Article

Opinion: The retail 'moment of truth' has run amok

Why trying to pull apart the Gordian knot of consumer motivation and label each piece is an exercise in futility.

August 17, 2011

Way back at the end of the last century, marketers were handed down from on high (specifically A.G. Lafley of P&G) the concepts of MOT, or moments of truth. The first MOT was the point of decision for the shopper, i.e. when she actually put a product in her cart. The second MOT was when she got the product home and tried it, and determined whether it was all she hoped it to be.

Many years passed and then Google gave us the Zero MOT. This backed us up one step, prior to the purchase decision, in an attempt to define the decision-making process as it exists today. This concept says that the research shoppers do before any buying decision, whether for a new car or dryer sheets, is a moment of truth unto itself, and we should concentrate on that point in the path to purchase.

Today we are being assaulted from all sides with various other MOTs; MOT -1, the Real MOT, and so on. They are multiplying like rabbits, apparently in an attempt to define every possible moment on the path to purchase. The point of all this MOTification is unclear, except there seems to be a belief that we can break the shopping event into discrete subsections and attack each individually.

The problem is that there really is only one MOT; it's that original one defined all those years ago, when the shopper makes the decision to actually spend her money. All the rest are academic and don't really qualify as MOTs anyway. They are merely steps on the path to purchase, which as we all know isn't a linear path anyway. It looks more like something from a M. C. Escher painting, with impossible routes and stairways to nowhere, with a little Rube Goldberg added in for entertainment value.

Try as we might, we still don't understand to a certainty what motivates people to do the things they do. People are emotional creatures, and when things like money worries occupy their minds, they are just as likely to become less rational instead of more so. Branding has altering affects, as does concern over what the neighbors have. And on and on.

Trying to pull apart the Gordian knot of consumer motivation and label each piece, with the intention of focusing on a single section of rope is at best an exercise in futility. None of the steps along the path to purchase happens in a vacuum, and each is dependent on and affected by others.

There is no way to determine whether or not we were successful in our approach to shopper motivation until the purchase decision is made, and even then we don't know what worked, what didn't, or why. Even more disturbing is the fact that we don't know what was effective for the wrong reasons, so even if we do the same things the same way again, it might not work as well the next time.

The point here is that we need to stop looking at the pieces, and get back to viewing the shopping event as a whole. Here there be dragons, but that's all part of the challenge.

Jeff Weidauer is vice president of marketing and strategy for Vestcom International Inc., a Little Rock, Ark.-based provider of integrated shopper marketing solutions. (Photo by Lars Plougmann.)