More Growth - consumer insight, brand positioning, growth strategy

What can we learn from Marketing Society Award winners?

I initially hesitated to use this title, since I am acutely aware of the conventional wisdom that winning an award can presage a period of poor results.  "Pride comes before a fall" and all that. 

 

However, this year all the Marketing Society Award winners seem to have followed one of the golden rules for success.  In order to be successful they did not just unearth a powerful new insight from customers and come up with a new idea, but they also had to engage with the rest of the business. 

 

They all work XF (cross functionally) and maybe even set up XF teams.

 

Here are a selection of the award winners.

 

Sainsburys - feed the family for a fiver
The O2  - venue launch
Hovis  - re invigoration
UPS - The UPS widget
Cadbury - Bring back Wispa
McDonalds - Feel proud to work at McDonalds
More Than - Personal Customer Manager

 

See all the winners click here

 

All of these initiatives require project team leaders who inspire and mobilise their peers in other functions (such as commercial, operations, merchandisers, product development, finance, and HR) to get behind the ideas and make them work. 

 

How can marketers do this?  In searching for wisdom on this I had a look at Tom Peters material.  He has made it his mission to promote the idea of cross functional co-operation and understand how to make it work.  He has published this paper. 

 

"XF-50" 50 ways to enhance cross functional effectiveness and deliver speed, service excellence and value added customer solutions. 

 

Click here to download the paper from Tom Peters

 

Now 50 is a lot of tips to take in and deal with, so we pulled off our own favourites and reworked them into a top 10.  Here they are: 

 

Top tips for marketers on customer led project teams 

 

How to harness powerful customer insights and create a plan for growth. 

 

These are not necessarily the whole answer but they do offer a refreshing challenge to the ways many of us have worked in the past.  

1. Jaw Jaw Jaw - Talk XF co-operation value added at every opportunity.  Become a relentless bore.  Be happy to be in meetings, meetings are real work that get things done.
    
2. Explain to everyone that WE make it work or not.  Its not THEM.  The outside world is not the problem.  The enemy is us.
    
3. Put everything on the internal web.  This helps - a lot. ("Everything" = Big word).  Provide open access to the data, information, ideas, all available to all, transparency, beyond a level that is sensible.
    
4. All functions are created equal.  All functions contribute equally.  All=All
    
5. Use the words, "partner", "team" and "us" until we want to barf.  (Words matter a lot)
    
6. Never blame other parts of the organisation for screw ups.  Blaming is an automatic firing offense.
    
7. Get  'em out with the customer.  Rarely does the accountant or bench scientist call on the customer.  Reverse that.  Give everyone more or less regular customer facing experiences. One learns quickly that the customer is not interested in our in-house turf battles.
    
8. Choose team members based on their co-operation proclivity.  Find people who want to work XF, promote them into your team.
    
9. Create an XF honest broker or ombudsman.  The ombudsman examines XF friction events and acts as conflict resolution counsellor (perhaps create a formal conflict resolution agreement).
    
10. Lock in XF co-operation.  This should be an explicit part of the vision statement.

Our approach "The Growth Game" is built on the premise that XF co-operation is critical to success.  We believe this is one of the chief reasons why our clients succeed and get great results.  See more details  click here

What the election results can tell you about what is important to your customers

The European elections are all over our screens today (Monday 8th June).  This is a pretty big poll of public opinion (15m voters).  I have been having a look to see if the results provide any useful insights for business leaders and marketers.

 

At Differentiate we say you must understand what drives customers to choose one product over another product.  We call these drivers "Power Attributes".  This insight from Power Attributes analysis helps you develop products, services and marketing messages that are more attractive to customers.

These Power Attributes do not shift every month or even every year, but they do change over time as external factors influence what is important to customers.  2009 seems to be one of those times when big changes are affecting customer motivations.  The recession, the banking crisis and the UK political row over politicians expenses seem to have had an effect on what matters to customers compared to just one or two years ago.

 

Studying the aftermath of the European elections suggests that the themes that arise and we need toi explore are grouped into three A's - Apathy, Apprehension and Anger

 

Apathy and detachment is demonstrated by the fact that no party got more votes than last time.  Labour lost because they got a lot fewer votes.  It seems that Labour voters could not only not bring themselves to vote Labour but they also did not want to vote for anyone else either!

  

Apprehension and fear comes from uncertainty regarding our personal financial futures (will I have a job? will I have a pension? I have lost 40% of my savings etc.)

