There’s a fascinating just-released e-book called Winning The Zero Moment Of Truth. Written by Jim Lecinski, Google’s Managing Director of US Sales & Service and Chief ZMOT Evangelist, the book speaks to the “moment where marketing happens, where information happens, and where consumers make choices that affect the success and failure of nearly every brand in the world”… at least according to Google.

Now truth be told, the Zero Moment of Truth has a lot to do with the time one searches on the Internet for a given product, service, ware, etc BEFORE making a purchase. And what browser do most people use when making said search? Google. So what adwords, keywords, etc should marketers purchase and/or patronize? Google’s.

But be that as it may the book does reveal some very interesting insights re: the Zero Moment of Truth or ZMOT.

First, however, it’s important to go back in time just a tad to 2005. That’s when the Wall Street Journal ran a story that focused on the critical importance of the seven seconds after a shopper first encounters a store shelf full of various groceries, toiletries, whatever. Procter & Gamble called that moment the First Moment of Truth, or FMOT. P&G placed so much emphasis on this, they created a brand new position called the Director of FMOT.

And in a book published that same year, the CEO of Procter & Gamble astutely noted:

“The best brands consistently win two moments of truth. The first moment occurs at the store shelf, when a consumer decides whether to buy one brand or another. The second occurs at home, when she uses the brand — and is delighted, or isn’t.”

Back when the CEO wrote this the model looked like this:

 

Stimulus. Dad is watching a football game and sees an ad for digital cameras. He thinks, “That looks good.”

Shelf. He goes to his favorite electronics store, where he sees a terrific stand- up display for that same digital camera. The packaging is great. A young sales guy answers all his questions. He buys the camera.

Experience. Dad gets home and the camera records beautiful pictures of his kids, just as advertised. A happy ending.

Now of course times have changed… dramatically. Now after the Stimulus comes the Search where good old Dad pulls out his laptop or smartphone or tablet and searches his little heart out trying to find all he can about digital cameras. He goes on Twitter and Facebook and asks friends and anyone else for recommendations re: digital cameras.

So now the model looks like this:

 

How prevalent is the ZMOT?

Consider…

In a study commissioned by Google, Shopper Sciences surveyed 5,000 shoppers and asked them how many sources of information do they use before making a decision? The survey revealed that the average shopper uses 10.4 sources of information, ranging from TV commercials and magazine articles, to recommendations from friends and family, to websites, ratings to blogs.

The 10.4 number is very signficant when considering just a year earlier the average shopper used only 5.3 sources of information to make a decision.

What this means is consumers, shoppers, people have a plethora of information sources at their disposal and they are using them.

  • 70% of Americans now say they look at product reviews before making a purchase
  • 79% of consumers now say they use a smart- phone to help with shopping
  • 83% of moms say they do online research after seeing TV commercials for products that interest them

There is a whole lot more to glean and learn from Winning The Zero Moment Of Truth and I recommend you take the time to peruse it for sure.

I want to leave you with a quote from the e-book from Matt Moog Founder and CEO ViewPoints Network:

“We’re about to see a merging of all the moments of truth. You’ll be looking at a product on the shelf and using your cell phone to find information and read reviews and then maybe you decide it’s really cool, so you ‘like’ it for your friends, all within a minute. A consumer journey that once covered days, weeks or months just happened in a matter of seconds.”

So my question to ALL marketers is simple:

What are you doing to win The Zero Moment of Truth?

Source: Winning The Zero Moment Of Truth, The Zero Moment Of Truth And Why Marketers Must Win It

Read more: