Consumer Behaviour

I was working at a client’s store, watching customers for a few hours as I do, but I wished I had been watching my car instead.

It was parked just outside the store, but whilst I was figuring out what was going on in the minds of people looking at products on the shelves, some thieving so-and-so was helping themself to the wing mirror from my car.

My first reaction on seeing part of my car missing was to imagine what would have happened had I seen the thief at work on my car: for a moment I saw myself running across, tapping him on the shoulder and then beating his skull on the side of my vehicle.

However, this fantasy was soon interrupted by a dose of healthy pragmatism: I’m not that brave, I haven’t assaulted anyone since I was in a playground fight at the age of ten and given the way of the world it’s perfectly possible that the person who thought nothing of stealing part of my car would have thought equally little of hurting me.  On reflection it was for the best that I didn’t see the act in progress.

But the loss of my wing mirror did give me a fascinating insight into human behaviour.  I occupy a strange world where, because I spend so much time analysing the consumer psychology I’m observing, I can sometimes analyse my own unconscious behaviour by observing my own actions and reactions.

So what did I learn and how might it be useful in terms of consumer behaviour?

1. Old (unconsciously programmed) habits die hard.

I had to drive an hour home with no wing mirror.  I knew that I didn’t have one – it was a source of considerable annoyance.  Had anyone asked me if I knew my wing mirror was missing I would probably have directed some of my anger at the thief at them.  But… did that stop me looking at the space where it used to be every time I changed lanes? Of course not.

Similarly, where consumer behaviour is established through repeated actions it will take a huge intervention to change it.

2. Fear is a Great Motivator

With my mirror gone I needed a new strategy for changing lanes.  I realised that I usually used a combination of the rear view mirror and wing mirror when looking for a gap in the traffic.  With the wing mirror gone it was feasible to only use the rear view mirror: by looking for a space behind I could see the gap and extrapolate accurately where it would be when I changed lanes.  However, I needed the reassurance of seeing there was nothing in the space I was moving into: so every time I was about to change I had to look over my shoulder before I could make the progress I wanted to on my journey. 

In the same way, consumers need to get past any fears their unconscious mind throws up before they can get to the pleasurable part of buying.

3. Familiar Wins Over Better

Whilst this blind-spot-free method of looking over my shoulder should have been more reassuring I was cursing the fact that I had to do it each time; partly because I was cursing the fact that some git had pinched my mirror.  But what really irked me was that the good (i.e. safe, dependable and efficient) means of checking that I’d been using for over twenty years was no longer available.   [I should point out that my car's mirror did have a blind-spot eliminator - although these still leave a small blind-spot.]

Often companies will get frustrated that a customer won’t buy their product when they ‘know’ it is better than the competitors’: it’s important to factor in how familiar an alternative product is too.

So there you have it; I managed to find some useful reminders from an annoying situation.  I also managed to find a new replacement mirror and fit it myself for £22.00 (rather than the £150 that BMW wanted to do the job).

So if I do find someone helping themselves to part of my car again it may simplest for all concerned if I give them the money… then whilst they’re surprised I can smash their head against the side of my car

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour BMW, consumer behaviour

The man walked onto the station platform very casually.  Most of the other people around me paid him little or no attention at all, but I found my eyes drawn back to him repeatedly.  In fact, I had to work hard to make sure that he didn’t catch me looking his way a little too often.

I tried to size up the situation.  The group around him were standing too far away to be friends, but they were close enough to suggest they weren’t strangers either.  I guessed they were fellow commuters, familiar with one another, but not with each others’ lives.  They didn’t know what I knew about him.  Instead they had been taken in like so many others by his relaxed air and general bonhomie.

I considered what it was that had first made me recognise him; what unconscious reference had caused me to notice him, fixate my attention on him and trigger that feeling of fear. 

It was several factors, I decided.  Like a simple jigsaw puzzle any one of the elements would have been insufficient, but together they fired up that recognition I’d experienced and made me instantly wary and attentive.  It was the distinctive coffee-coloured hue of his (Asian) skin, his height, the strong physique softened by a considerable paunch, and the back-pack, worn with both straps over the shoulders.  I recalled I’d only ever seen him with that distinctive back-pack.