 

Anger seems to be directed at banks for rewarding themselves whilst squandering our money and politicians for giving even banks even more money and then fiddling their own expenses at the same time.

 

How is this relevant to marketers and business leaders? 

  

These emotions are out there and real.  They affect what really matters to people.  These kind of macro changes and customers' emotional responses means it is highly likely that the drivers of how customers choose what to buy in your market have changed in the past 12 months.

 

We have been looking for some indicators of what might be changing.  Exploring the Google search terms database is just one way to do this.  Here are some examples, we have compared May 2009 with May 2008.

 

What is up
Grow your own +500%
Best buy +20%
Green +12%
Good school +10%
Healthy +5%

 

What is the same
Value is level
Chocolate is the same

 

What is down
Organic is -25%
Holiday in France -23%
Gardening -20%
Luxury -15%
Banks -15% (a long term trend which has accelerated this year)
Cheap -14%
Security -6% (long term trend)

 

This brief analysis suggests a return to more basic human and community values and decreased interest in fripperies.  Whilst on the other hand, it shows that some basics will always endure like chocolate and value for money.

 

Making sure you understand how the fundamental drivers of choice are changing is one important tool to survive the recession.

5 more assumptions that could limit your growth

Last week we wrote about assumptions that could limit your growth prospects. 

 

Today, I noticed that Marketing Magazine published 5 more possible misconceptions or myths about how consumers behave in the recessionary economy

 

Myth one: People turn to drinking at home in recessionary times

Myth two: Women still buy lipstick as an affordable treat

Myth three: All charities will suffer from declining donations

Myth four: Shoppers will abandon brands for own-label products

Myth five: Staying in is the new going out

 

You can see the explanation on their blog post here

 

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/903493/Five-marketing-myths-consumer-behaviour-recession/

 

Remember

 

"One of the most expensive habits you can adopt in a business is to assume you understand something that is fundamental to your success"

 

We have published a short paper on the nine assumptions that we think could limit your growth prospects.  If you did not get the chance to read this last week.  then here is another chance to download our short paper on this.

 

click here to download the paper  - Nine Assumptions

 

Perhaps you have made some assumptions that you later regretted.  If you can let us know what they were, we would be really pleased to hear them.  Post them in the comments on our blog or send them to us by email

 

Are you assuming too much?

Sorry that we have been neglecting this blog and our ezines for the past 4 months.  But we have not disappeared, just got busy with helping our clients solve their problems. 

I heard this quote the other day that prompted me back into action

“One of the most expensive habits you can adopt in a business is to assume you understand something that is fundamental to your success"

Business leaders can be tempted to make assumptions rather than ensure they really try to understand some customer issues.

Here are nine assumptions that business leaders sometimes make but can result in misleading conclusions.  If you are making any of these assumptions it will probably be limiting your growth prospects.  Do you ever assume that

1.      You must tell the customer how great you are?

2.  Customers are happy based on customer satisfaction research results?

3.  You know the most important reason customers buy your products?

4.       If you lower the prices sales volume will increase?

5.  You don’t need to ask the customer what his problems are?

6.      You should do something because the competition is doing it?

7.      You should do exactly what your customers tell you?.      

 8.      Customers want to buy everything from you not just what you are best at?

9.      We already know enough about the competition?

In our experience successful businesses do not assume.  They work hard to understand.  They seek to unravel the mysteries of how customers choose what to buy and so become more attractive to more customers, who then buy more of their products and services more often. 

Perhaps you have made some assumptions that you later regretted.  If you can let us know what they were we would be really pleased to hear them.  Post them in the comments or send them to us by email

Are you bogged down by too much email and too many meetings?

This post is triggered by seeing this headline in the excellent Utalkmarketing daily bulletin

Brand managers are frustrated by admin

Being weighed down with administrative duties is the chief obstacle facing today's brand managers, according to a new survey from Sun Brand Technologies. The survey revealed that 92 per cent of brand managers spend between one and three hours a day on these inward-focused activities including reporting, chasing colleagues for information and dealing with missed deadlines. Half of all respondents felt that the higher up the management ladder they progressed, the more time they spent on administration, leaving fewer hours for research and new product development (NPD). 
 
