The messy middle
DefinitionBrand Strategy
The messy middle
Google's model of how people actually decide between trigger and purchase: looping between exploration and evaluation, steered by heuristics like social proof, scarcity and authority, rather than descending a tidy funnel. The practical lesson is to be present and persuasive inside the loop, not to assume a linear path.
Evidence from the library
Memory-generated brands are the starting point of the buying process, not searchPrincipleBuild, Nudge and Connect - the funnel rewritten around how memory works rather than how inventory sellsPrinciple42%42% of purchases in an influencer-inspired journey were completely spontaneous, going straight from discovery to checkout with no research or comparison.Stat84%84% of purchasers end up choosing a brand they were already biased toward before they started shopping.StatA famous brand grows at the fringes - new entrants, lapsed users, light buyersPrinciple
Put it to work
Source
Marketing Definitions
Alistair Rennie and Jonny Protheroe, Decoding Decisions (Google, 2020)
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