Absolute Value - What Really Influences Customers in the Age of (Nearly) Perfect Information

Going against conventional marketing wisdom, Absolute Value reveals what really influences customers today and offers a new framework—the Influence Mix, a totally new way of thinking about consumer decision making and marketing, and about developing more effective business strategies.

How people buy things has changed profoundly—yet the fundamental thinking about consumer decision-making and marketing has not. Most marketers still believe that they can shape consumers’ perception and drive their behavior. In this provocative book, Stanford professor Itamar Simonson and bestselling author Emanuel Rosen show why current mantras are losing their relevance. When consumers base their decisions on reviews from other users, easily accessed expert opinions, price comparison apps, and other emerging technologies, everything changes.

Absolute Value answers the pressing questions of how to influence customers in this new age. Simonson and Rosen point out the old-school marketing concepts that need to change and explain how a company should design its communication strategy, market research program, and segmentation strategy in the new environment. Filled with deep analysis, case studies, and cutting-edge research, this forward-looking book provides a totally new way of thinking about marketing.

Why are the classic pillars of marketing—branding, loyalty, and positioning—losing their power, and what should you do about it?

The Influence Mix: Learn to use the P-O-M (Prior beliefs, Others’ opinions, Marketers’ messages) framework to understand what truly drives your customers. Absolute vs. Relative Value: Discover why consumers are moving beyond relative signals like brand names to assess the true, absolute value of products and services. The Decline of Loyalty: Understand why even your most satisfied customers are less loyal than ever and how the new information environment creates an "open marriage" with every brand. A New Approach to Market Research: Shift from trying to predict consumer preferences to tracking real-time behavior and sentiment in a world dominated by expert and user reviews.