This is a common issue that we hear about.  How often do you hear the statement "I have had so many phone calls, emails, admin work or meetings today that I have not had time to get any work done".  But is this right?  Is it such a bad thing to be talking with and communicating with colleagues..  Our marketing team effectiveness work suggests that spending time on this is a good thing for brand managers who aspire to be successful and effective.
 
The mission of a marketing team must be to champion the customer throughout the business.  Clearly this does require time spent on generating insight, creating new product ideas and great marketing campaigns.  However our own work on effective marketing teams and how to increase the customer orientation of the business suggests that time spent on internal communication and getting the organisation aligned with your aims is extremely valuable.

 

Arguably, this is the role of the marketing team in a larger organisation.  The marketing job is not just to come up with great insights, fantastic campaigns and wonderful new products.  Marketing needs to harness a wide range of skills ideas and resources to get the business focus on delivering products and services that customers want to buy.
 
The most successful customer orientated businesses have marketing teams that are well regarded by the rest of the business.  We discovered through our own research and reviewing studies by leading academics that these marketing teams were characterised and distinguished by three things:

• Spending time communicating with all functions in the business
• Talking in a language that the business understands (not marketing speak)
• Using robust tools for measurement and tracking what is going on

Less effective marketing teams in businesses that were less customer orientated spend less time on these things.

 

So maybe spending one to three hours a day on these inward-focused activities including reporting, chasing colleagues for information and dealing with missed deadlines is not such a bad thing after all!

 

Is this still relevant in a downturn?  There is plenty of evidence from previous recessions that businesses who stay customer orientated are more likely to survive and will eme rgr in a stronger and healthier condition.

If you want to read more about how marketing teams can help businesses stay customer orientated.  Please read our marketing influence report which you can download here.

Are you solving customer problems or just getting emotional

It is amazing just how different the business environment feels just two months later and yet how similar are the big issues that we are facing and need to deal with in order to get more growth.

I have been struck on several occasions this week by how often marketers explanations of a brands success or failure does not discuss whether the business is really helping to solve customer problems and does not consider the real motivations that cause people to want to buy products and then how they go on to choose your brand.

Instead debate shifts to other subjects like how well the brand engages emotionally with their customers or consumers. For example Google success is analysed by Mark Ritson in Marketing this week (10th Sept page 21)and he makes many good points about how they have been successful, but never goes on to discuss how Google's dominance could be driven by the functional experience delivered to customers.   

Google have always delivered on the Power Attribute of "help me find what I am looking for". Their search engine strives to do a better job for customers than the others. They apply this principle not just to search results but also to the display of paid for advertising. If you have tried using their pay per click advertising, you will know that you cannot buy your way to the top of their list. They do not allow advertisers to be at the top of the page just by paying more money for the ad. The pay for click ads at the top of the list are the best available ads that deliver the best answers to search queries. In contrast Yahoo, Microsoft and Overture all have allowed advertisers to buy their way to the top of the list. Advertisers and search engine optimisers often appear on the press and on web forums debating the fairness or wisdom of Google's policies for advertisers and for producing search results. Their analysis often assumes Google wish to maximise short term revenues rather than enhance the user experience. But really advertisers wish to manipulate the system to their advantage. Despite the fact that advertisers are the paying client, Google resist this.  What Google seem to keep remembering is that consumers of the search engine are who they must please the most.

Mark Ritson also mentions that Marketing students in the 80's learned their brand management from Coke, whereas Apple taught the key branding lessons in the 90's and Google provides the best branding lesson of the noughties. At Differentiate we would agree with this but with a different analysis

• Coke taught us about Availability, Acceptability and Affordability
• Apple taught us about design led product innovation
• What Google are teaching us is about the value of being a truly customer led business that never loses sight of its mission to deliver the best customer experience.

So in amongst the doom and gloom that is being talked about, have your priorities changed? I am sure they have, but when your advisers tell you that you need to do more emotional engagement, check on the basics first. Remember if you are not solving your customers problems better than your competitors, your experience of the economic downturn will be much worse than that of our competitors. Find out if you are delivering on the Power Attributes, if you do this you will have an easier ride.

Start with the insight that people only buy things when the product or service helps them solve a problem that they have. The product most likely to be chosen is the one that does this the best. Emotional engagement or appeal may well draw customers to choose one brand over another when there is little difference between the choices, but it cannot persuade people to repeatedly buy things that do not offer good solutions to the issue. Emotional engagement tends to be stronger with brands and products that do the best job. It is hard to have a strong emotional engagement with someone who does not help you in some way.

