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

Behavioral Science is the future of market research and insight coming out of Neuroscience and Psychology are dovetailing to produce new methodologies of tapping the consumer subconscious. Here we discuss these trends in an interview with Ed Gaskin of CMOAdvantage, detailing best practices and case studies using methods that capture consumer visceral response to products and advertising.

A compelling out-group can be one of the most galvanizing forces of in-group loyalty. This is as true for playground cliques as it is for presidential candidates. This human truth applies to brands as well, and you can use it to your advantage in the way you communicate with your customers. Whether you use inspirational positive emotion or shameful negative emotion to motivate in-group loyalty is up to you and your brand’s values.

First Command Financial Services has won a 2011 Bulldog Award for Excellence in Media and Public Relations for the Financial Behaviors Index®. Created in 2008 by First Command, the Index is a research initiative that provides timely consumer data to journalists and the news media. The Index assesses trends in the American public’s financial behaviors, attitudes and intentions through a monthly survey of approximately 1,000 U.S. consumers aged 25 to 70 with annual household incomes of at least $50,000.

All social psychologists must deal with a conundrum implicit in all human behavior: the problem of self-reporting. Self-reporting is exactly what it sounds like: it’s what people say about themselves – their emotions, motivations, and feelings. If you ask someone to rate their emotional stability, or if you elicit an opinion about a new product, you’re relying on that person’s ability to properly asses how he’s feeling, why he’s feeling that way, and what his behavior is as a result of that feeling. Researchers take this for granted all the time. The plain truth is unfortunate; we aren’t good observers of our own emotions and we are worse at explaining our own behavior.

Admitting that a brand is part of your self-identity is difficult to do. Can you imagine admitting to the following “Pepsi is part of who I am.”? Or this: “Starbucks represents how I want to present myself as a person.”? Those are easy to dismiss off the cuff, yet years of research tells us that we do connect personally with the brands that we buy, and that we use “brand badges” to reflect aspects our personality to the world. The trouble with traditional research methods is that consumers often can’t or won’t admit to that reality.

  In this video, hosted the Pulse’s Ed Gaskin, Dr. Aaron Reid and Julie Hall (Schneider PR) discuss successful product launches from 2010. Reid and Hall explain how particular marketing and social campaigns contribute a product’s popularity, using the top ten product launches of 2010 as a benchmark. These strategies, Reid explains, are ubiquitous and can be utilized in any part of a productpositioning campaign.

A fascinating new study on the factors influencing Hot-State Decision Making is showing that the traditional American diet of turkey on Thanksgiving Day might actually be reducing purchase behavior on the best sales day of the year. Mishra & Mishra (2010) hypothesized that the consumption of tryptophan would reduce subsequent impulsive behavior. Their hypothesis is based on evidence that the presence of serotonin in the human body reduces impulsive choice thereby stabilizing behavior (Cools et al. 2005; Manuck et al. 2003; Rogers et al. 2003).

In our recent paper on Hot State Decision-Making we discussed the perfect storm of providing consumers with immediate visceral delight while simultaneously providing emotional benefits relevant to long-term goals. This formula provides both short-term and long term benefit thereby maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain for your customer base. A recent article by Khan & Dhar (2010) in the Journal of Marketing Research shows an innovative method of delivering this perfect storm for your customers through careful framing of the discount on your bundled offerings (a bundle is an offer of a second item with the purchase of first item; usually a discount is offered when purchased together – think Amazon’s “better together” discounts).

The November First Command Financial Behaviors IndexTM reveals increased feelings of financial security during the holiday season this year as evident from holiday spending. The Index, commissioned by First Command and conducted by Sentient, examines financial behaviors, attitudes and intentions among U.S. consumers ongoing since February 2008.

Despite low mortgage rates, the October First Command Financial Behaviors IndexTM reveals that many Americans are not taking advantage of this opportunity to refinance their mortgage because of the continued economic instability. The Index, commissioned by First Command and conducted by Sentient, examines financial behaviors, attitudes and intentions among U.S. consumers ongoing since February 2008.