McKinsey’s Consumer Decision Journey is a simple, yet important part of marketing and a consumer’s path to purchase. This process contains five steps in a never ending loop, starting with the initial consideration of the consumer, where the consumer becomes aware or is made of aware of a need for a certain kind of product. Then there is the active evaluation of the product, in which the consumer will contrast and compare different brands based on things such as quality and price. Next is the moment of purchase, where the consumer makes the decision to buy the product based on the results of the active evaluation. After the consumer has purchased the product, they then begin the post-purchase experience, in which they decide if the product fulfills their needs and if the quality of the product complements the price that they paid for it. Then finally, the consumer either enters the loyalty loop, in which they are satisfied and continue to buy that product from that brand, or they restart from the active evaluation step to find another brand that can do better than the one they previously purchased.
In the article Integrating Marketing Communications: New Findings, New Lessons, and New Ideas, it is explained how modern marketers are facing challenges with the consumer decision journey, as consumers, brands, and media are fundamental changing over time. The new media usage patterns of consumers is greatly influencing when, where, and how they choose the brands that they use. This completely changes the way that brand need to market their products through the initial consideration, active evaluation, and moment of purchase stages of the consumer decision journey. According to the article, the consumers path to purchase has fundamentally changed to become “shorter in length, less hierarchical, and more complex”. Consumers no longer receive their brand information through traditional passive means, such as print or television advertisements, but rather actively search for these advertisements when needed, mostly through the internet. This creates a problem for brand to market their products, as it becomes harder for them to know when, where, and how to market to the consumer.
While modern advertising can still be seen through traditional media, the very idea of marketing is shifting more and more into newer online media sources. Search ads, display ads, websites, e-mails, social media, and mobile ads are becoming increasingly more prevalent. It is getting to the point now where it is almost impossible to use a popular website or social media app without seeing multiple ads. As you scroll through Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook you will see multiple advertising posts that either say “sponsored” or “promoted”. These are things that millions of people are seeing many times a day as they casually use their social media sources. I personally click on many ads for products that I see on social media, because often this is the only place where i see them. Google, arguably the biggest and most used website in the world, has the top two or three results to any search be paid advertisements from brands that offer products related to your search. Marketing and the consumer decision journey are constantly changing and evolving, and this can make the job of marketers the hardest to do, because it is becoming more and more difficult to know when, where, and if you are going to reach your intended target consumers.
Nick Banta: 242 Marketing 