My unconscious mind had filtered the situation and, within microseconds, made its judgment.  This was the murderer Maninder Kohli!

Except it wasn’t.

I knew that because at the end of the television programme I’d watched about Kholi’s viscious crime and the manhunt for him in India, the police had caught him and he’d been sent to prison (for a very long time).

But primed by the programme. and the powerful emotions it evoked (particularly given that I’m the father of a daughter and he raped and murdered a teenage girl), my unconscious had new data to use in protecting me.

In evolutionary terms this mechanism makes great sense.  It can keep me safe and help me protect my family.  But, as I knew within moments of ‘recognising’ the man at the station, it can also be wrong.

Had I known someone who looked like Kholi I doubt I would have looked at the man in the same way.

So what does all this reveal about consumer behaviour?  Well, the unconscious mind can be easily influenced.  When emotion and uniqueness are combined, particularly if it’s through a recent event, it creates a prime.  The unconscious mind is then on the look-out for elements of the event that have caused that emotion.  When enough are encountered, or sufficiently close approximations of them are, it triggers the emotions experienced on the first occasion as a warning (or incentive in the case of something pleasurable) to act.

Where you can create an emotion and attach your brand or product to it the sensory associations at the time will be mapped onto it and can be deployed to recreate the intended emotions.  That’s how brand logos work.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Advertising, consumer behaviour Advertising, brands, logos, marketing communication

You know how it is, you think about something for so long that it gets harder to do it not easier!

Today I had a couple of hours free and decided to tackle the long overdue consumer behaviour website make-over.  Of course, once I got started it took considerably longer than a couple of hours, but once you get started it only gets easier to keep going: that first step is always the longest!

I’ve taken note of feedback from the blog; now articles will all appear on one page, but I’ll still link them from the front page too so that visitors to the site can get an immediate indication that there are frequent updates.  I’ll also be changing the main box from time to time as new products come out.

I decided that the video had had so much positive reaction – and I know it has already contributed to increased demand for my services – that it deserved a higher profile position, at least for a while.

Please do pop back here and let me know what you think.

Philip

Philip Graves consumer behaviour consumer behaviour

When it comes to understanding consumers it’s always important to consider the issues from a rational perspective, and then completely ignore what you conclude.

Why?

Because consumer behaviour isn’t, for the most part, rationally based.

Recently I happened across a great example.

The UK supermarket chain Waitrose has always operated at the higher end of the market, catering to customers who are willing to pay a little more for higher quality produce.  Waitrose’s marketing makes much of the fact that they source their products carefully; some of their packaging will state which farm meat has come from for instance.

With the economic downturn all of the supermarkets have been keen to communicate low price messages; which isn’t easy since most of them operated on a low price platform anyway.  Indeed, the big two supermarkets (Asda who are owned by Wal Mart) and Tesco frequently squeeze suppliers brutally hard in order to drive down prices.  With such large shares of the grocery market, an efficient supplier has to decide between saying goodbye to most of their profit, down-grading their product, or losing a large proportion of their sales in an instant.

With most suppliers already squeezed the supermarkets have created new products, sometimes positioned below their already lower-priced own-label offerings, to sell more cheaply.  Sometimes they create new brands for these products, and sometimes they package them as new own-brand offerings.

Waitrose introduced an ‘Essentials’ own-label range and it seemed to be selling well.

I looked at the pizzas.

The ‘Essentials’ pizzas were more expensive than the regular own-label equivalents!

Looking on the company’s website I also notice that, even when the per pizza price is lower, the price per kilogram is higher on their ‘budget’ pizzas.

But they still sell.

Because customers buy the concept.  If the first instance primes them to believe that the product is cheaper, and in particular if that first experience isn’t bad from a quality perspective, then future purchases are made as an emotional reaction: seeing an ‘Essentials’ product is an opportunity to make a worthy purchase – a purchase that feels like a good, money-saving decision in these difficult times.

Few people will check what the actual cost is or how it lines up against alternatives – let’s face it that would make shopping extremely time-consuming.  And so the company can make a greater profit from a lower-priced product!