How are consumers reacting to the downturn?

We know that "things are going to be tough" this year and maybe "even tougher" next year.  What should we do about it?  Opinions seem to range from predictions of doom to a rather cosy feeling that maybe we will see it through and it will not be so bad.

In this post we try to apply the principles of the Growth Game to analyse the situation.  Analysis "Growth Game" style adheres to three principles.

Stop worrying about the future, but do beware of the Black Swan (see blog entry).  Avoid expert predictions of what will happen and instead concentrate on strengthening your ability to compete and the withstand future unexpected shocks.

Actively seek and acquire empirical evidence to understand what is actually happening.  Again try and avoid the expert opinions.  They tend to offer qualitative observations and are tempted to make predictions.  Instead concentrate on evidence of things that are actually changing.  In particular look to gain insights about things that directly affect your business.   

Avoid "interesting" and focus on "actionable" insights.  That means start with the decisions you need to take and then go after the insights that will help you make them. 

We have been reviewing some evidence, observations and opinion about how consumers and customers will react to higher prices and lower disposable incomes.  I have grouped them into expert opinions, hard empirical evidence, insights and conclusions.

Example predictions/observations from experts

• The cumulative effect of numerous cost increases has now reached a tipping point.  Consumers are really starting to feel more vulnerable and this has become more pronounced in the past 6 weeks.
• With pressure on personal finances people will be less willing to pay a premium for "nice to have" things like more local food and food provenance; sustainable foods, organic and fair trade.
• There will be a back to basics trend, grow your own food, more family cooking, use basic ingredients rather than ready meals and less willingness to pay for convenience.
• Under financial and moral pressure consumers will find ways to reduce food waste (30% of food bought currently ends up thrown away).
• People will switch more of their shopping to discount outlets and local shops reducing both prices and transport costs.
• People will eat out less and consumers will switch to more take outs
• Concern over climate change will affect what people buy.

A lot of these statements make sense and some may well happen, but remember they are either subjective or a prediction.  Remember that experts may well understand what is going on but their predictions are usually unreliable.  Take a look at our Black Swan blog post to see the potential pitfalls of listening to expert predictions.  We recommend you look at the empirical evidence and come to your own view about how this will affect your business.

Empirical evidence of what is actually happening now (data to May 2008)

• The polarisation of markets continues whereby the strongest growth is happening at the top and bottom of markets.  The highest growth rates are in premium added value and low price segments whilst the middle gets squeezed.
• In Grocery the strongest growth % rates are in discounter stores (Lidl, Netto) and internet grocery deliveries.  The biggest absolute cash growth is happening in megastores situated out of town.  However, this is not a feature of the downturn.  These trends are long term and have not yet changed in 2008.
• What has changed in the downturn is lower sales in eating out, clothing, household appliances and furniture.  Other sectors including holidays remain resilient.
• OL share of total grocery has not increased for 5 years and as yet there is no sustained trend for own label to increase its share.
• The % of volume that is offered on promotion has gone up sharply and this is more about multi-buys than price reductions except in Tesco who focus more on price reductions
• In 2008 consumers are making fewer big shopping trips, shoppers spend per basket is down and there is less promiscuity between retailers.
• Consumers are claiming to be influenced more by a number of ethical issues, CSR, environment, fair trade, food provenance etc.  Anecdotal evidence of sales growth in products with these claims suggests this is true.

What insights can we translate from this (whilst avoiding predictions)

• Consumers are under financial pressure and are adjusting spending behaviour, but they are choosing carefully where to make the changes.  Indulgences and treats remain important, but consumers selecting which ones matter most (quality food and holidays seem to be doing well).
• The fundamentals of what consumers want (the power drivers of choice) remain the same in slowdown or boom.  The mega trends of health, convenience, naturalness/food provenance and ethical concerns remain in force and continue to be the main sources of growth in markets.
• There is no sign of a flight from quality.  There is some smart shopping to get and be able to afford the quality (promotions, discounters, local sourcing).

Translating insights into action

Reducing waste is an insight that could offer opportunities.  We know consumers are making more frequent shopping trips.  This could correlate with reducing wasted food.   The other area of waste that is an environmental issue is packaging.  May be helping consumers reduce waste could offer opportunities for innovation.

