Our guest blogger, Dominic Geary, shares his thoughts on the Pendulum Effect – and how to avoid it! Dominic is a former Managing Partner of Dentsu Aegis Leeds and now runs his own consultancy business, advising both clients and agencies on how to get the best from their communication partners.

Brands are obsessed with reputation and consumer perception and rightly so because it’s ultimately a brand’s perception in the consumer’s eyes that dictates the brand’s fate, regardless of the quality of their product/service.  Building brand awareness, creating the appropriate perception and driving consumer preference is a costly and time consuming business and therefore brands spend a significant amount of money to understand which marketing communication resonates with their audience.

Now the first issue is that most clients fall down because they only measure high investment channels like broadcast and social media, but fail to measure the impact of all their communication channels, including those low cost channels such as door knocking, outbound telesales, high street chuggers and email, to name a few. These channels have significant reach and all have an impact on the aforementioned brand metrics, however I would argue that they would all perform poorly in comparable terms.

I’m sure we all have plenty of examples of harassment by brands either on the high street, over the phone or on your doorstep – maybe it was a charity or telecoms company? Your original perception may have been positive, but I suspect the experience left you disappointed, maybe even angry and therefore through that single (low cost) engagement, the brand perception shifted. I call this the Pendulum Effect – marketing investment wisely deployed on television et al, only to be undermined by the negative impact of another channel or engagement. Sadly, in most cases the brand is oblivious to the impact. To them, it’s a cheap acquisition tool that generates new customers. However, to you, the consumer, you’ve gone never to return. 

In most cases, I don’t believe it’s a deliberate act on behalf of the brand custodians not to measure these channels but more an organizational, structural fail. 

The typical business mantra is growth. Growth is seen as acquisition/new customers, a linear one dimensional approach, whereas retention is sometimes ignored. I’ve said countless times to clients it’s important to give greater emphasis on retaining a customer than chasing prospects because it’s more efficient. Furthermore, happy customers become advocates.

From the board level down, customers and prospects are compartmentalized from board reports showing performance from customers versus prospects that cascades into marketing departments, splitting acquisition and retention tasks and therefore splitting their measurement too. It’s not surprising the aforementioned channels aren’t monitored because in many cases it doesn’t fall under their remit.

It’s also important to remember that brand perception impacts both existing and new customers, something that some brands overlook. Again, thinking about your own experience as a customer, how many times have you been left frustrated with a poor customer journey from automation to after sales care? Again, this undoubtedly has a negative impact on the brand in real terms.

In summary, brands need to be wary of the Pendulum Effect, because if measured properly, brands would realise that in some cases, they are treading water or at worst, their marketing investment is counterproductive.

I would like to thank Mark and his team at MIB for inviting me to contribute to their blog series. If you currently have challenges with your communication strategy or deployments please get in touch with them. Furthermore, if you have any comments regarding this blog, feel free to reach out to me directly at Dominic.Geary@1671.co.uk