And to add to their prize the supermarkets, having drawn people in with the promise of lower-priced options, have the opportunity to influence the customers visiting their stores.  Feeling good about the money they believe they’ve saved, some customers will indulge in small ways elsewhere in the store.

Multi-buys will feel like great value, but lead to more products being purchased and, once sitting their on the shelf, the likelihood of their being consumed is high.  Consumption increases because of the constant visual prompt and feeling that a plentiful supply is available. It may even lead to feeling that a similar quantity of purchase is required next time, even if the offer is no longer present.

I’m not suggesting that such practices are admirable, desirable or morally justifiable.  But they provide a useful insight into the workings of the consumer mind.

Philip Graves

P.S. If you want to learn more about consumer behaviour take a look at my eBook, The Secret of Selling: How to Sell to Your Customer’s Unconscious Mind.

Philip Graves consumer behaviour consumer behaviour, priming, psychology, why customers buy

Continuing from yesterday’s post it seems my customer satisfaction is developing into a series.  I really appreciate the questions and comments, I sense an eBook coming on!

Today’s gratitude is due to babysitting maestro Lisa McLellan.  You may wonder what link there could possibly be between someone who is so focused on children and babysitting, and a consumer behaviour expert.  Well, as Lisa’s comment demonstrates, there is a link if you open your mind to it.

Here’s what Lisa said:

“I have found myself giving different answers to basically the same question depending on the wording of the question. I have also found through babysitting children of all ages, that at a particular age, (usually younger children age 2-4)children will choose the last choice they are given when you ask a question giving them a few answers to choose from. For example, you ask, “How did you get that scratch, did you fall down, did you scratch it on the corner of the bookcase, or did the cat scratch you?” 99% of the time, the child will say the cat scratched them simply because it was the last option.”

The great thing about studying children as consumers or, as in this case, as “respondents”, is that they are susceptible to all the same unconscious influences that adults are, but are far less skilled at concealing how they’ve been influenced with conscious filtering. 

Part of the innocence of childhood is the absence of the capacity to process what you’re about to say in advance, to check for social acceptability and, just as critically, self-perception.  In other words, “Is it OK to express this to this group of people?” and, “How will I look to them if I do?”

We soon learn not to repeat the last thing someone says to us, and it’s good we do or we would be too easy to manipulate; but we don’t learn not to let the options determine how we reply. 

Let me ask you a question: “What will you do this weekend? Play with the kids, watch a movie, sit down and relax?”.

You may not answer any of those things – although there’s quite a high possibility that you’ll mention one.  But almost anyone answering will be talking about leisure activity of some kind.

But if I’d asked you: “What will you do this weekend?” Some domestic paperwork, a supermarket shop, cut the grass?” you would probably have talked about chores and duties first. 

Studies have shown that if you ask people “How happy are you?” you will get a totally different response from asking the question “How unhappy are you?”  And if you ask which of two divorcing parties should get custody of a child you will get a different answer than if you ask which of those two parties shouldn’t get custody.

For my dissertation at university I looked at schoolchildrens’ attitudes to statistics.  Following the accepted protocol I used a battery of attitudinal questions (you know the “strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree type). 

I discovered that even children as old as fifteen were influenced by the orientation of the statement (i.e. whether it was framed positively or negatively).

Another revealing element of human psychology you can see quite easily in young children is emotional misattribution.  In fact, it’s a great way to appreciate that we humans are emotional creatures who retrofit rational explanations after the fact.

A child between the ages of two and seven (and possibly beyond) will often make a totally incongruent responses like: “Shall we get ready for school?” “No, I hate school!” or “Are you going to eat your sandwiches?” “No, I can’t stand cheese!” when you know perfectly well that they have enjoyed their time at school each day for the past year, or that they eat cheese frequently without a fuss.

What they’re revealing is that something has made them feel bad and they are directing that feeling at whatever target seems to fit the circumstances.  This could be an argument with a sibling, tiredness, a lost toy, resentment at having been disciplined for something a few minutes earlier, or any of a thousand other things.  As adults we learn to pick a more fitting target so we don’t get ridiculed, and so that we get to express our bad feeling; but it’s frequently just as misdirected.

