George Boykin's 'The Effect Of Consumer Behavior'

In today’s cluttered retail world, consumers are overwhelmed and bombarded with choices. Most grocery and retail stores carry thousands of products in their shops. The average person spends approximately one hour in the grocery store and buys around fifty items in that short time interval (Leighton and Bird). Shoppers are therefore processing and deciding on products in a blink of an eye. Therefore, it is vital that consumers have a way to distinguish one item from another. A single mom with three crying children does not have the time to spend analyzing each and every brand of laundry detergent on the shelf. Not only single mothers, but all consumers need a system to help them negotiate the massive amounts of products at their disposal. Without some type of system in place the stimuli would become too overwhelming for most people. Product branding is an effective solution that helps the consumer to navigate the deep waters of endless product choices that are available to them. Effective product branding promotes product recognition and product loyalty by developing an emotional …show more content…
Therefore, brand recognition becomes a two way street between the company that owns the product and the consumer that buys the product. George Boykin explains this concept in his article “The Effect of Brand on Consumer Behavior.” He contends that a company may create a brand, but without the consumers’ experience to promote said brand, there is no brand.” He further explains that a relationship between the consumer and the product is the first step in brand recognition. This relationship is built because of the consumers’ experiences with the product. He believes that the consumer “owns” the brand because he or she owns the experiences with the brand. He states, “As a business you may own the trademark, which identifies the brand, but the consumers will help define the brand”