Behavior does not lie™

Context, defined as the decision-making environment, is a major driver of customer behavior.

Although both are used for quenching thirst, breakfast beverages are a different product category from typical dinner beverages simply due to the context. Every market research project needs to clearly define and understand all possible contexts for brand choice decisions.

People are overconfident by nature. That’s one of the main reasons why as consumers, we over-predict our own future consumption.

As marketers, we need to correct for this typical bias. Behavioral economics has provided a scientific toolbox for adjusting forecasts for overstatement.

Although the outcomes of customers’ decisions are obvious, their motivations are often hidden and need to be decoded.

Traditional “ask and tell” research is unable go beneath the surface to uncover implicit motivations of customers. Modern behavioral sciences (cognitive science, social psychology, behavioral economics and neuroscience) can enhance our understanding of customer decision-making by providing much needed methods, tools, and frameworks.

Decision-making starts with perceptions. From a marketing perspective, one of the most important aspects is to understand the cues our brand is sending to customers as opposed to what we hope or intend those cues to be.

The art of market research lies in knowing what tools need to be used to properly encode brand signals into customer perceptions.

Persuading without giving the impression of persuasion is ideal. The key is to position a brand as a “natural” choice.

Market research can help explore how to steer customers in a particular direction by making their life simpler, safer, or easier to navigate.

Customers’ goals are one of the most useful approaches to categorizing brand choices. Uncover these goals to better connect with your customers.

One of the key aspects of positioning is to uncover the particular goals that are invoked by the cues your brand (as opposed to competition) is sending.

The human mind is designed to minimize effort and optimize daily performance. When exposed to ads, people automatically simplify problems, narrow their viewpoint, and apply their default associations and assumptions.

Can consumers easily recall your message?
Does your message require mental effort to understand it?
Do customers “feel good” after hearing your message?

Immediate customer reactions are shaped by mental shortcuts, impressions, and intuitions. What is seen as irrational behavior often is “predictably irrational”, meaning that this behavior can be successfully incorporated into sales strategy due to its consistency.

How to make your brand story simple, predictable, and easily recognizable?
What are the typical mental shortcuts used in your product category (e.g., price denotes quality)?
What do we need to do in order to benefit from the consistency and predictability of consumers’ behavior?

As humans, we are strongly influenced by what others are thinking and doing. Following the crowd, endorsing new trends, and succumbing to inertia are all foundations of customer behavior.

What are existing and expected normative behaviors in your product category?
How does your product fit into existing or upcoming trends?

We are endowed with two cognitive systems – autopilot and pilot – used not only in our daily lives, but also in our brand choice decisions. Our autopilot is always on, effortlessly and constantly making decisions. For marketers and market researchers, how this autopilot works is one of the most important dynamics to understand.

The autopilot processes every single bit of information that is perceived by our senses. It has a huge processing capacity of 11 million bits per second whether or not we are aware of the input. For example, when we visit websites, the autopilot will derive a first impression within less than one second – this impression strongly influences our subsequent behavior. Given the number of online market research studies, it is a critical task for market researchers to ensure that our surveys are properly processed and answered.