Similarly, a toy will lie untouched for a week.  But once one child has it their sibling wants it too; more than anything else in the world.  This is an example of so-called “mirror neurons” in action and reflects (no pun intended) how we can all react by wanting to copy what we see others doing.  Ever yawned because someone else has yawned even though you didn’t feel tired?

So children reveal a lot about what we all do.  If you’re interested in the consumer research process you would do well to observe their inconsistencies and the influence that environment, frame and question wording have on them.

Next time I’ll tell you how you can analyse customer satisfaction.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, consumer research consumer research, customer satisfaction, priming, psychology

With so much consumer behaviour, not to mention human behaviour, happening at an unconscious level, it’s all too easy for something that you say or do to not register in your own consciously accessible memory as significant.

One friend of mine was asked in a survey what brands of lager he purchased.  He wasn’t a big drinker, but would probably make a lager purchase (always of the same brand) every month or two. 

But faced with an interviewer’s question, and without the unconsciously filtered visual prompts of the packaging he couldn’t recall the brand he’d bought all these years (a little-known brand called Budweiser!).  How do I know the visual prompts were unconsciously filtered? Because faced with a bottle, even with a large proportion concealed he would recognise it and name it every time. 

But he couldn’t describe the bottle’s design, because if he could summon up a similar small proportion of the pack detail consciously, he would have been able to recall the name too.

Had the interview been conducted on a different day, or in a different place, he might have seen a visual cue that reminded him. 

It’s all a bit haphazard, don’t you think?

Recently I read an internet survey on mobile phone (cell phone) usage.  One of the early questions asked “When you share your thoughts about computers and IT topics how do you do it?”

A prompted list offered nine choices, and an ”other” and “I don’t share thoughts…” options.

Just how much reliving off the recent past the average respondent is supposed to invoke at this point isn’t clear.

A casual comment on an iPhone application mentioned in a car?  A pointer on the bottom of an email?  Telling someone that their blog formatting is off? 

Frankly, I can’t be bothered to give much thought to a question like this.  And I happen to think that the vast majority of other respondents, blasting through the survey so that they get entered for the sweep-stake prize or to receive some other recompense, won’t be that bothered either.

So just how much should faith should a company have in an answer to a question like this from consumer research?

Not much, is my professional opinion.

As you go about your consumer life it doesn’t matter at all that your thoughtless; in fact, it helps make you efficient at what you do.  Imagine buying beer for the first time and trying to make a “good” decision by reading all the packs, analysing the ingredients, and so on.  It would take forever, and you’d be none the wiser in any case!

But when it comes to trying to understand your own consumers it really is important to understand that consumers are, for the most part, consciously thoughtless.  They may well answer your questions, but you shouldn’t confuse the fact that you get an answer with the notion that the answer has any real relevance to them or people your survey is assuming that they’re representative of.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, consumer research consumer behaviour, consumer research

A couple of conversations recently have highlighted just how stupid consumers often are.

Case in point, me.

I like to think I’m reasonably capable, astute, switched on, together. But that’s just what I like to think.

You see, I’ve been following this blog on investment (www.greatwealth.com/).  To begin with I felt sort of obliged to stick with it, I’d said to someone that I would look at it.  But it was a bit annoying.

The investment adviser there (Rod) seemed determined to spell out assumptions people have about investing with the implicit message that they didn’t stack up.  Rod did say he would tell us why, but my resistance was, if anything, increasing as the days went on.

You see I know about investing.  Well, when I say “I know” that’s not totally accurate.  It would be more accurate to say that I have invested money in my time, like a lot of people. 

My “knowledge” is really no such thing.  It’s a market-driven, or rather marketing-driven, perspective of how investment works, derived almost entirely from what I see people doing.

If someone said you should do something just because it’s what everyone else does, you would give them that funny look you like to use just before you walk away dismissively.  And yet we make tacit judgments all the time entirely on this basis.

And I should know.

My biggest professional challenge is pointing out to people that, despite the fact that billions of dollars are spent on it, consumer research doesn’t work.  When it comes down to it, and given that even people who use research regularly find bits they disagree with and so could hardly be classed as true research theists, the main reason everyone does it is because everyone does it!

