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The FCB Grid: What It Is and How It Works

Joshua Bains [1] February 26, 2015

If youve only used keywords to understand how to market your product, youre not tapping its
potential.

Lists of keywords tell[2] us what people want.

They dont tell us why.

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Boredom, fatigue, illness and hunger ... people buy for a reason. Maybe you think of these ideas willy
nilly as you type, but how can you engineer them without fail?

With the FCB Grid.

Also called the Vaughn Grid, its a tool that was designed by the Senior Vice President of Foote, Cone
and Belding way back in 1980. Since then FCB[3] has grown to a more than $9 billion dollar company
with clients like Cox Communications, Seaworld, AmTrak and Air New Zealand; theyre responsible for
the Lord of the Rings on-board air safety video, and the Bilbo Baggins luggage carousel.

To understand the FCB grid, I spoke with creative director Bruce Bendinger, who is the author of the
Copy Workshop Workbook[4], and who has introduced concepts to students of copywriting and
marketing the world over.

The grid is a really useful tool in two ways, he says. Working creatively, its a good way to think your
way through a problem and get a rough fix on who youre talking to. And second, if youve got to
present to a client, its a good way of explaining a product.

How The Grid Works

Im going to a store, says Bruce. And on my list is toilet bowl cleaner, toilet paper, soy milk. And

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whats not on my list?

Cookies.

But if I can get a yum-yum influence in the store, Ive got a chance of selling some cookies. People are
not thinking about me ... how can I get them to think about me in a yum-yum kind of way?

The first thing is to get some kind of attraction.

The FCB Grid helps us understand where a product stands in the mind of a consumer, by estimating
whether or not purchase requires a highly involved emotional decision or a highly involved
intellectual decision. With that information, we can devise four advertising concepts about a single
product that will influence different buyers.

Enter the X/Y axis, which spans from low involvement (clothing pins) to high involvement (a Porsche)
and from a product that makes you think (insurance) to a product that makes you feel (Papa Johns).

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The decision to buy lies somewhere on that graph, in one of its four quadrants:

At the upper left, Quadrant 1 decisions are based on highly involved thinking. Purchase requires
information first, which leads to awareness and a considered buy. A Leica needs analysis. Theres
also emotion, which pushes the German camera closer to the rightmost feeling side of the chart, but
its a thoughtful purchase. Health insurance is on the top of high involvement, above high-end
optics. Ironically it juts slightly more to the rightmost feeling side of the chart because its more
important (or costs more) than the camera.

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At the upper right, Quadrant 2 decisions are based on highly involved feeling. Purchase requires
reflection first, as personal ego and self-esteem cajole us to buy. Skin softening soap is just at the
beginning of the feeling side of the grid. Perfume blows it away, ending up on the far right of
feeling. Fragrance evokes higher feeling than a Hallmark card, and also requires higher
involvement.

At the lower left, Quadrant 3 decisions are based on lowly involved thinking. Purchase of
practical goods based on habit and routine behavior. We learn about the product only after taking it
home and not before. Its the detergent we assess after the first wash. Its also Yelp.

At the lower right, Quadrant 4 decisions are based on lowly involved feeling. Its the purchase of
pleasure products driven by quick personal or peer-led satisfaction. Quadrant fours motto is: Just
do it. Cookies are a low intellectual item, the less you think about them, the more you want them.
Like Spotify at work.

To use the FCB grid[5], ponder your product or service and decide in what quadrant its most at home.
Draw a dot there.

Explode the Dot

Now that you know where your product lives, reconsider it from that spot using the same four

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quadrants. Youll discover new aspects that are high and low thinking, and high and low feeling.

Bruce used Old El Paso as his example (hed just shared martinis with a friend whod joined the

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account). Our 2015 update will feature Microsofts nascent holographic goggles, which is a highly
involved and thinking purchase akin to buying a Leica. Despite its spot in Quadrant 1, the goggles many
uses can be pitched to a throng of different buyers who have thoughts and feelings scattered across the
whole grid.

Traditionally, these pitches were crunched into attractive concepts like fun and flavor.

Today we can write them as long tail keyphrases:

How holographic goggles help you shop and save (Quadrant 3 - low think)
Play minecraft on holographic goggles now (Quadrant 4 - low feel)
HoloLens for business conference (Quadrant 1 - high think)
Wow her with your holo goggles (Quadrant 2 - high feel)

Now we have two new approaches what our product can do, and who will use it. Holo Goggles for
Mom, Gamers, Business and Romantic Getaways.

Make the grid the way you think. Or as Bruce asks, What is the circumstance that youre reacting with
your target customer?

After enough experimenting with the FCB grid, it becomes a tool you can activate at will. Youll see a
product and sense what quadrant its in. Then you can explode the dot and quickly devise a handful of
concepts, each trained on a different buyer. Try it. Pick an object on the way home. Tag it as low or high

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in thought and feeling, then explode its dot.

What are four ways you can market a traffic jam?

What Its Good For

The grid is a good logical tool, says Bruce. Particularly for the front end. And its a pretty good initial
tool. Its not a precise fine measurement tool. This is not decimal point kind of stuff.

It helps you change a persons attitude more than behavior. Its the opposite of the ALS ice bucket
challenge, which is the result of non-rational, lateral thought.

They didnt try to change your attitude, says Bruce. They hooked you on an engaging behavior. It
connected that way. The FCB grid doesnt get you that. The grid gives you an insight. It does help you
explore the alternatives that you might not have seen at the opening round.

Its also good for meetings, when youre dealing with an embattled account executive for whom even
toilet paper is high involvement. The problem is that high-minded Quadrant 1 wont sell a lot of toilet
paper. But short-sighted Quadrant 3 will.

So if youre doing a happy jingle, youve got to walk the client who lost his sense of humor in his third

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year at Procter and Gamble through that. Its a good tool to walk your client to some particular spot,
because its logical, and because your client is logical even in the midst of intense emotions.

Finally, the grid stops you from talking too much about your own creative triumph, whether its a
keyword list or a billboard, and to dwell instead on what customers are thinking. That is after all the
reason for your work

Youve got to let the client know youre focused on his customer. Keep the I am a genius thing out of
the mix.

Unless, of course, you're a genius for using the FCB grid.

Image credit: The Grid[6]

Vaughn, Richard (1980), "How Advertising Works: A Planning Model," Journal of Advertising Research, 20
(September/October), 27-30; and (1986), "How Advertising Works: A Planning Model Revisited," Journal of
Advertising Research, 26 (January/February), 27-30.

1. https://www.semrush.com/user/145669601/

2. http://www.semrush.com/tips/keyword-popularity-analytics/

3. http://www.fcb.com/our-work

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4. http://www.adbuzz.com/bookshop.php

5. http://www.adbuzz.com/resources/CWW4_ConceptualModels.pdf

6. http://thegrid-tronix.enjin.com/

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