SensoGram 19: To Build a Project Image   In marketing, there is sometimes a tendency to regard the building of product imagery as independent of the product itself.  This is understandable:  building the imagery and building the product are usually different responsibilities within an organisation, and are handled by different people.  To the consumer, however, the product and imagery are one.  This diagram makes the point that, with fast-moving consumer goods, one of the most effective ways to build better imagery is to build a better product.   Advertising creates awareness and an appetite for your product, and this leads to trial.  However, once the product has been tried, it is the product experience that drives imagery more than anything else.   If the usage experience is unpleasant, the product may never be purchased again and any positive imagery is all but destroyed.  On the other hand, a pleasant experience reinforces the imagery.  The product takes on a positive personality, and the imagery as portrayed through advertising becomes more credible.                         In reality, of course, the experience is seldom black and white - there are a hundred shades of grey in between.  The point is, it is important to know precisely where your product lies on the acceptance spectrum because, more than anything else, the reaction at trial will determine the product's ultimate potential.  Over the long haul, no amount of image building will make a poor product successful.  Pouring media support behind an ordinary product may seem to work, because it continues to attract new triallists:  but there are only so many of these, and once they are exhausted, goodnight.