Consumer Behaviour

Yesterday’s article, for all its mediocrity (sorry about that), did spark an interesting question from Yann.  He questioned the extent to which the ads I was discussing would generate business for those companies.

As I mentioned in my reply to Yann, at least part of the way in which advertising works is to “register” a brand or product at an unconscious level.

Given the way in which the unconscious mind works (by associations) I’m convinced that the unconscious benefit is likely to be maximised when unconscious awareness of the ad coincides with positive emotions.  Even if the humour has little or no relevance to the product, the fact that the two exist together at that moment in time can have a positive impact.

Part of the support for my theory comes from the fact that the only meaningful correlation that people who track advertising have been able to identify from the many (it turns out mostly pointless) questions they ask people, is that ads that score well for ‘like-ability’ generate more sales.

Forget unprompted awareness, prompted awareness, accurately identifying the brand, recalling the tag line, remembering what product it was promoting… none of that seems to count for much.

Last year researchers from the University of Maryland discovered that, simply by showing pictures of people going about daily activities near a product (Dasani bottled water in this case), participants were more likely to choose that product over three alternatives; this was the case even when people were unaware of having seen the product in those pictures.

The more pictures they saw containing the product, the more likely they were to select it later.

When alternative versions of the pictures were shown that included either someone wearing a cap from the same university or one from a rival (again with the product present), the presence of someone with an unconscious link to themselves also prompted greater take up of the brand.

The more I see studies like this, the more convinced I am about the importance and power of unconscious associations in determining consumer behaviour.

Perhaps most crucially, it’s important to understand that what the unconscious mind values isn’t necessarily the same as what we would like to think is important to us.

Philip Graves

Source: University of Chicago Press Journals (2008, October 15). Subconscious Encounters: How Brand Exposure Affects Your Choices

Philip Graves Advertising, consumer behaviour, selling Advertising, consumer behaviour, influence, marketing communication, The Secret of Selling

Humour is often used to make an advert engaging.  What’s less well understood is that it also helps to create positive emotions which are then unconsciously associated with the brand or product concerned.

The tricky part is that humour is a relatively personal thing and if your ad isn’t funny to enough people the strategy can backfire in exactly the same way.

I had hoped to show you a recent Barclays Bank advert, but You Tube let me down – it’s there but with no sound (and the soundtrack makes this particular ad work).

Instead here are two examples.  The first is an ad that you’ve probably seen before – it spread superbly when it was first released onto You Tube because it’s extremely funny (at least many people think so).

And here’s another for a rival credit card that was shown repeatedly in the UK and seems, to me at least, entirely devoid of anything positive to connect with the company concerned at any conscious or unconscious level!

It can be difficult for brands to make an advert that is light-hearted or humorous and works well.  There is a need to balance the credibility of the unconscious associations they are inviting the consumer to make with something that will engage their target market and make them smile. 

Often a brand manager or marketing director isn’t personally representative of their target audience, invariably their understanding of their brand and product isn’t anything like typical.  Some would take this as a justification for asking consumers what they thought of an advert (or the script) in advance.  Unfortunately, this usually just leads to an invitation to consciously appraise the ad, and consumers will never sit and watch it in such a critical and judgmental mindset.  As a result, what’s reported back is usually misleading.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Advertising Advertising, Barclaycard, marketing communication, Master Card, psychology, unconscious mind

Today I had the last of five or six conversations with my brother about buying a camera.

I’m no Annie Liebovitz!  But I did get into SLR photography many years ago and have had the good luck to take one or two half decent photographs over the years – including one of the Brooklyn Bridge that my brother has in his house.  It’s a good picture, although not so good that he’s ever asked me to sign it or anything.

Probably the best picture I ever took was of a sculpture.  I was in Paris and took a black and white photo of a Rodin work called The Woman Under the Stone (only that in French, I imagine).  By over-exposing the picture perfectly, the dark weathering of the sculpture was magically transformed into a dramatic blend of shimmering shades. 

Of course, this was in the days when you didn’t know what your pictures would look like until you got them developed.  Incidentally, when I said I had been lucky to take some good pictures, it wasn’t false modesty.  The Rodin picture only came out that way because I’d forgotten to change the settings over when I got outside!

All of which is nothing to do with consumer behaviour.  But what I did learn from the many conversations with my brother is how much easier it is to make a clear recommendation when your own money isn’t involved: it’s much easier to help spend someone else’s money.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’d hate to give my brother bad advice.  But the difference is that I don’t have any unconscious rumblings of loss aversion to contend with.  If there’s disappointment down the line I won’t have lost anything personally; it is, after all, still my brother making the final decision about what to do with his money.

