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.