The trouble with market research is that people don’t think what they feel, they don’t say what they think, and they don’t do what they say.
–David Oglivy. (1)
According to Richard Shotton, when it comes to making buying decisions, “people often don’t know their genuine motivations.” (2) Shotton describes an experiment conducteded by Adrian North at Leicester University where a supermarket alternated the music they played in their wine aisle.
When they played German oompah music, 73 percent of the wine they sold was from Germany, and when they played French accordion music, 77 percent of the wine they sold was from France. But 86 percent of wine shoppers claimed that the music had no impact on their decision.
In his book Everybody Lies, researcher Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers page after page of examples of people saying they want one thing when they really want something else. For example, when Netflix started streaming, they asked people what kind of movies they wanted to watch, and customers would “fill the queue with aspirational, highbrow films, such as black-and-white World War II documentaries or serious foreign films.”
But it turns out Netflix customers overwhelmingly preferred to watch “lowbrow comedies or romance films.” Stephens-Davidowitz concludes that “People were consistently lying to themselves.”
Human motivation is one of the great mysteries of life, and people are frequently mystified by their own actions. To make sense out of our wacky lives, people just make things up. As social scientist Jonathan Haidt wryly observes: “The conscious mind thinks it’s the oval office, when in reality it’s the press office.” (3)
So What’s a Marketer to Do?
Research. Research. And more research is the best way to comprehend human motivation. But instead of asking people what they would do in a given situation, you must observe and record their actual behavior. Here are some of the fascinating things researchers have discovered about our species:
- People are more likely to use a cake mix when they have to add water and an egg instead of just adding water. (4)
- People are more likely to donate to a cancer charity after you make them wear a Cancer Awareness button for a week. (5)
- People are more likely to eat ice cream when they’re at the beach, at the movies, or on vacation. (6)
- “Chilean sea bass” sounds a lot more appetizing than “Patagonian toothfish.” (7)
- People are much more likely to respond to your emails if you address them as an Influential Trendsetter. (8)
- Briefly holding a warm beverage in their hands causes people to rate strangers as being more generous and friendly. (9)
- Evolution has designed humans to crave novelty. (10) Lester Wunderman tells us that NEW is the second most powerful word in advertising, right after FREE. (11)
Maybe I’ll expound on some of these topics in future blog posts if I get a chance. Or maybe I won’t. One of the first rules of advertising is Don’t Overpromise.
by Richard W. Bray
- The Dark Art by Rory Sutherland
- The Choice Factory by Richard Shotton
- The Dark Art by Rory Sutherland
- The Illusion of Choice by Richard Shotton
- Using Behavioral Science in Marketing by Nancy Harhut
- How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp
- The Dark Art by Rory Sutherland
- Using Behavioral Science in Marketing by Nancy Harhut
- Blindsight by Matt Johnson
- Using Behavioral Science in Marketing by Nancy Harhut
- Being Direct by Lester Wunderman
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