So how might this be useful from a consumer behaviour perspective?  Well, if you can find a way to encourage people to recommend your product or service to their friends it’s likely to reap dividends.  Persuading someone to recommend you to someone else (ironically, even if they haven’t used your services themselves) can be more influential and compelling than delivering your sales message to them first-hand!

Everyone is a potential customer.  And even someone who doesn’t buy from you may recommend you to someone else.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, selling consumer behaviour, marketing communication, why customers buy

I’d like to pick up on a long reply to yesterday’s post because I hope I can be more constructive than I was able to be yesterday.

Here’s is Pam’s reply to yesterday’s post:

It’s interesting to read how the rational and unconscious minds often pull us in opposite directions. Your point is well taken that people often think they want A but actually choose B because it fulfills an unconscious need, want or desire. It is good to bear this in mind.

If you are looking to invest your money though, at some point – unless you choose to navigate the investment world yourself – you will likely be forced to make a choice between various options and advisers available to you. In essence, you are trusting your future to advice of someone and their investing philosophy and strategy.

The question then becomes in whom do you trust and why do you trust them?

As you have been explaining so well in your blog, our buying decisions must fulfill some type of psychological need. In the case of investing, one must feel comfortable entrusting their life savings.

For some it is purely an emotional investment. They will invest with the person who makes them feel most comfortable or represents a philosophy they feel most comfortable with.

For others, such as myself, our comfort-zone is found by analyzing details and facts. Rod’s approach will likely not persuade the masses. Nor does he intend it to. It’s a targeted niche of investors to whom his strategy will appeal. He knows and understands the demographics of those whom he is targeting.

I have seen first-hand the results Rod’s methods of investing. The process through which he takes his clients is thorough, rigorous and intense. I can speak to this through personal experience as I am one of his numerous clients. And yes, even I had to go through the same battery of tools he uses to devise a plan tailored and targeted specifically to my risk tolerance and time horizon – which I might add is different than the risk tolerance of us as a couple. I would be remiss if I didn’t add that while the market has taken a hit in recent months, my portfolio has weathered the storm quite nicely given the current economic conditions.

Everyone has to find their own comfort level – after all its YOUR money and YOUR future that you are banking on. While past performance is not a predictor of future earnings or performance, I know where my comfort-level is an I’m very happy with the results I’ve achieved through Rod’s methodology and strategic investing.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Respectfully,

Pam
Well the first thing I’d like to say is that I’m sorry if Pam took it as an indirect attack on her and Rod’s business, it certainly wasn’t intended to be.

Secondly, Pam’s reply didn’d address the key point of the research I was reporting: it was investment advisers whose judgment was influenced (primed) by what they had just read, although no doubt consumers are susceptible to being primed in the same way.

So how could someone in the investment business use research like that which I referenced, which opens a veritable can of worms regarding the veracity of investment advice?

From the point of view of the investment advice they offer, other research on subliminal influence and priming shows that its effects are reduced, or removed altogether, where people are aware that something could prime them.  So, provided Rod recognises that he could be unconsciously primed to give different advice on the basis of what they read and hear, they are somewhat less likely to do so.

[Incidentally, I'm certain that none of the very rational and analytical investment advisers and accountants that took part in the research believed their advice was the by-product of something they'd just read.  This isn't a reflection on the individual, it's a reflection of how our brains work.]

Perhaps more importantly this information is an opportunity for them to differentiate from their competitors.  In their position this is exactly the sort of information I would communicate to potential clients, along with an overview of the systems in place to make the advice offered as rational and robust as possible (something that seems to be a real strength of theirs).

Rest assured, there is nothing like providing a genuine source of anxiety in your consumer’s mind regarding the risk of using a competitor, for that competitor to seem far less attractive.  Handled the wrong way knocking the competition can be alienating, but when you have scientific studies to quote it’s not you that’s doing the knocking, it’s implicit (or explicit if you point out that “very few other investment specialists are aware of the fact that…”).

I hope that this makes for a more constructive post. 

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, selling Add new tag, analysis, consumer behaviour, marketing communication, priming, psychology

Perhaps some of the most interesting blog debate I’ve read recently has been on Rod’s Personal Investment Strategies blog. 

It’s been a while since I did any consumer behaviour research with financial institutions, but in many ways my journey into consumer behaviour and away from traditional consumer research began during a consumer focus group about pension choice, back in the 1990s. 

It was the fourth long and tedious group discussion with people who were considering investing in a pension scheme, during which they told me how they wanted independent advice, a range of funds and a provider with good financial security.  At the end, after everyone was getting up to go, one of the group asked another, who had been a little more vociferous than the rest, where he was planning to get his pension.  The reply led to several of the group soliciting the details of someone who I recognised was an ‘industrial’ insurance salesman (i.e. not independent).  What’s more, they didn’t ask who he represented, how financially secure his company was or how many funds he offered.

