Jan Carlzon, president of Scandinavia Airline, wrote a book titled ‘Moments of Truth’ in 1986. The basic idea of the book is that decisions are like processes which are comprised of various critical moments in which the product must be better than the competition. The most important moments need to be identified and owned, or the product will not be considered by the customer. A.G. Lafley translated the model for marketing at Procter & Gamble and identified two ‘Moments of Truth’. Lafley identified the ‘1st Moment of Truth’ as the moment when the customer is in front of the shelf and decides which product to buy (Winning on Shelf). The ‘2nd Moment of Truth’ is the product usage at home. Through the simplification of the highly complex purchasing decision process, Lafley focused the attention of marketing on the two most critical moments in the buying process. Goggle added the term ‘Zero Moment of Truth’ to describe that customers are using the internet in the purchasing process to search for and compare products.
In marketing science the two most critical levers for brand growth are: physical availability (Route-to-Consumer) and mental availability (Brand Salience, through building memory structures and distinctive assets). In the following diagram I merged the ‘Moments of Truth’ model with the key levers for brand growth.
SOURCES (composition of several models):