You've studied how marketers obtain, analyze, and use information to develop customer insights and assess marketing programs. In this chapter, we take a closer look at the most important element of the marketplace—customers. The aim of marketing is to engage customers and affect how they think and act. To affect the whats, whens, and hows of buyer behavior, marketers must first understand the whys. In this chapter, we look at final consumer buying influences and processes. In the next chapter, we'll study the buyer behavior of business customers. You'll see that understanding buyer behavior is an essential but very difficult task.

To get a better sense of the importance of understanding consumer behavior, we begin with Shinola, the Detroit-based premium goods maker. Shinola's name and its Detroit roots seem incongruous with the premium-priced luxury goods it makes and sells. But dig deeper and you find that everything about Shinola binds together strongly under a carefully crafted, all-American brand image that aligns well with the deeply held emotions and motivations that underlie its customers' buying behavior.

 

SHINOLA: Nobody's Confusing Sh*t with Shinola Anymore

Not long ago, a comedy sketch on Jimmy Kimmel Live featured a mock TV game show that presented each of two contestants with a pair of luxury products and asked, "Which of these products is sh*t, and which is Shinola?" It wasn't much of a challenge. One product in each pair really did look like it was made from poop, whereas the other items were genuine products from the hot American luxury brand Shinola. The contestants ended up taking home "all this beautiful sh*t from Shinola." The idea for the gag came from the very company that was the butt of the joke, Detroit-based luxury goods maker Shinola.

 

Shinola opened for business less than a decade ago with a line of premium watches priced between $550 and $850. Its unlikely name derives from the old Shinola shoe polish brand that became a household word following a widely circulated story during World War II that a soldier had polished his commander's boots with poop because "he doesn't know sh*t from Shinola."

The original Shinola company closed its doors in 1960, but the founders of the current company purchased the rights to the unique Shinola name, replete with its mildly crude but colorful associations. In another seemingly surprising move, Shinola chose to headquarter itself in Detroit, the once-iconic symbol of gritty American manufacturing and ingenuity that had since fallen into bankruptcy and desperately hard times. Together with the company logo, every Shinola product bears the simple phrase "Built in Detroit."

 

Since its founding, Shinola has expanded rapidly into other product categories including high-end bicycles, leather accessories, clocks, jewelry, and audio equipment. The company is even getting ready to open its first branded hotel. Shinola's sales are booming, up from $20 million in 2013 to $125 million last year. You'll find Shinola's products in nearly 1,000 stores worldwide, including high-end department stores such as Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomingdale's. The company has opened 33 stores of its own with its sights set on 75 to 100 stores nationwide. Its online business is exploding as well. And, it seems, Shinola is just getting started.

Such success might seem surprising. At first blush, Shinola's name and its Detroit roots seem incongruous with the premium-priced luxury goods it makes and sells. But dig deeper and you find that everything about Shinola binds together strongly under a carefully crafted, all-American brand image. In an age of products "made in China," Shinola is on a mission to revive old-time American values.

 

Why the Shinola name, and why the Detroit location? "We're starting with the reinvigoration of a storied American brand, and a storied American city," says the company. Shinola "is a brand committed to turning out high-quality products in America with... American suppliers and American labor," says one analyst. "To drive home that commitment, the company selected Detroit—the buckle of the American rust belt—as its base." By linking the brand with Detroit's legacy of hardworking people, resilience, and craftsmanship, Shinola is selling more than watches, bicycles, and accessories—it's selling a made-in-America comeback story.

 

The roots of American ingenuity and manufacturing are evident in every facet of Shinola's products and branding, from its Runwell bike ($2,950) to its Canfield over-ear headphones ($450) to its limited-edition Statue of Liberty Runwell chronograph watch ($1,000), which pays homage to one of the nation's most iconic symbols. Despite their premium prices, Shinola's new and limited-edition products often sell out.

 

Shinola products are at once both classic and modern, with clean, functional, and authentically American designs, craftsmanship, and quality. Backed by a lifetime guarantee, they are meant to be handed down from generation to generation rather than to end up in a landfill after a few years of use. Many owners think of their Shinola products as works of art worthy of display.

