Why harnessing brand intuition is the superpower you need.
Written by Mark Hull
When I buy salad cream, I don’t think. I just grab the brand I always get (as long as it’s physically available). And yes, for me, it has to be Heinz.
No hesitation. No comparison. It’s automatic.
This sometimes gets incorrectly labelled as instinctive behaviour, but it’s not – it’s habitual.
And that’s the power of habit in repeatable purchases. We’ve done them so many times, the decision is effortless – almost invisible. Familiarity breeds habit. And getting a customer to this behavioural state is the holy grail for any marketer.
“Brand Intuition, not habit, drives choice for Once or Twice businesses. Our job is to shape that intuition so your brand feels like the obvious choice.”
But in many categories, customers don’t buy often enough to form habits. In these Once or Twice markets – like pensions, IVF, stairlifts, choosing a university, buying a new kitchen and so many more – there is no habit to rely on. Most customers are entering the category for the first time, sometimes under stress, with no idea what makes one provider better than another.
In these moments, brand intuition, not habit, can significantly influence choice. And your job as a marketer is to shape that intuition, so your brand feels like the obvious choice when it matters most.
Habit, Instinct, Intuition: What’s the difference?
These three terms often get blurred, but the distinctions matter – especially when you’re trying to influence behaviour:
- Habit is automatic behaviour built through repetition. It’s the salad cream scenario: repeated action that becomes default.
- Instinct is biological, hardwired, primal. Think hunger, fear, or a baby gripping your finger. It’s not learned, it’s inherited. And there isn’t much you can do to influence or change your instincts.
- Intuition is fast, subconscious, and informed by experience. It’s the pattern recognition that comes from exposure, memory and expertise. It feels automatic, but it’s earned. Brand intuition is the feeling that a brand is the right choice, even without any research.
In Once or Twice categories, your customers aren’t relying on habit or instinct. They’re relying on intuition – and your job is to shape it (or get us to help you do it).
How brand intuition influences Once or Twice customers
Customers entering a Once or Twice category are in unfamiliar territory. There’s no experience. No frame of reference. No automatic choice.
Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 and System 2 is a useful lens here.
– System 1: Fast, intuitive, emotional.
– System 2: Slow, deliberate, analytical
Once or Twice decisions are often framed as rational, System 2 choices.
Yet, in these moments, customers often say things like:
- “It just felt right”
- “We instinctively trusted them”
- “Something about the brand stood out”
It feels like instinct. But it’s not. It’s intuition, it’s brand intuition shaped by subtle signals, previous exposures, and emotional cues. Maybe they’ve seen your brand before, heard your tone of voice, or noticed your distinctive style. That sense of familiarity and trust is built through consistent, memorable brand building, long before the moment of need. It’s System 1 thinking.
That intuitive preference isn’t random. It’s built on:
- Past exposure to your brand (even if they weren’t in market at the time)
- Emotional resonance from your tone, visuals, or messaging
- Social proof or borrowed trust
- A sense of familiarity that makes your brand feel like the safe choice.
Which is why brand building matters so much in Once or Twice categories. The moment they need you isn’t the moment to show up – it’s the moment to be remembered.
And this is why brand intuition can be your superpower, because you have the ability to influence peoples intuition through considered and effective marketing strategy – and if you do it right, it puts you front and centre and ahead of the competition.
Marketers: Trust your own intuition
Understanding how you can influence customer intuition is indeed a superpower, but your own intuition can be just as powerful and useful.
As marketers and leaders, we’re trained to justify every decision with data and frameworks. But sometimes you just know, and that gut feel isn’t guesswork. It’s intuition. Years of experience, countless campaigns, pattern recognition and hard-won lessons combine into a kind of expert intuition – a rapid, confident sense of what will work.
Think of Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, landing a plane on the Hudson River. He didn’t stop to calculate everything. He acted decisively, not from instinct – but from deeply earned intuition from a lifetime of training and experience.
In marketing, intuition can be what separates you from the competition. When the opportunity’s brief or the pressure is high, your ability to move fast and wisely is a differentiator. But that ability is built, not gifted.
Want to trust your intuition? Then do the work:
- Study and continually hone your craft
- Be market oriented
- Know your customer
- Develop your creative judgement
- Understand your brand’s role
- Reflect, refine, repeat
Then, when it’s time to act – let the intuitive magic happen. If you haven’t earned that intuition yet, well that’s where we can help and bring some of the magic to your business.
How to build intuitive preference in Once or Twice brands
So how do you influence brand intuition? These are some of the levers that shape intuition on both sides of the transaction.
- Build brand familiarity
Don’t wait until a customer’s in-market. Be visible, distinctive, and consistent now – so your brand feels right when the moment comes. - Focus on salience, not just awareness
It’s not about being seen. It’s about being remembered. Repetition, distinctiveness, and emotional clarity matter. - Design for emotion
People won’t always articulate why they chose you. But how you make them feel will play a big part, and transactional, functional marketing doesn’t achieve that. You need to promote with passion and emotion to get that deep impact that lasts. - Back your own intuition
Your gut feel is often a compressed signal from years of experience. Don’t ignore it. Interrogate it. And if you know it’s not there yet – then get support that can bring that to the table. - Blend intuition with insight
The best marketers combine fast, experienced judgement with evidence-based rigour. It’s not either/or. It’s both.
Final thought: Brand intuition is about feeling – Be the brand that feels like the right choice.
Customers don’t always choose the ‘best’ option. They choose what feels right, and that feeling is built long before they realise they’re ready to buy.
So if your brand only enters the conversation at the same time someone enters and compares the market, you may be too late.
Your job (or ours if you work with us) is to make your brand feel like the obvious choice. To shape customer intuition.
And ultimately to trust in your own intuition to help you get there. Because you know your market and your craft.
Because intuition isn’t guesswork.
It’s recognition.
It’s memory.
It’s earned.
So trust your intuition – and help your customers do the same.
If you want help building intuitive preference for your Once or Twice brand, let’s talk.
Written by Mark Hull
Mark Hull is the founder of Once or Twice – marketing strategy, execution and support for brands whose customers will typically buy their products or services just Once or Twice in a lifetime.
Mark is a Chartered Marketer and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing with over 25 years marketing experience, and more than 10 of those spent leading the marketing for the UK’s biggest businesses in arguably one of the hardest Once or Twice product categories – funerals and funeral plans.
Once or Twice can provide fractional, advisor, consulting or fixed term contract support to businesses to help them win when that one chance comes around. Mark can also provide Keynote presentations on Once or Twice and how to win when you have just once chance.
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