It has been said that people tend to trust the things they’re most familiar with. When it comes to purchasing decisions or to building consumer’s loyalty, trust happens to be one of the most important drivers. It can play a huge role in making people change their perception of a brand. Although it takes a long time to build trust, it can be very rewarding on the long term.
One of the key drivers to building trust happens to be the brand’s strength. Such strength is derived from familiarity, either with the brand itself, or with its initiatives and marketing efforts.
Humans’ reactions might vary depending on the nature of the thing they’re exposed to and its uniqueness. The more unique a thing is, the more sceptical views it’ll receive. Upon receiving a stimulus, consumers have a tendency to categorise things and to associate them with similar existing concepts in their minds. This is mostly due to decrease the mental effort exerted and increase convenience.
Since our minds tend to favor convenience, we tend to react positively to things we already know. This is an indicator of what’s known as “The Mere Exposure Theory”, in which humans tend to like the things they’re exposed to the most.
In marketing, it can work for visual and auditory ads, and it could affect the people subliminally and alter their responses.
This sort of justifies the fact that some brands tend to show you the same ads everywhere and to communicate the same messages all the time to increase conversion rates. When shopping in stores, some retailers tend to put the most familiar songs in order to evoke positive emotions in the shoppers and to make them buy more and spend a longer time.
“The Mere Exposure Theory” could actually aid in establishing a sense of familiarity which would get translated into trust. It might also reach a higher level and result in building brand advocacy later on. This could be one of the reasons why some brands try not to change their logo or brand identity which allows them to stand out from the rest.
Consumers tend to be at ease with brands they trust and are accustomed to. By initiating a sense of familiarity at every touch-point, brands will be able to establish trust which would allow for building a community of brand advocates on the long term.
BBB- Buyer's Black Box 