The strong emotions, values, and motivations that underlie the buying behavior of Shinola customers are captured in the brand's recent "Let's Roll Up Our Sleeves" advertising campaign.

 

Shinola is selling much more than just watches or bikes or leather accessories. It's selling gritty Detroit, authentically American values, emotions, and a roll-up-our-sleeves lifestyle, things that lie at the heart consumers' feelings and behavior toward the brand.

 

More than just its products, Shinola's manufacturing and supplier operations also support its authentically American image. In another throwback to a bygone era, Shinola is committed to its employees. It prides itself on creating American jobs. Shinola began operations with about 100 local manufacturing employees—artisans the company refers to as in-house "celebrities"—and brought in the world's best Swiss watchmakers to train them how to build watches the old-fashioned way—by hand.

 

Shinola pays its people above-market wages and provides amazing benefits. All its 650 employees spend time in the company's retail stores to gain a clear understanding of what motivates the customers for whom they are making products. Shinola has a promote-from-within policy. Today, many of Shinola's operations managers are people who started with the company as security guards, janitors, and delivery people. "We build our goods to last," says Shinola, "but of all the things we make, American jobs might just be the thing we're most proud of."

 

As the company has expanded into other lines, it has remained committed to working primarily with suppliers who are based in the United States. Leather goods come from the Horween tannery in Chicago, bike frames and forks are hand-built by Wisconsin-based Waterford, and parts for turntables are sourced from New Jersey's VPI Industries. We are "creating a community that will thrive through excellence of craft and pride of work," says the company, "where we will reclaim the making of things that are made well and define American luxury through American quality."

 

Consistent with the vibe of its products, Shinola's retail stores are the ultimate embodiment of its brand image, designed with cues that integrate storytelling into the customer experience. Store interiors have an industrial feel—weathered brick, varnished wood, glass, stainless steel, and exposed iron trusswork. Store associates dress in workwear jackets. "It tethers that line of manufacturing to our ambassadors as they connect with our guests on the frontline," says Shinola's head of retail. "It's that visual tie...it's a sense of unity."

 

Visitors are encouraged to look, touch, listen, and drool. But more than just place to buy stuff, the stores are warm and inviting activity centers, with permanent coffee bars and period events like whisky tastings or barbershops, where customers are encouraged to hang out.

The strong emotions and motivations that underlie the buying behavior of Shinola customers are perhaps best captured in the brand's recent "Let's Roll Up Our Sleeves" advertising campaign. The campaign "delivers an inspiring rallying cry to... come together and work hard for the greater good," says an advertising analyst. It "upholds the values of labor, sweat, and dedication with impassioned lines including 'Working together. The job big enough for all of us'; 'Plant it, grow it, build it, weld it'; and 'Whatever color your collar might be.'" Many ads in the "Let's Roll Up Our Sleeves" campaign show only the words themselves in black and white, without glossy product shots or other embellishments.

 

Thus, Shinola is selling much more than just watches or bikes or leather accessories. It's selling gritty Detroit, authentically American values, emotions, and a roll-up-our-sleeves lifestyle, things that lie at the heart of consumers' feelings and behavior toward the brand. "There's really nothing else like Shinola," says one marketing professor. "It's a brilliant thing they did, this association with Detroit, a very authentic look, and this authentic story." Shinola's marketing director agrees. "Consumers want something real, something authentic. You want to feel proud about something. We have good timing, a good product, and a good story." In short, nobody's confusing sh*t with Shinola anymore.

 

The Shinola example shows that factors at many levels affect consumer buying behavior. Buying behavior is never simple, yet understanding it is an essential task of marketing management. Consumer buyer behavior refers to the buying behavior of final consumers—individuals and households that buy goods and services for personal consumption. All of these final consumers combine to make up the consumer market. The American consumer market consists of more than 328 million people who consume more than $13 trillion worth of goods and services each year, making it one of the most attractive consumer markets in the world.

 

Choose one in 3 questions to answer:

1. What is it about the Shinola experience that engenders such loyalty from Shinola customers?
2. Beyond a watch or a bike, what is Shinola really selling its customers? How does this product enable users to highlight what they value?
3. How does the chapter-opening Shinola story relate to the major concepts in the consumer behavior chapter?