Nielsen recently quoted a survey stating that the top 20 innovations have all been about packaging, format and convenience.  As marketers are we smart enough to come up with packaging formats that reduce waste and have less environmental impact whilst still delivering the merchandising impact and consumer convenience?  It must be worth a try.

The Growth Game takes these guiding principles of getting and translating insights into the practical steps for growth. The process rests on empirical observations and measurement and is all about engaging the business team to create practical and credible ideas.  To find out more take a look here

What do philosophers and marketers have in common

We worry about things that seems not important to everyone else and can use language that is obscure and difficult to follow.

 I was reminded of this when I attended a philosophy lecture discussing how the philosopher Richard Rorty struggled to reconcile the fact that he was passionate about social justice and at the same time want to be selfish and spend time on transient personal pleasures such as the cultivation of rare orchids. It seemed that the philosopher’s intelligence led them to worry about things that seem quite straightforward to the rest of us.

 

Most of us have accepted that a part of our life may be devoted to causes whilst other parts of our lives are around personal stuff and other parts of our lives are economic. We know we have these different needs. We do not struggle with needing to explain a dilemma as Richard Rorty did.
 

As I left I found myself thinking that as marketers we can be seen to worry about things that the rest of the business are not so concerned about (e.g. brand essence, brand wheels, abstract ideas). This makes us seem a bit detached from the day to day realities.
 

The second tendency marketers share with philosophers is to use language that seems somewhat obscure to the rest of the business? This happened to me in this lecture where I felt like an outsider observing a rather strange parallel universe in which the language of discussion was unnecessarily complex and obscure.
 

Our own research has shown that marketing teams who do not communicate internally and have less frequent interactions with the rest of the business and are less well regarded. 

Whereas, the best market driven businesses have marketers who are well regarded and have invested time in interacting with the whole business so that their ideas are practical and useful and they communicate effectively so people understand the benefits.
 

There are two behaviours of these philosophers that we have observed in marketers and if you fall into this then you run a big risk of seeming detached from reality and reducing your impact on the business.
 

Firstly, like the philosophers, marketers can spend time exploring things that seem unconnected with the reality of getting more profitable growth.  I have sat through U&A presentations that provide interesting descriptions of consumer behaviour but offer little insight as to how the business could do things differently to satisfy customers.  Then on other occasions there are lengthy meetings to develop and discuss things like “brand essence” or the “brand pyramid”.  These discussions can seem to have little to do with the day to day business of getting more growth and hitting targets.   These discussions have little practical bearing on the decisions about products, services, prices, distribution and marketing communications that will drive growth.
 

Secondly, like the philosophers, marketers can use words and language that seems disconnected from the reality of getting more profitable growth. The use of this language can obscure the real value that marketer’s programmes and ideas might have. So whilst the business discusses customers, consumers, sales, products, services, reputation, distribution, logistics, prices, profit margins, promotions. Marketers talk about branding, brand image, strategy, awareness, design and identity. Many of these things may well be important but the links to profitable business growth and real practical decisions are less than clear to your colleagues in other functions.
 

So I left this lecture reflecting on how marketers can avoid behaviours that will restrict their influence and may mean the business is less market and customer driven.  Try this instead.
 

1.  Use shorter words.
2.  Use the language of the business, not the language of the text book or the advertising agency.
3. Make sure that the ideas and concepts you discuss will help you make practical decisions.  We call these concepts “really useful concepts”.

Are you only doing the things you are best at?

if not you are probably struggling to get enough growth or find yourself competing on price.  I was reminded of this by two features in Marketing Week yesterday. 

One was about Reckitt Benckiser who have just posted results with revenue up 20% and beating all their targets.  The other was about Tesco online who are enjoying good growth in their core grocery delivery and Tesco Direct businesses, but are pulling out of house sales, flowers and clothing as they are losing customers here.

   

The most striking thing about the Reckitt's brand list is how each product as the best at what it does, and in each case the product focusses on a narrow task. e.g.

Vanish - removes small difficult stains
Finish - dishwasher tablets
Calgon - removes hard water deposits
Dettol - anti bacterial cleaning
Airwick - air freshening
Lemsip - flu treatments
Nurofen - fast pain relief

      

Tesco's forays into markets that might seem attractive (flowers, house sales, clothing) have struggled as they end up being one provider competing on price or offering various new features.

Big brands also do this.  They must be the best at something.  Coke has a broad appeal and sells some generic soft drink values as well as its own brand personality, but it wins by being more available than any other brand. 

