3 ideas
Customers move through five stages — aware, appeal, ask, act, advocate — rather than a simple funnel. The critical conversion is from 'ask' (active research and asking others) to 'advocate' (recommending unprompted), because loyalty is now measured by willingness to recommend, not just repurchase.
Purchase decisions are shaped by three influence sources: own (personal preference and past experience), others (peer recommendations and social communities), and outer (advertising and brand-controlled communication). As outer influence weakens, brands win by triggering favorable conversations among others rather than louder self-promotion.
In connected markets, customers trust the social circle (friends, family, online communities) over corporate messaging and even over their own preferences. Brands should therefore act with human attributes — physicality, intellectuality, sociability, emotionality, personality, morality — so customers relate to them as friends rather than as sellers.