the development of reliable marketing data is in the best interests of the advertiser, the FTC, and, ultimately, the American
public.
Using the Benefit Chain for Improved
Strategy Formulation
SHIRLEY YOUNG AND BARBARA FEIGIN
A new research tool helps marketers dimensionalize people's feelings about prodticts and services quantitatively as well as qualitatively.
With the powerfut aid of sophisticated techniques, marketing research today is able to
quantify much about people's behavior and attitudes. However, when it comes to making a link
between the emotional or psychological benefit
derived from a product claim or when the issue is
which specific features of the product will most
credibly support a claim, marketers must resort
either to personal judgment or to unprojectable,
unstructured research tools such as focus groups
or open-end questionnaires.
Some of the questions to which answers are
still being sought through qualitative techniques
are:
1. What psychological "pay-offs" are being
linked by consumers to a given functional
benefit claim?
2. For new or improved products, what are
the functional and psychological benefits inferred from a given ingredient?
3. What feature (s) of a product should be
stressed to make claims believable?
4. What are the psychological inferences of a
given headline or piece of copy?
Traditionally, material for making such important (and often exp>ensive) strategic and copy decisions has come from creative insight, intuition,
and imagination. The creative machiner\' is often
fueled by in-depth inter\'iews or small focused
group sessions, which help uncover some of the
ways in which consumers view products and how
they talk about them.
Yet researchers are also aware of the limitations involved in relying only on qualitative
techniques. These include: data are often from
limited, unrepresentative samples that cannot be
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS.
Shirley Young is executive vice president for research services and marketing and Barbara Feigin
is vice president and manager of the Marketing
and Research Department, Grey Advertising, Inc.,
New York City.
73
Applied Marketing
quantified and evaluated objectively and thus are
not projectable; responses can be biased by the
group's relationship with the moderator or the
members' interactions with each other; and
finally, such sessions offer no way to trace precisely the linkage of consumer ideas to one
another. All in all, it is a very imprecise tool with
which to arrive at what may prove to be multimillion dollar choices.
Now, however, there is a quantitative way to
help bridge this data gap in the marketingadvertising process. Called the Grey Benefit
Chain, it is a self-administered probing device
that can be applied to large samples of consumers.'
The Benefit Chain Procedure
The Grey Benefit Chain begins with a description of the product and product attribute in question, thus: "A 'widget' that is 'stronger' than all
other available 'widgets.' " Each consumer individually writes two benefits that he associates
with the "stronger widget" attribute. Then, on
each of two successive layers of paper with carbons, he writes two additional benefits derived
from the previous benefits. This procedure produces a chain of fourteen product-related and
emotional benefits. These can be analyzed quantitatively to determine how often they are mentioned, how they are linked together in consumers' minds, the saliency or distance from the
original attribute (in this case "stronger widget") for each benefit, and the precise language
people use to communicate about these benefits.
There are four basic areas where the Benefit
Chain can provide reliable data with which to
answer vital questions about consumer emotions
and psychological reactions: (1) emotional and
psychological benefits, (2) a new or improved
product, (3) claim support and credibility, and (4)
advertising copy evaluation. These four areas are
discussed below.
Emotional and Psychological Benefits
One of the most important applications of the
Grey Benefit Chain is in uncovering and evaluating quantitatively the intangible benefits, or
"people pay-offs," consumers derive from a specific attribute of a product or service. Let's take a
hypothetical example. (For reasons of confidentiality, all of the examples used in this article are
fictional.)
"What can the reseairch department tell us,"
writes a major packaged goods marketer, "about
1. The Benefit Chain is a copyrighted technique created
by Hal Lee, Management Consultant, New York City, ©
1970 Hal Lee.
how to talk with women about our hair spray,
which combines the holding ability of ordinary
sprays with a cream conditioner that leaves hair
'just washed' soft, its key competitive advantage.
The creative and marketing people on our account at the agency have thought of several ways
to go in the advertising of this product. Among
them were that it might make the hair look and
feel natural, and thus be an enhancement to personal appearance. Or, the fact that using the new
spray leaves hair softer means that it is 'easier to
style and manage' and, therefore, the spray saves
time and effort."
