Quality drives consumers to consider a relationship with a brand.
A working product is expected. But connecting function with style is something consumers pay attention to. Even if it’s a commodity product.
Quality is an acquisition of status
In any given civilisation, some individuals experience life differently than others. And it’s because of a little something called ‘status’.
Looking at a crowd in ancient Greece, you can tell who has status. Look at the things they wear, how they smell, and the kind of food they eat. Those with status have access to better or more clothes, fragrances, and rare meats (reserved for the worthy).
It’s pretty much the same today, with a few exceptions. Today the average person is royalty by ancient standards. We own so much stuff.
The status bar is set higher. You can have a car. Everyone does. But do you have the car?
Reality of quality matters less
To the average consumer, an overpriced Chanel handbag is justified. They justify the price as a ticket to have a personal association with the brand. It doesn’t matter if the handbag was cheaply made in a factory. It doesn’t matter that the reality of the bag has little quality.
What matters is the appearance of the bag, how it’s presented, and the experience of the consumer from the moment they browse until they checkout. Chanel invests millions of dollars to make sure that the average Chanel consumer feels prestigious, elite, and above all, luxurious.
Perception matters.
Perceived quality is number 1
In Harvard Business Review’s(HBR) 30 Elements of Value article, consumers were asked about quality across 10 different industries. Every industry ranked Quality as the first element of value consumers consider.
The 30 elements of value, are an extension of Maslow’s Hierarchy. It describes in detail how businesses achieve their success. The businesses that HBR looked at include giants like Amazon, Apple, and Samsung.
The value of Quality matters more than all the other 29 elements of value. The elements of value are categorised as functionality, emotional, life-changing, and at the very top — social impact.
Building the perception of quality
These are 3 important factors of your product, you must manage, to build a perception of quality for your product or service.
The core function
You don’t have to build a product that can do 100 things. You need a product that can do 1 thing very well, more than 100 times.
Yes, I know. Perception matters. But if you’re just starting (and you don’t have decades of history like Chanel) you’ll need to make sure your product meets standard expectations.
The design
The colour, font, packaging, and product design must fit with the expectations you want to set for the consumer. And a good starting point?
Your design must be clean, eye-catching, and organised.
The price of your product
Raise your price and keep the promos scarce. Generally, consumers associate expensive prices with quality. Most consumers don’t have market knowledge of a product. So they judge based on price. And it’s reasonable to think that a pricier product has more quality.
“Markets in which people are not completely sure of how to assess quality, they use price as a stand-in for quality,” – social psychologist Robert Cialdini.
Conclusion
As a copywriter, it pays to know these things. Advertising is in a sad state today. And it always helps any serious copywriter, to have skills beyond writing.
Building perceptions is part of the job. When done right, you can impress upon a business, all the attention and profit it deserves.
