This is a book about the science of how people think and the implications of that knowledge for understanding consumers better. There is much to be learned about what really drives consumer behavior and why research that relies on people’s understanding of themselves is hopelessly unreliable – the stories we tell about our shopping might sound convincing, but they’re ill informed. We suffer from a “mind gap”: a space between the unconscious processes that are running in our mind and directing our actions, and the conscious mind that experiences the outcome and likes to kid whoever will listen that it was calling the shots all along.
This mind gap means that we can walk out of a shop believing that we’ve purchased a product because it was what we wanted to buy. Occasionally this is true, but more often a diverse assortment of factors will have been processed at an unconscious level and caused us to make that purchase at that time. Evidence for the mind gap comes from all of the carefully controlled psychological studies that play around with the context in which a decision is made. When changing one element, like the lighting, music, scent, or ceiling height, causes people to behave differently, we know what has really driven the change; when we cross-reference that against people’s postrationalized justifications for their actions, however, we discover that the experimental variable doesn’t even get a mention.
Studies released since the first edition of Consumer.ology have provided further insights into what can influence our unconscious mind, and have reinforced my view of its importance in our behavior. For example, experiments have shown that television advertisements in the middle of an exciting sports game are rated more highly than when the game lacks suspense.1 An analysis of trends in baby names has found that people choose names containing the same sounds as those popular in preceding years; one entertaining aspect of this is that when a hurricane gets a lot of media coverage, its name is influential the following year.2 When playing an investment game, simply telling people that the money was initially invested in one of the funds changed what they chose to do; the more choices they were given, the more likely they were to leave the investment where it was.3 People watching a televised political debate were heavily swayed by what they believed other people thought about the candidates’ performance.4 Children between the ages of 4 and 6 were more likely to enjoy the same breakfast cereal when the box design featured a well-known television character.5 And changing the color of the ambient lighting in a room causes people to rate wine differently.6
Such research allows for the fact that people’s responses are susceptible to what we might previously have regarded as irrelevant or peripheral factors. The more studies like these are conducted, the more we learn that what we consciously think matters very little. Indeed, over recent decades a growing body of scientific evidence has revealed something that is both fascinating and somewhat disarming: We don’t think in the way we think we do.
People have trusted their own perception of what’s happening in their head for thousands of years, presuming that what they thought was a reflection of what they believed and that what they did was driven by their own values and beliefs. The reality turns out to be a little more complicated than that. We have an amazing capacity to process the world around us and to act on the basis of what we encounter without the awareness that we’re doing so.
When evolutionary biologists describe humans as the storytelling apes, they are focusing on our capacity for speech; what has become clear is that we tell ourselves just as many stories as we tell other people, and many of them are works of fiction.
Of particular interest to me are the stories we tell ourselves as consumers, and the people who ask us to tell them. Is what we say reliable? Despite the emergence of several research techniques that don’t base customer understanding on what people say, such as ethnography, eye tracking, and carefully designed lab experiments (each of which has its own limitations), corporations and national bodies are still awash with market research studies that ask people what they think and report that back as objective reality.
The publication of the first edition of this book brought with it many opportunities to speak about market research to different organizations around the world. Unsurprisingly, many people who spend their professional lives commissioning or conducting market research have challenged my thesis, asking why, given all I say about the futility of asking people what they think, so many organizations still do it.
This is a great question: not because it’s difficult to answer, but because it reveals the nature of the thought processes in the mind of the person asking it. In doing so, it illustrates one aspect of unconscious influence that shapes the purchases consumers make (not only the purchase of market research): our capacity to track what the people around us are doing and adapt our own behavior, without realizing that we’re doing so.
The advantage of taking a lead from what other people are doing is considerable. Imagine how tiring and stressful life would be if every choice you made had to be the consequence of detailed analytical thought. Most significantly, perhaps, you would frequently find yourself in a position where there was insufficient information to proceed. I often use the example of taking a berry from a bush: if you’ve never seen a berry like it, you would do well to be cautious. However, if you’ve just watched twenty people like you eat one without concern, no further evaluation is necessary.
The downside of our tendency to trust implicitly that everyone else knows what they’re doing and why it’s a “good thing” is that, quite often, we become wedded to a notion that really doesn’t merit our adherence to it. Indeed, history shows that human beings have a considerable capacity to subscribe to ideas that, in the fullness of time, are proven to have no validity: the earth as the center of the universe; the position of the planets as a guide to predicting the future; that there is a goddess of sewers, and so on. In other words, just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s intrinsically right. However, because it’s much quicker, safer, and socially cohesive for us to base our decisions on what we see those around us doing, we will continue to do so in spite of the number of times it leads us astray.
So, coming back to wasteful market research, just because other organizations are asking consumers a lot of questions doesn’t mean that doing so produces accurate insights. In a similar vein, companies shouldn’t confuse the fact that they have a product or service that is technically superior to their competitors’ with the idea that all they need to do is to tell people it exists and is better. Relatively little of our behavior is the consequence of conscious thought. That applies as much to the selection of a market research technique as it does to a consumer’s choice of product. Considering either through the lens of consciousness ensures that, in all likelihood, the true drivers of behavior will be overlooked. Fortunately, the psychological studies that help us understand why conscious thought is not that significant in terms of consumer behavior also highlight what is important.