And as I’ve learned from Rod’s blog, it takes time to point out to someone if prevailing wisdom isn’t very wise.  But most marketing happens in moments, not minutes, let alone hours.  And that’s a big challenge.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, consumer research consumer behaviour, consumer research, Marketing

When it comes to observing consumer behaviour, or any aspect of human behaviour, there is an important tip you would do well to keep in mind.  The process of observation needs to be as detached and objective as possible.

It’s also worth remembering that you will learn the most when your presence as an observer isn’t something the people you’re observing are aware of: “I’ve just come here to watch, you carry on as normal” is not going to work. 

You’ve just raised the question of what “normal” is and virtually guaranteed that someone is going to be consciously aware of their own actions.

Yesterday I had a fascinating insight into sexist behaviour.  You know the sort of thing, putting women down, not treating them as equals, pushing people into gender stereotypes.  It can get you a little cross can’t it.

Who was guilty of this?  Would you be surprised if I said a group of middle-aged men?  Probably not, that’s just one of those things you’ve come to expect.

Oh, I nearly didn’t mention, some boys too.

Oh yes, and some girls.

And some women.  Ranging in age from twenty-somethings to ladies in their seventies.  Including one who is a social worker.

In fact, everybody in the room was at it.  It was like a convention for sexism.  Except, in fact, it was the annual draw for Wimbledon tennis tickets.

Each club that’s affiliated to the Lawn Tennis Association receives an allocation of tickets for the championships.  Members of the club were there to watch the draw to decide who would get a ticket.  The earlier your name came out the sooner you got to choose which day of the tennis you would attend.

So the choice people made was a good indication of what they wanted to watch.   What was first to go?  Centre Court tickets on men’s final day, of course.

What was last to go?  Any day the men weren’t playing (ladies’ quarter finals, semi finals and even the ladies’ final).

So whilst the organising bodies in women’s tennis have achieved equal pay in the main tournaments, it seems that the tennis-watching public isn’t seeing things as being equal.  Of course, if you asked the ladies present if the prize money should be equal, they wouldn’t hesitate to say “yes”.  But what people say, and what they reveal through their behaviour are rarely the same thing.

Whilst this was going on I was sitting next to a lady with a baby, just five or six weeks old.  On three occasions she had cause to go up to the board where the choice of tickets was displayed and, on each occasion, she passed the infant to someone to hold.

She always passed it to another woman.  She never asked me.  Nor did she ask any of the other fathers in the room.

Was this all sexist behaviour?  I’m pretty sure it was.

You see, despite what we like to tell ourselves about what we think, our behaviour will give us away.

Our unconscious works ahead of our “nice to have” conscious notions, to find the safest route for us to pursue.

To be honest, the chance of a woman knowing what to do with a baby are much greater than a man; it’s not guaranteed, but it’s a safer bet.

And tennis elitism is a male preserve; fewer errors, better movement, higher quality (this is all statistically verifiable); not that that matters.  People know what they’d rather watch: a first round men’s match featuring a great male player, than a grand slam final featuring two of the best female players.

So if you make sure those conscious pretentions don’t get in the way - your own value judgments and those of the people you’re interested in - you may be surprised (or disappointed) by what you see. 

But however you feel about it, it is the way things are.  You can try and fight it or you can recognise it and tailor your marketing accordingly.

For example, if you put a mixed sex group of people in a room to watch a TV programme, and asked a lady to start the DVD player, but fixed it so that it wouldn’t work, who do you think she would turn to?  Would she look at one of the other women or one of the men when she realised she needed help with something technical?

Trust me, I know plenty of very technically competent women and, for the record, my golf teacher is a woman, but I’m fairly sure most of the time the person would look towards a man.  So if you’re putting a voice-over on your TV ad for an electronics product or retailer, does the choice of a female voice make sense?  I suspect not.

It’s a shame that we should have to choose between pragmatism and idealistic values, but I would never recommend to one of my clients that they embrace the latter over the former.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Advertising, consumer behaviour, consumer research Advertising, consumer behaviour, consumer research, marketing communication

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

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