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TRY THE NPS
When filling in research questionnaires, people are notoriously positive about their own behaviour. I say notoriously, because some organisations have found themselves on the rocks after failing to question high scores as an accurate prediction of their product’s future success. One of my marketing students ran a research project for a tobacco company in Eastern Europe when the countries were still part of the Communist bloc. They asked smokers which brands they bought. The results said that more people smoked one particular western brand than they had ever sold cigarettes in that country, even accounting for grey imports. The research respondents had liked to think of themselves as the kind of people who would smoke that brand, if only they could get hold of it, so they ticked “yes”. Then there’s the tendency to give a higher score just to be kind. When people answer “how likely are you to buy our toothpaste?” with a 7 out of 10, that does not mean they are 70% likely to do it; it means they probably won’t touch it, but they didn’t want to be rude.
The idea NPS stands for Net Promoter Score. it’s an ingenious (trademarked) way to found out what people really think of your brand, developed by Fred Reichheld and described in his book The Ultimate Question. The question is: How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?
138 • 100 GREAT BRANDING IDEAS
100 Great Branding Ideas 14dec.indd 138
12/14/11 11:14 AM
