Sentient Insight: the business blog for consumer psychology and consumer marketing

Winning Olympic gold in skiing requires a certain risk vs. reward profile. The old saying saying of “without risk, there is no reward” certainly holds true, but just how much risk is the right amount of risk and what motivates people to take that risk instead of playing it safe for a more secure outcome? There has been a great deal of talk among the skiers and announcers about pointing your skis down the fall line, and letting ‘em run. Listening to the skiers speak about their wins and near misses provides great insight into the motivational focus that is driving these athletes in pursuit of their goals. Here is what Lindsay Vonn had to say after her bronze medal performance in the Super Combi. Her quote gives you a sense what kind of risk profile is necessary to win.

Imagine you’re at the top of the men’s Super G at the 2010 Olympics. You are the reigning Downhill season champion and three days earlier you were favored to win the Downhill, you finished in a disappointing 6th place. You’re 35 years old.  Twelve years ago you took the Silver at the Nagano Olympics in Japan in 1998. This is likely your last best chance to win an Olympic gold medal. You are Didier Cuche. The iconic downhill call voice of announcer Tim Ryan from NBC recounts your history, dating back to that near miss of gold in Nagano, and your travails ever since as Olympic gold has evaded your grasp, and as you launch out of the gate he states what everyone watching already understands:

Our goals in life can be activated without our awareness. This unconscious activation of goals results in subsequent behavior aimed at achieving those goals (Uleman & Bargh, 2004). This means that we often are pursuing goals that are important to us, without knowing whether or why we are pursuing them. Marketing, since it’s inception with the advent of sexual reproduction (Reid & Halgren, 2009), has been using the recipe of unconscious goal activation to great success. Today, our lives are inundated with elegant creative executions of advertising stimuli that tap into our most fundamental human needs to stir our emotional associations with brands.

We recently gave a talk at the Boston Product Management Association’s (BPMA) monthly event held at Oracle in Burlington, MA. In the talk we reviewed literature on how humans do not follow the rational economic model of decision making, but rather are heavily influenced by unconscious and emotional factors in day-to-day decision making. We also introduced our advanced unconscious research methods, which utilize implicit measures to understand what consumers can’t – or won’t – tell us about their attitudes toward brands, products and services. The method gets to the heart of emotional decision-making and helps identify the nonconscious consumer emotions that lead to trial and purchase.

The Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) had their 11th annual meeting from January 28 to January 30 in Las Vegas NV. This is the premier conference for social psychology and gives a glimpse into the cutting-edge research on a wide variety of topics in social psychology. There were a variety of symposia related to the unconscious. Particular topics included the role of “unconscious thought”, or distracting oneself from a decision instead of mulling it over or making a rash judgment. The consistent finding was that unconscious thought leads to better judgments. Also, the role of premeditation, or consciously deliberating the possible consequences of behavior before acting, in feelings of control of one’s behavior was considered.

Fill in the blanks: Blizzard of ___? ‘78 Sprinkles or Jimmies ___? Jimmies 5 inches of snow ___? Dusting Manhattan chowder ___? Never heard of it If you know the answers to these questions, you’re a “true New Englander” according to McDonald’s in their new ad campaign for their Newman’s Own coffee. Newman’s Own New England Blend Ad #1 Newman’s Own New England Blend Ad #2