Increasingly, organizations of all kinds are recognizing that what people say is unreliable and instead are turning to experimental approaches to understand what will change people’s behavior. The terms “behavioral economics” and “behavioral insight” are being referenced far more frequently than they were two years ago, and this book is one of an increasing number that are drawing attention to different aspects of these topics.
To take one example, the current UK government established a Behavioural Insights Team specifically to draw on the learning from behavioral psychology and the application of live testing that I advocate as an alternative to market research. While its goal is encouraging, enabling, and supporting people in making better choices for themselves, rather than selling more of a particular product, the principles are exactly the same. Through applying psychological levers that change how people process the information it sends them, the government has demonstrated the importance and power of understanding what really drives behavior. For example, not everyone who receives a fine is happy to pay it on time. The ultimate option to deal with nonpayment is to send in bailiffs, who take people’s possessions and sell them to recoup the money owed; this is a long, costly, and inefficient process. However, while letters sent out demanding that people pay get a 5% response rate, live trials have found that sending a text message increases that rate fourfold. Send a text mentioning the person’s name and warning them that bailiffs are coming, and 33% of people pay up. Conservative estimates suggest that savings of around £30 million per year would be achievable if this trial were rolled out nationally.
However, a few million pounds in paid fines is merely the tip of the iceberg. Other issues such as paying tax on time, contributing to a pension, or registering to donate organs can all mistakenly be perceived as a matter of individual preference that would, by implication, be expressed in the same way no matter how a question was asked. Instead, experiments show that leveraging social proof (or social norms) would bring about savings of £25 million per year. In the relatively short time the Behavioural Insights Team has been in existence, it has demonstrated effects that will lead to savings of at least £100 million in the long term. When you learn that the cost of the team is £520,000 per annum, the question isn’t “Should we be doing this?” – it’s “How can we do more?”
For too long we have believed that people have a predefined, objective response that they will report when we solicit it or reveal when we invite it. As the examples above illustrate, and as the science discussed in this book reveals, no such fixed objectivity exists.
As people, and as shoppers, our thoughts are highly malleable. Sometimes this inconsistency is easily exposed, but even when a mildly skeptical eye would question what is being reported as a reliable opinion, I often see people being seduced by the numerology of a quoted statistic.
Opinion polls conducted to gauge public sentiment about the fate of the London 2012 Olympic stadium found an overwhelming majority of people supporting the application from one of the two major football teams competing to move there after the Games. The media debate at the time focused on the promise of the Games’ organizers to retain a running track at the stadium. West Ham United had promised to keep the running track; its main rival, Tottenham Hostpur, had not. A poll found that 70% of people thought the West Ham bid should win (a terribly British response of “doing the right thing”). However, another question, which asked what the stadium should be used for, found that just 4% of people wanted the mix of football, athletics, and concerts that the West Ham bid was proposing.7 So all that the survey really revealed was a terribly human response of saying what feels right, irrespective of an awareness of, or access to, the full facts.
There are questions that people can answer reasonably reliably, but they exist in a much narrower space than the market research industry has been willing or sufficiently knowledgeable to admit.
In addition to the usually fruitless conversations with market researchers whose beliefs have been challenged, I have had reassuring discussions with entrepreneurs and less dogmatic business-people who have told me I have saved them wasted time and effort. One manager was reading Consumer.ology as a research project was underway incorporating 20 focus groups. He became increasingly nervous that what respondents were saying was a consequence of the research process, not a reflection of the direction the company should take for its new product. Realizing that the prework respondents had been requested to do and the first couple of questions they were asked were a significantly influential prime, he asked the moderator to change the first question and watched as the comments went in a totally different direction. Despite attempts to salvage something of value from the money spent on the project, it was better to write off the £50,000 of research than the hundreds of thousands or even millions that would have been spent taking an inherently flawed initiative to market.
Another example concerns Apple and its famous “1984” advert. When the ad was shown to Steve Jobs and the rest of the Apple board, it was rejected because they felt it didn’t portray the company and its product with the seriousness they considered necessary. A focus group confirmed the board’s view that the advert wasn’t right. However, with the only alternative to write off a million-dollar advertising slot, Jobs made the decision to run the ad, against the dissenting voices from fellow directors. It became famous, took America by storm, and generated millions of dollars in sales.8
I have also learned about other examples of research that were misleading or simply plain wrong. One of my favorites came from someone who attended the focus groups conducted for Anheuser-Busch when it was contemplating launching Budweiser beer in the UK. “It’s weak, watery, like kissing your sister. It’s not a real man’s drink,” was the feedback. The emotive language was etched in the mind of the person telling the anecdote. Clearly, a nation that consumed such large quantities of warm, flat beer had no interest in a cool, fizzy lager. August Busch III chose to ignore the research and launch anyway, a decision fully vindicated by the successful sales the product has enjoyed in the UK ever since.
However, this book is not about cherry-picking examples of failed projects to point out the inadequacies of market research, entertaining though some of the stories undoubtedly are (unless you were responsible for the market research involved). It is about how human beings really are and why our brains cause us to behave in the way we do.
Being able to understand consumers and, ultimately, ourselves requires us to accept that the unconscious mind is running processes that we lack the wherewithal to interrogate directly. However, as the UK Government’s Behavioural Insights Team has demonstrated, we can see the consequences of these processes and discover fascinating and valuable insights into consumers by applying a behaviorally based approach, leveraging what we have learned from behavioral psychology, and accepting that it is a mistake to believe that people are able to understand and reveal their own thought processes.
Philip Graves
October 2012