Consumers don't make decisions how you think they do

Consumers don’t make decisions how you think they do.

Or at the very least, most marketers don’t act like they understand how consumers make decisions.

sweets - kid in a candy store... see what I did there?

My wife is very intuitive… or at least that’s what she says when confronted by me telling her she hasn’t thought something through properly. I’m the type of person that over analyses everything.

I’ve often scoffed at ‘intuitive’ people who make decisions on gut feel …By all means make decisions based on rules you’ve perfected over years of practise but making decisions based on some emotional hunch is just plain scary.

Except, apparently, this is the way we all make decisions. We do not analyse everything objectively. We do not rationally consider all of the factors in our paths. We are all intuitive decision makers.

A while ago (‘02) Daniel Kahnemann won the Nobel Prize for economics for work he did into this area. In a nutshell he claims.

The first step in decision making is intuitive. We narrow the options based on rules of thumb we have taught ourselves, and occasionally gut feels.

We avoid the weirdo rocking strangely on the tube since we know unpredictability on the late night train is seldom a good thing. We avoid unlit alleyways. Turn down the ‘can’t lose’ money making scheme our unreliable mate presents us with. We choose a wine in a certain price bracket (often foolishly) etc etc. None of these decisions is thought through to the minuteist detail. We generalise.

The second step may sometimes be rational and considered. But this by no means happens all the time. Most of the time we just do stuff on gut instinct. I correct my balance when I get to the edge of a cliff, I pull the money out of my pocket to pay for a Big Mac blah blah blah.

What is interesting is that individuals often claim to have done things for certain reasons when actually they did nothing of the sort… they were driven by emotions and generalisations (Heurisms).

A lot of communications companies focus on the consumer journey these days – and well they should, the consumer should be at the heart of everything we do etc etc. But these consumer journeys are more often than not constructed from claimed rationalisation rather than actual emotional drivers.

I just think it’s worth a thought that maybe we should be building some emotion and generalisation into our models… and maybe start thinking about how these generalisations are formed.

Ho hum. I found it interesting anyway. 

Happiness and the caveman

There’s been a lot in the media recently about what makes people happy.

The government, and particularly the Prime Minister (UK) is driving the question and it seems to be causing a fair amount of controversy.

The argument goes thus:

Why are we fixated on the creation of wealth. The creation of wealth is assumed to make people happy… but what if it doesn’t. What if people are made happy by other things? Things like bank holidays and meals out. What if we’ve been concentrating on the wrong objective all these years.

One of the reasons the government is keen on this direction is so they can ask people what makes them happy, and in doing so make them think the government cares – it’s a good PR exercise. The other reason is that it seems to make some sense.

I was listening to some vox pops the other day on the lunchtime news, in which people were saying things like:

‘Lie ins make me happy’, ‘A good meal’, ‘My job’, ‘My family and friends’… etc etc.

What struck me was how like cave men (and women) they all sounded. None of the reasons cited were much different from those that might have been mustered by your average hole dweller (presumably with a few more ‘ugs’ (not the boot) and references to dry bear fur).

I mentioned this thought over breakfast today to find out that this has been known for years and that somehow I’d managed to overlook it. It was one of those theories you hear bandied around from time to time but never actually take the time to read. I subsequently read it.

So in a nutshell Maslow’s hierarchy of needs seems to tell us what we need to know:

Its good simple stuff and I am embarrassed to say I haven’t bothered to look into it before.

At the base you have your basic psychological stuff (Hunger, thirst etc) – these translate into ‘a nice meal makes me happy’, ‘I like a nice arm duvet’.

Then comes the safety stuff: ‘I like job security’, ‘I like a lie in’ (warm safe bed)…

Then there’s social needs: ‘I love my friends’, ‘I love my mobile phone’…

Then comes self esteem: ‘I like my job’, ‘I like being a good mum/dad’

Finally comes self actualisation: ‘I like completing things that make me feel good about myself’ (complex projects at work etc).

Essentially people climb the pyramid. Once you’ve achieved the bottom rung you move up to the second… etc. It all makes sense and explains quite a bit.

Now this is all pretty basic stuff and has moved on a bit since its conception (see ERG theory which allows you to be trying to achieve multiple levels of satisfaction at one time and blurs the boundaries between tiers), but you get my point.

There’s nothing new here. It’s just that no-one’s really bothered to think about it in policy terms before – oh and because it makes for good ‘honestly we are listening to your needs’ PR…

Two more thoughts I think I’ll come back to at some point:

1)      The rise of social networking, its fulfilment of the social need in the hierarchy and what this means for comm’s planning.

2)      A nice paragraph from the late great Douglas Adams – proving of course that there is nothing new here:

‘The planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.’

Twitter flatpack furniture instructions

I love great creative thinking, and it’s been a while since I’ve flagged any up. This one’s been tweeted for a bit but I thought it deserved its own little write up.