Applying the Benefit Chain to this problem
could, through quantitative analysis, tell us which
of these practical advantages consumers readily
associated with this product, which psychological
benefits they linked to those "top-of-mind" associations, and how they expressed these advantages in their own words. In this case, an analysis
of such Benefit Chain data might show that the
cosmetic approach would not be the most sensitive way of positioning the product. Rather, in
terms of consumers' own perceptions and values,
the best approach would be as follows:
THE
PRODUCT
FUNCTIONAL
BENEFIT
PRACTICAL
BENEFIT
EMOTIONAL
PAY-OFF
Hair spray
that holds
and leaves
hair soft
Leaves hair
easier to
manage
1 don t need
to spend so
much time on
hair
Leaves me free
to do other
things 1 want
to do
New or Improved Product
Another question for the research department
might come from a major manufacturer of
household products: "We plan to launch a new
laundry product containing a highly effective new
cleaning ingredient with disinfectant properties.
What are the practical and psychological benefits
that naturally derive from the disinfectant's functional benefit of providing cleainer, germ-free
clothes that we should stress in our consumer advertising?"
Through the use of the Grey Benefit Chain, a
quantified, objective answer could be given to this
key positioning question. The researcher could
analyze the fi"equency with which consumers
made various practical and emotional associations with the clean and germ-free idea, and
further could determine how consumers linked
benefits at various levels with one another. On the
basis of this analysis, the researcher might find
that the most relevant way to dimensionalize the
new laundry product from a consumer viewpoint
would be:
Journal of Marketing, July 1975
74
THE PRODUCT
Laundry product
with new disinfectant cleaning
ingredient
FUNCTIONAL
BENEFIT
PRACTICAL
BENEFIT
EMOTIONAL
PAY-OFF
Cleaner,
germ-free
clothes
Germ protection keeps
family
healthier
Makes me feel
like a better
and more modern
manager
Thus, the "cleaner, germ-free" strategy could be
expressed in executions emphasizing the consumers' own adult-oriented personal satisfactions.
Claim Support and Credibility
A third area where the Benefit Chain has been
applied with considerable success is in discovering what product claims really mean to various
market targets and how best to "}:)ersonalize"
those appeals to make them believable and meaningful to the consumers in question. For example,
"Memo to the Research Department" contains
this query from a maker of a line of durable
goods: "Prior research has indicated that 'value'
is the most important benefit to stress in our advertising. How can we make our 'value' appeal
credible to consumers? What feature(s) of our line
best convey value and which should we stress?"
Among the features that could be highlighted are:
trade-ins, better service, low prices, product
durability, bargain sales, and more or better
mechanical features.
Through the use of the Grey Benefit Chain, the
researcher could identify' which of these directions was most meaningful from a consumer
point of view and what was the most relevant and
credible translation of each in terms of people's
perception of value. These answers then help determine how to address the features in advertising and other forms of consumer communication.
Advertising Copy Evaluation
The fourth application of Benefit Chain analysis
is in the controversial area of copy research. Here
it is successfully used to probe exactly what consumers infer from advertising copy—from entire
campaigns down to individual elements, such as
demonstrations, headlines, or slogans. It can rank
the success of different ways of getting an idea
across, help discern whether people are coming
away with the right messages, or diagnose where
copy is getting them off the track. This is rooted
in the chain's ability to uncover consumers' topof-mind associations with a specific stimulus, and
to link those associations through less salient
levels of understanding to emotional or
psychological pay-offs. It is particularly helpful in
evaluating copy or elements of copy to assure that
they are on strategy. For example, slogans such as
"It's the Real Thing" or "Only Her Hairdresser
Knows for Sure" could be diagnosed via the Grey
Benefit Chain to determine whether they are accomplishing the communications job for which
they were designed.
To Sum Up
The Grey Benefit Chain adds a new quantitative dimension to our understanding of the consumer's psychological perceptions of products
and services. It is a major breakthrough in
answering tough marketing and advertising questions.
Linking the right psychological pay-offs to the
fundamental buying incentives developed for a
product through traditional attitudinal strategic
research can be a powerful aspect of strategy
refinement. The new insight into the consumer
psyche provided by the Grey Benefit Chain also
has applications in the areas of claim support,
new product development, and advertising copy
evaluation.