I realised that I was going away to write my report on what they’d all said; meanwhile they were all about go and do something entirely different.

I’m aware of studies that have found people tend to like stocks that have readable names (as opposed to abstract or technical-sounding ones), and that people tend to select things in general that begin with the same first letter as their own name. 

These reflect the way the unconscious mind works, by generating a feeling based on familiarity, which is then consciously de-coded (erroneously) as being a ‘good’ choice.

Last week another study shed light on the power of the unconscious mind’s influence in this apparently rational world: a study conducted by the University of Haifa found that the investment selections of a group of investment advisers and accountants  was strongly influenced by what type of article they were given to read before making a selection.

Those who were given an article on someone who took big risks and was successful, rated a stock they were shown as being more attractive (more valuable for investment) than those who were shown the same stock after reading an article about someone who had been successful after avoiding a risky decision.

All the participants gave their assessment of the fund on the basis of the same financial report.

So it seems an investment advisers advice might have just as much to do with what he’s read that morning in the paper, or a story he has heard from someone else, as it does a ‘rational’ assessment of the data for that company.

Studies like these on the power of priming don’t make for particularly comfortable reading for anyone who likes to believe they’re balanced, rational and analytically-minded.  However, understanding the way our brains work is critical to understanding our customers’ behaviour.

Philip Graves

Source: University of Haifa (2009, April 28). Reading Reports Involving Risk-taking Affects Financial Decision Making. ScienceDaily.

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, selling analysis, consumer behaviour, investments, priming, psychology

One of the joys of a home office is that the commute time is pretty short – I estimate 65 yards from breakfast to the desk.  My preferred option is to get straight into my work for the day – not because I’m one of these incredibly driven types, it’s just that I find it’s one of my most productive times of the day.

However, with two young children there’s some healthy competition for my time.  Today I opted for games before school, which meant a couple of games of table football with my son, one with both children and a game called Balloon Lagoon with my daughter.  They headed off to school and I started my day a little later than usual, but still considerably earlier than if I was commuting somewhere.

It was whilst I was helping Martha put the Balloon Lagoon game away in the cupboard that I reflected on the packaging for children’s games.

There is, it seems, a fashion with some manufacturers, to put their games in the smallest box possible.  Honestly, they must have CAD specialists and mathematicians working round the clock to figure out ways of getting X pieces of plastic and cardboard game components into the smallest conceivable box.

MB Games Mousetrap is hugely entertaining to play, but I can only get it back into the box properly afterwards if I treat putting it away as a Rubik-style puzzle all of it’s own!  The children have no chance.

So, you might be wondering, what has all this got to do with worrying about the consumer’s unconscious mind.

Well, here’s the thing.  All the evidence points to buying decisions being decisions being hugely influenced by unconscious elements; the apparently irrelevant artistic picture next to the product increasing perceptions of luxuriousness; the classical music playing causing customers to spend much more on wine than they otherwise would; and so on. 

Every time I do battle with that Mousetrap box I spend far more time being irritated by their penny-pinching design, than I do being impressed that they managed to fit it into such a small space.

And don’t even think about mentioning Tomy’s Ali Baba!  Once assembled it is totally impossible to close the box again, and I can’t believe it’s designed to be disassembled and reassembled each time – the plastic catches would soon snap.

And as I’m being irritated by the Mousetrap box and, now you’ve brought it up, the Ali Baba box too, what am I looking at?  A bright colourful logo for either MB Games or Tomy.

Now my unconscious mind is filtering this out as largely irrelevant, but it’s still seeing it.

So when I’m standing in front of the games at the toy store and I’m weighing up how much fun any game might be, those same brand logos are there for my unconscious to detect.  If the neural paths linking to that image include some negative associations (which they surely will, thanks to the clown who thought squeezing games into tiny boxes was worthwhile) that brand is disadvantaged. 

I won’t necessarily stand there and think about the problem of getting a game back into the box, but I may feel slightly less inclined towards one game and falsely post-rationalise this as being because the game looks less entertaining.

I realise that saving costs is a sensible goal to pursue for any business.  I can see that, with large volume products, a penny saved on a smaller cardboard box and the corresponding reduction in transportation costs can soon mount up to a worthwhile amount.

But it is important to understand consumer behaviour and, in particular, the role of the unconscious in consumer purchase decisions.  That’s one of the reasons I wrote “The Secret of Selling: How to Sell to Your Customer’s Unconscious Mind”; it explains how apparently peripheral elements can have a profound impact on what customer’s actually do.

It’s always wise to try to see what you’re doing through the eye of your would-be consumer; but it’s even more important to see this through the eye of their unconscious mind.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, Marketing choice, consumer behaviour, influence, MB Games, Mousetrap, packaging, The Secret of Selling, toys