A good marketer balances novelty and familiarity

In the previous three editions, we took an evolutionary lens to our brain's wiring and how that creates unconscious biases.

Then, we started deep-diving into three biases that influence a marketer's life.

1. SIMPLICITY: our brain values simplicity over complexity.
2. AUTOMATION: Our brain automates decisions. This is good for brands that are part of automatic decisions but bad for new brands that want to bring about behaviour change.

Today, we dive into the third bias - NOVELTY: our brain pays more attention to the new and different but also seeks comfort in the old and familiar.

TL:DR

Anything that breaks the familiar?pattern sets off sirens in the brain, blood rushes in, and all senses are signalled?to attention.

Anything new, different, or unusual catches our eye—a new phone, a new working environment, a new person, changing our hair colour, wearing new clothes, visiting a new place.

Truth be told, we can even be drawn to novelty without being conscious of it.?

To cut a long story short.

1. The familiar is met with automated responses, and the new is noticed instantly
2. The familiar takes less brain energy, and the new consumes more energy and is processed by the brain to recode new patterns

Marketing Tightrope

Our brain prefers the familiar, but notices the new.

We find comfort in the familiar but excitement in the new.

Too much of the new might overwhelm the brain and lead to rejection.

That is why marketing has to walk the tightrope between the familiar and the new.

The dance between novelty and familiarity

In a wonderful article on Medium, Steve Genco recommends that we view novelty and familiarity not at conflict with each other, but along a continuum.?

While his article is definitely?worth a read. I summarize the key points here.

He says that since anything novel does not match the existing patterns stored in our subconscious brain, we struggle to understand it. Our brain enters a state of confusion, and it expends energy to learn. If the learning is complete, the new thing that we found confusing becomes interesting.?

Take, for instance, our first time using the Japanese toilet. We are perplexed by all the fancy buttons. Curiosity kicks in, and we find it interesting once we understand what each button means. We take pictures, tell our friends,?and look forward to using it again!

Over time, what we once found so fascinating?becomes routine and even boring.?We enter autopilot mode. Our brain spends less energy each time and gets lulled into a sense of comfort. Staying too long with the familiar leads to boredom, which needs to be interrupted by adding a touch of new to the familiar.

And this becomes an endless loop.

He discusses the design principle "MAYA—Most Advanced Yet Acceptable." When designing a new product or packaging, one should consider something new but within recognizable elements of familiarity. He explains this by saying, "People like their product novelty in small doses, preferably intertwined with the feeling of comfort associated with familiarity and category typicality."?

He goes on to say that marketers have to?balance novelty and familiarity depending on the purpose and placement of the marketing effort. Marketing that wants short-term actions from consumers needs?to dial up novelty to grab attention. Marketing designed for long-term equity building needs to build on familiar brand associations. For placement, TV lends itself to more familiar and less disruptive messaging, while digital media viewers are more responsive to disruptive messaging.

This gives us a wonderful?marketing mental model with the following insights:

1. Do the 'new' but within the familiar - MAYA principle
2. Make the 'new' easy for consumers. Include enough explanations to bridge the gap between confusion and interesting
3. Over familiarity and repetition can lead to fatigue and lapsage behaviors. Therefore, keep burnishing your product and message with the 'new'
4. New brands, digital media and short-term objectives gain from going big on?the 'new'
5. While long-term objectives, large brands, and TV messaging benefit from familiar?and comfortable reminders

Let's see brief examples of some of these.?

Tik Tok Videos

TikTok (or Reels) perfectly demonstrate the MAYA principle. On these platforms, we become dopamine-addicted zombies, scrolling through short videos endlessly. We don't get bored of the endless stream of different people dancing or lip-synching to the same exact music, dance steps, or dialogue.?

That is because the context is familiar, but each rendition is novel.?

How to videos

If consumers do not understand a new product or how to use it, they will reject it. One way brands make it easy is through 'how-to' videos.

For example, technology makes our lives so much easier but is also difficult to use and understand. That is why there are millions of 'how-to' videos and hacks to tackle any small question - from setting up a MailChimp newsletter to changing the iPhone password or resolving a bug in a Samsung TV.?

But even the more everyday products come with clear 'how to' instructions, without which we would be in a constant state of confusion about how to use them.

Fun fact from my Nestle role. Consumers still call the call centre to ask how to cook Maggi :-).

New brand launch stunts

New brands get only one chance to make a bold, attention-grabbing move.?

The iconic 1984 Apple ad is a masterstroke. I am sure a lot of you know the story already, but for those who don't, this ad announced the launch of the Macintosh. The masterstroke was that it was aired nationally only once.

Not only was the ad very well made, but the fact that it was aired only once gave it millions of dollars of free publicity.

Richard Branson is the God of?attention-grabbing stunts. He has launched all his?new brands that way. Check out his audacious marketing here.

Cred - not everyone gets it

Cred launched in India with a series of disruptive advertisements.

They earned talkability and everyone in corporate?India had heard of them.

Full marks for ticking the box on doing the 'new' as a new brand.?

The shock value of the ads was so high that the brain did not process what their product actually did. They are right, everyone really does not get?it.

Even once we understand that Cred gives us cashback if we pay credit card bills on their platform, there are several?unanswered questions.

How does it work? Is it free? How much cashback??What if I have late fees on my credit card? Will they help me get them waived? And the most important question of all for a finance product—can I?trust them with my money and my credit card number?

New Improved

Marketers spend their workdays obsessed with creating "New Improved". And consumers appreciate it.

'New improved' is very common in technology. New models and software upgrades are?more frequent than our wardrobe upgrades!?

However, L'Oreal is best-in-class in consumer products.

L'Oreal Excellence Creme improves?its product like clockwork every 2-3 years.?

I worked on Excellence Creme for two years and relaunched the product with a better conditioning shampoo. Since then, the hair colour and post-colour wash technology has been upgraded every few years.

This is the latest version, with a hair mask instead of the hair conditioner and a new shampoo. The gloves are thicker, and the graphics have improved.

No detail is too small for L’Oreal. This goes a long way to keep L’Oreal consumers actively loyal and willing to pay premium prices.

New Variants

Established brands, especially, give consumers comfort and familiarity, which is a source of their strength. They keep adding novelty around the citadel without changing the core by launching variants.

New flavours, new colours, and new shapes are all examples of this.?

Brushing our teeth every day? Yeah boring. New toothpaste flavours add a tiny bit of excitement to the brushing ritual and keep the morning fresh (pun intended).

But the brand that takes the cake when it comes to adding excitement to the familiar is Oreo. They launch very creative and topical limited editions that keeps excitement sky-high and the brand fresh.

They launched a Red, White and Blue limited edition for the 4th of July in 2020.

And a Pride Oreo also in the same year.

Game of Thrones Oreo

And many many more.

Novelty taken too far

Sometimes, consumers tax large brands for going too far with the 'new'. Everyone knows about the fiasco when Coke changed its flavour.

A slightly lesser-known example is Tropicana. When they did not stick to the MAYA principle and changed EVERYTHING in the pack design. They?paid a heavy price because consumers did not recognise the pack on shelf and they raidly lost share.

They learnt fast and brought back the old design very quickly.?

The arts

There are exceptions to everything.

Our appetite for the novel is high in art, music, and theatre. In fact, we go to extremes, and we revere the new, the extraordinary that we don't even understand.

That's because these are activities of leisure and self-actualization. Our brain makes the time to soak in these creations, live with ambiguity and happily pay a premium for the most unique pieces.

To read more such articles on marketing and career mastery they don’t teach in B-schools, visit my substack here.