RESEARCH
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What Is the Zero Moment of Truth?
The traditional “path to purchase” has an additional step gaining traction in today’s digital age. Online Search has become an important touch point along the way.
Before going to the store for a purchase, a growing number of consumers are researching products using their computers or mobile phones. A March 2010 study of shopper behavior led by Microsoft showed that three of four Internet users research grocery and personal care products. This behavior precedes the interaction between a shopper and a product on a store’s shelf - a step that Procter & Gamble famously labeled as the First Moment of Truth (FMOT).
While this so-called FMOT is still important, the increased use of online search provides an opportunity for interaction between a consumer and a brand before that consumer ever sees a product on a shelf. Google has labeled this step the “Zero Moment of Truth” (ZMOT); that is, when consumers first encounter a brand or product online via search.
What does he ZMOT mean for marketers? According to Google, it means that “marketers need to button up their pull marketing strategies, not only the push strategies, and find ways to connect the two. Marketers need to ensure that a consumer has a consistent and positive experience - from the Zero Moment of Truth to the point of purchase and beyond - by getting in front of a consumer with the right brand message early in the process of discovery, and staying there along the way.”
Google says searches for Food and Drink have increased steadily since 2004. Top search terms are wine, beer, coffee, cake, and recipes. In addition, SKU proliferation in the marketplace and more complex product ingredients, additives and benefits - such as, anti-wrinkle, probiotics, acai, stevia - have given consumers more reason to turn to search engines to help them in the decision-making process.
For example, with the FMOT model, shoppers would get to the shelf, pick up a bag of chocolate chip morsels and follow the recipe on the back of the bag, possibly keeping the physical bag for a record of the recipe. With the ZMOT, consumers are going online to research the cookie recipe before picking up a bag of chocolate chip morsels from a store shelf and buying it.
“Online research has changed the game. Since the recession began, 54% of consumers have spent more time researching products online,” said Bill Sickles, Global Business Head, Consumer Products, for Google.
He explained the ZMOT last month in a presentation in Philadelphia at the annual Food Industry Summit hosted by the Food Marketing Department of St. Joseph’s University. More recently, other executives from Google outlined this new step in the path to purchase at the Shopper Marketing Summit hosted recently in Chicago by the In-Store Marketing Institute.
“People know they can go online and get more information on anything,” said Sickles. “What we are seeing with the Zero Moment of Truth is that consumers are even providing reviews for such ‘low consideration’ products as Mr. Clean and Campbell’s chicken soup,” he said.
In other words, searches are not only for big-ticket items like high-definition TVs and dishwashers
“We have a lot of information of what consumers are looking for,” he said. “We have one of the largest databases of consumer intentions. Search is dynamic and it is an opportunity.”
Google will be releasing an eBook on the Zero Moment of Truth in the near future.
Editor's Note: Google would like to offer a copy of their upcoming 'Zero Moment of Truth' eBook to Shopper Tech readers. Sign up to "reserve your free copy at www.zeromomentoftruth.com. Once the book is ready, you will receive an alert in your inbox to download it.
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