Ideas

You know what you want don’t you. You know what you like. It’s like the old saying about art, “I don’t know much, but I know what I like” (usually followed by something resembling, but not convincingly matching, a laugh). And so it is that, often, organisations will turn to consumers to find out what they want. It seems a sensible enough thing to do after all, what sort of person doesn’t know what he wants? Let’s do some market research! Except that, what we think we want and what we ultimately end up choosing to do are completely different things. There are a number of reasons for this: Most of our behaviour is unconsciously triggered.  We react to our environment in a way that we have learned is best (safest) for us.  But with no link to the way in which our unconscious mind works, we are not aware […]

When it comes to marketing, one thing is sure; you will never see your product or service in the same way that one of your consumers will. This is, unfortunately, inevitable. Pretty much everything you do for your business is a deliberate action, you think about what you’re doing and the reasons for it (at least I hope you do). As a result of this you will look at the elements you offer and consider them. Most of the time you have had to think about them to have them be there in the first place. But this doesn’t mean you are always mindful of how small details can be significant to consumers. For example the background in the picture of the car you’re selling may well convey an awful lot of information to a prospective customer either at a conscious or unconscious level. But the seller, having dutifully cleaned […]

Recently I was reading some research about how people respond differently depending on timescales. Researchers at Princeton gauged people’s reactions when they were offered a choice between receiving a $15 Amazon voucher today, or a $20 one in the future (two or four weeks later).  $15           $20 Now         Later Rationally the response should be the same – none of the participants was actively seeking an Amazon voucher, they didn’t need one at that moment in time, so why not wait and get the larger amount in a couple of weeks, right? In my experience it’s almost always a mistake to think that consumers will make rational decisions; when it comes to consumer behaviour they rarely do. So what did the research find and what are the potential implications? What was revealing was the way in which people’s brains reacted to the alternatives: scans showed that the chance to […]

As a consumer behaviour expert I’m very wary of consumer research and that includes opinion polls. I can see that a huge amount of human behaviour is unconsciously driven and just because we can come up with reasons for our past or intended actions doesn’t mean these rational justifications are accurate. David W. Moore spent many years working for the polling organisation Gallup as a senior editor. His analysis of opinion polls provides many reasons why we should be concerned about quantitative consumer research in general. Beyond the general issue of unrepresentative samples he reveals how different approaches to polling produce dramatically different results. The complex questions prior to the reported opinion prime respondents to answer in a particular way. One poll asking about support for oil drilling in the Alaska’s wildlife refuge found the public opposed to it by a margin of 17 percentage points. Another poll conducted within […]