Our philosophy
There is a pervasive Marketing mythology that continues to lead to inferior research design, namely that people are rational and optimize their choices and that their past, current and future behaviour can thus be measured in a direct, cognitive way.
We understand how the mind works
Traditional marketing, advertising and research models assume that people have to be made to pay attention to marketing messages, that they (passively) absorb them, react to them with the thinking part of their minds (that is, cognitively) and act independently of each other, optimising their choices by determining the relative utility of different options (adding up the “points” they feel different choices offer them relative to key attributes).
We now know that this is questionable …
“the consumer does not behave as he says; he does not say what he thinks; and he does not think as he feels.”
David Ogilvy, Confessions of Advertising Man.
Our philosophy has stood the test of time
People mostly use instinct in processing information and in making decisions, including brand buying decisions. These instinctive decisions (termed “fast and frugal heuristics”) are the automatic shortcuts we use every day to make all the decisions we need to make just to survive. We simply don’t think about every decision or react to every ad with our conscious minds. Nor do we need to.
Most marketing messages and activities receive little or no conscious attention but our instinctive unconscious is continually responsive to them – it is our ancient survival mechanism. All these brand encounters (touchpoints) simply create an uncomplicated unconscious mental movement towards or away from the brand. This represents our current (and very enduring) brand memory.
It is on this brand memory only that most research questions need to focus.
And because a lot of decision making is unconscious and automatic, people cannot usually explain their motivations except at an aggregate emotional level – what “feels right” to them. This is largely how people make choices too.
But decision making does not happen in isolation. In fact, we are quite poor at making judgements without some sort of context or reference point. This leads to another key aspect of human behaviour - everything in life is comparative. My choice of drink, clothing, car, house and so on is all relative to what choices I have available and what is acceptable to my “peer group”.
And the influence of what is “acceptable” is a strong one and can override any form of rationality. This leads to a further human “truth” - emotions rule our thoughts. And where emotions and rational thought are in conflict, emotions will almost always win.
Leading into all of this is a complex mix of individual history, background, culture, lifestage, quality of life, peer group influence, values, personality, worldview and so on - who we are as individuals and who we identify with as part of a larger group.
There is much that binds us together as human beings. But we have many points of diversity that act as modifiers. Researchers of any stature tap into both constructs explicitly to do good research.
There is much that binds us together as human beings.
- One’s worldview is essentially the set of unconscious axioms that underlie one’s life and guide decisions.
- People with higher levels of well-being use instinct more whilst those with lower levels agonise cognitively more before making a (still largely) instinctive decision. This affects how different people perceive ads and what types of marketing interventions are best suited to them.
- Our relevant “tribe” modifies how we view things to the extent that individual conscious perceptions may be rendered meaningless relative to the influence of the “herd” on decision making.
So what does all this mean?
For us it means that before approaching a research problem we need a fundamental understanding of how people make decisions and interpret information and this needs to guide how we design our research and the tools we use for analyzing and interpreting data.
Ideally, this means going for larger samples and shorter, simpler questionnaires, allowing larger sub-samples of similar people to be analysed and described in more detail.
It means avoiding questions that we know people cannot answer realistically (such as intention to purchase)
It means, where possible, using indirect questioning and analysis to get to the answers
It means seeing people in a more holistic way and designing research to understand them in greater context through effective segmentation tools, as well as continuing the dialogue with them through qualitative immersions, online bulletin boards (where appropriate) ethnography, and so on.
It means using experimental designs and relative or comparative measures rather than absolutes when analyzing data
It means designing research tools that tap into these dimensions:
Conversion model™ utilizes people’s generalized sense of what “feels right” as well as relative performance in its approach
Needscope uses universal archetypes and projective techniques to understand deep seated psychological needs and emotions driving choices
Futureview taps into social connectedness by identifying customers who shape the future of a category
EQLi segments people according to their wellbeing and the components that make up this construct
Our approach to advertising measurement takes into account that ads can work both consciously and sub-consciously depending on the objectives of the communication
We continue to develop and refine our research instruments and analysis approach with these principles in mind.
Mostly, how our brains work and the basic needs we have are universal - and marketing needs to communicate to the universal. Where communication and relevance is concerned, however, it is critical that content resonates with the target audience. There is much that binds us together as human beings but there is also much that we need to take into account in terms of our differences.
Models of marketing and communications that assume direct linear high attention cognitive cause-and-effect on independent “consumers” are, at best, incomplete. The fact of unconscious to low attention processing and of instinctive decision-making must be added to any more complete model. That people are more than “consumers” (they have baggage and worldviews that drive how they manage their lives and make decisions, that drive where they have got to in their life journeys), that they are “people” in a broader sense, must be added to any more complete model, along with the explicit realisation that they engage each other today to a far greater extent than ever before. Research that taps into the cognitive is misleading if used on its own. Simpler, broader measures that are brand-led are key to a more correct understanding of brand-buying decisions and how ads/packs/marketing affect people’s relationships with those brands. An understanding of the net present value of people’s baggage and their worldview helps drive an understanding of the type of marketing activity that can have the most effect on a brand.