Ideas

At this time of year many people are making their New Year resolutions about how they’re going to do thing differently in the coming year. Often their choices are shaped by their festive excesses; losing weight or getting their finances under control. Last week, I was interviewed by a couple of radio stations who wanted a consumer behaviour expert’s take on this topic (I even had the good fortune to share one broadcast with the financial expert, Alvin Hall). What many people don’t realise is that cutting back on spending can be every bit as difficult as cutting back on food: a money diet is just as hard for many of the same reasons. The way we spend is, very often, shaped by our unconscious mind and influences on it. For example, spending can fulfil all sorts of psychological needs, depending on the person; it’s easy to resolve not to […]

Demand for plastic surgery is increasing dramatically. Whilst there’s no denying that the surgeons are getting more skilled and the techniques being used are advancing all the time, I can’t help but think that the main problem with such interventions is still there. Whenever you see someone who had their plastic surgery performed several years ago, it is apparent that the aging process takes place at different speeds in different areas: the face may still look relatively youthful, but the neck looks as though it was borrowed from a tortoise. Recently I was watching a fascinating programme where the photographer Rankin was recreating iconic holiday photographs. One of the original subjects, now well into her eighties, was interviewed to discuss the original shoot. This once beautiful lady had attempted to battle the aging process (admittedly probably many years earlier with more rudimentary techniques than are currently deployed); she looked, frankly, […]

One of the many challenges in product design is making colour choices. It feels (and is) extremely personal, but new research gives us some clues about what consumers want. Quite a lot of research has been done on individual colours, their connotations and how they influence consumer behaviour. Much of this is driven by the unconscious associations people have with those colours. For instance, if red has frequently been associated with warning signs or danger, it is helpful that our unconscious minds have adapted to notice that colour first: it wouldn’t be great if we allowed ourselves to get distracted by the millions of other visual elements in the landscape when what we need to see is the “Beware of imminent death” sign someone has considerately placed next to a hazard. As I wrote about previously, these unconscious associations can have unexpectedconsequences. But what about the use of different colours? […]

At the moment I’m doing interviews with the media about my book, Consumer.ology; there is quite a lot of concern about the extent to which consumers are open to manipulation as a result of retailers understanding consumer psychology better. My view is that optimising the retail environment is a sensible thing to do. Customers would expect a shop to make its window display look attractive – without necessarily understanding how that might be priming their experience – why not have it smell ‘right’ and sound ‘right’ too? Nevertheless, I do accept that the unscrupulous retailer can take advantage of other aspects of consumer psychology (and yes, these are explained in Consumer.ology). In particular, by exploiting heuristics (rules of thumb), it is very easy to influence someone to feel differently about a product than they otherwise would. My view on under-taking this sort of marketing activity is that it is foolish. […]