Mobile phone handsets that are winning at the moment seem to do one thing especially well.  Sony Erricsson have a walkman range focused on music, Samsung really attend to style and feel with a lot of designs so that friends can each have a different one.  Nokia and Motorola have struggled to stand out more recently.

This has got me thinking - what is it that Differentiate does best?  The best way to find out is to ask your customers.  I plan to ask our customers and ezine readers in the next ezine.

Identify what you do best and then narrow/specialise your business to deliver this and focus on selling to the people for whom what you do best is what they want.

In the language of the Growth Game - what you do best helps you define the characteristics of your Power Categories.  This is where you should specialise and focus. 

Reckitt Benckiser did not win by trying to take Unilever, P&G and GSK head on, they found specific niches where they could be the best and they focussed on these.  If big players like this find specialising is the route to profitable premium priced growth.  I guess we can all learn from that.

Boris v Ken - what can we learn about how customers make choices?

Using your existing data?

  How can you discover the Power Attributes that determine why consumers choose your brand without doing new and expensive surveys?  Our answer is that you can and should take a stab at it.  Whilst doing new research will be more robust, you can understand valuable insights about your Power Attributes by analysing whatever data or insight you already have or can easily gather.  This ezine shows you an example of how to do this.  We have analysed the result of the London Mayoral election to illustrate how this can work.

Analysis of Boris victory?

Voters' and customers' choices can seem a bit odd. So how come the electorate plumped for Boris, who had been seen as a bit a bit of a joke and prone to gaffs and offered an uncertain prospect of being competent?  We have analysed the Power Attributes to understand how voters made this choice.   

It is possible to take a good stab at understanding the Power Attributes using available published data.  In this case we have located two very different pre election polls to help us work out the Power Attributes.

Conquest's Metaphorix Poll for ITV London
IPSOS Mori poll for Unison

Power Attributes must possess both importance and uniqueness. So Power Attributes for the candidates are ones that are both important to voters and in some degree are unique to the candidate.  Attributes will have both functional and emotional elements and both will influence the customers decision to purchase.  In this case of this election functional really means policy issues and emotional attributes relate to the candidate's personality.  We started by looking at policy attributes.  MORI revealed the ranking of importance of the policy issues.

Importance ranking to voters

1. Crime/Policing
2. Transport
3. Healthcare/NHS
4. Cost of living
5. Education
6. Pollution/environment

It was difficult for the candidates to get uniqueness on these issues - even though the candidates were able to offer some differences in their policies.  Ken had a good track record on transport.  Brian Paddick had been a policeman.  Boris talked a lot about crime reduction. When you look beyond crime and transport, the next three issues lay completely outside the control of the Mayor (NHS, Cost of living, Education).

The personalities of the candidates offered much more scope for uniqueness

So personality attributes may offer more scope for real power. When we look for clues about these more emotional attributes, the metaphorix survey done by Conquest for ITV London was able to highlight the emotional beliefs about the personalities of the candidates.  If we start by looking at the importance of the different personality attributes, we discover that the most important attribute is

Trustworthy

However none of the candidates possessed this to any adequate or differential degree.  So despite trustworthy being important as an attribute, it lacked power as a means to choose between the candidates.  So we need to look further to find attributes that are powerful for each candidate.  Conquest discovered there were some attributes where the candidates differed.

 

Ken	Boris	Brian
arrogant	refreshing	boring
confident	confident	focused
capable	approachable	honest

We can eliminate confident as this did not distinguish Ken or Boris and also knock out boring as this is not a positive.  The remaining attributes provide the clues as to why Boris won. 

Boris won the day by being approachable and refreshing. Ken's lead on capable was outdone by Londoners' desire for a change. For Brian Paddick, being focused and honest was just not important enough to Londoners.

Power Attributes for London Mayor

The Power Attributes for this London Mayoral election were to offer a change from a tired and slightly arrogant incumbent and promise to address violent crime alongside transport issues.

No doubt the national issues of healthcare, cost of living and education played a part.  Ken would have suffered by his association with a struggling Labour government.   But since these issues remain outside the direct control of the Mayor and were difficult for the any candidates to discuss.

For an attribute to be powerful you must be able to create some uniqueness. The most powerful attributes were those where the candidates could establish some uniqueness.  It is the combination of an attribute being both important and unique, that creates the power to influence voters or consumers choices.