Consumer Behaviour: Where’s the Reason?
I really appreciated all of the comments received in response to yesterday’s post and I wanted to pick up on one that, as a consumer behaviour expert, I found fascinating. It also was one of the last comments posted so people scanning through what others have said wouldn’t have seen it.
Mark (MarketingScoops) said: “I had an interesting shopping experience today. I had no intention of shopping but I received a 40% off one item special on my blackberry. Once I was in the store, I entered the shopping mode and bought 3 things. The super special got me in the store and completely changed my mindset.”
This reveals a couple of very interesting issues.
- It reinforces my point about a lot of consumer behaviour not being “need” based, but being triggered far less rationally and influenced much more indirectly.
- It illustrates the route to understanding consumer behaviour: whilst there is no direct link between the adaptive unconscious mind and the conscious mind, an awareness that it is the former that directs the show enables you to become more aware of its involvement in your own behaviour. By looking at our own behaviour dispassionately (rather than with the distorted bias of our own conscious delusions) we can start to see how we’ve acted unconsciously and then begin to trace what might have influenced us to do so. In essence what we have to learn to do is stand back and observe ourselves.
The way to enhance this understanding further is to apply what’s been discovered through studies in social psychology and neuroscience, which often help to explain our seemingly random acts of consumerism. And that’s the sort of thing I bring readers of my eZine (honestly, how can you resist signing up?!) Of course, once you start to develop this skill you can apply it to what you see your own customers doing.
Philip Graves