Tok&Stok were looking for a way to demonstrate the simplicity of their prepacked furniture…

What better way to do it then create instruction manuals in 140 characters of less. Enter the Twitter profile flatpack instruction manual. Ta da!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GorxdztVcI

Really nice and environmentally friendly too – each pack comes with a # rather than a booklet.

As I say simple, creative great.

If you haven’t seen it I thought you might like to. If you didn’t, fair enough that’s your call.

is FIFA a starfish or a spider?

I was watching BBC news earlier today with a chap from the federation of football supporters or some such being interviewed.

He was lending his weight to the controversy currently surrounding FIFA and was very much of the view that professional football doesn’t work without fans and professional organisations. Which I agree with. He ended his speech however by comparing what is happening at FIFA with what’s going on in North Africa – and there I had to leave him. It did get me thinking though…

One of my favourite sports books is ‘Football against the enemy’ which sets out as its founding principle that other than religion, football is the biggest mass participatory thing that humans do, and as such it is important. Very important. And I also think this is true.

To change course momentarily.

Something seems to have been very rotten in FIFA for a while. Something unpleasant certainly seems to be happening at the moment and it seems to be to the detriment of the beautiful game. Which is sad.

Yesterday a number of FIFA sponsors stood up and made a couple of vaguely strong worded statements about how FIFA really should get its house in order. The BBC’s point was that stronger conversations were presumably being had behind closed doors. Good.

It is not good enough that something so important to so many of us is run by (what seems to be) at best a highly secretive organisation.

One more digression.

Another book worth a read is called ‘the starfish and the spider’ it is about leaderless organisations and how if you cut the main part off a centralised unit (Spider), it stops working, whereas if you cut the main bit off a leaderless body (Starfish) it continues – and even grows into multiple bodies.

So here’s the point and the comparison between North Africa and Fifa that does stand discussion.

What sort of organisation is FIFA? Will cutting its head off (by which I stress I am only referring to removing Blatter from power), result in a different sort of organisation?

Libya, it is assumed, is a spider. Al Qaeda… is hopefully a spider but probably more of a Starfish.

FIFA because of its complex internal structures only answerable to its own members may well be a starfish… let’s hope not. Football is just too important to run on self interest.

Second tier sponsorships

I was driving past Carrow Road the other day, when I saw some tactical ads for the Barclay’s Premier league. In essence they were a nice little ‘welcome back’ to Norwich city and its fans in 48 and 6 sheet format, all bought in proximity to the football ground. All in all very nice.

I’ve done a lot of work over the years on sponsorships of one type or another - ranging from beer companies and football cups, to financial organisations and rugby trophies and insurance providers and athletics, heck I’ve even done some work on the premier league.

Now, obviously, the most high profile sponsorships are of the flagship properties The Premier League, The FA Cup, The Heineken Cup, The FIFA world Cup (ahem, less desirable now? discuss). But what about the others… the minnows… the vast pyramid system supporting the top tier? Who sponsors them? And frankly why do they bother?

Swansea City were promoted yesterday, via the play-offs, to the top tier. As a football fan I extend them a warm welcoming hand and note that they were one of the better sides I saw in the championship all year. All in all thoroughly deserved (justice is done… ahem? QPR? Any Cardiff fans discuss). And presumably there’ll be nicely placed tactical ads all around the Liberty stadium for the next two weeks. My question is… what becomes of the Npower championship?

For most championship fans the experience of the second tier is a painful one, punctuated by financial disaster and memories of the good old days in the Prem’. When they eventuially do get promoted, the sponsor is forgotten in a minute and all attention becomes focused on preparations for the next challenge. So why sponsor it?

The justification for second tier sponsorship is often about grass roots. We’re the real fan because we support the lower tiers. Well… no actually. You’re just a brand sponsoring the league we don’t really want to be in and if you treat us like you do premier fans we’re going to get annoyed. – I lost count of the number of Sky adverts I’ve seen in Championship toilets with grinning images of Chelsea and Man Utd players looking down on me.

Second tier sponsorships have to be about the fans, not the competition, not the ‘grass roots’… and to do this you need to do a few things.

Understand them – look at what they actually do.

Championship fans for example tend not to go near the football ground in the closed season. Proximity targeting fans there is a waste of money – I’m talking to you ‘the premier league.’

They also resent being told that you have a unique offer for them when every tom dick and harry is offering the same thing (you know who you are).

They hate the fact they have to sit through Match of the Day to get to the football league show.And they are some of the biggest users of the iplayer – for exactly this reason.

Here is my plea: Talk to real fans (there are millions of them). Ask them what they do on a match day, ask them why they do it. Ask them their frustrations; listen to how you can help. Then and only then act. And after it’s all over maybe, just maybe they’ll believe you’re on their side.

I’m not criticism second tier sponsors, I’m just saying if you’re going to spend your money that way, make sure you do it properly.

The nature of truth, libraries and tourism

A while ago now I did a talk about the nature of truth, and how it is changing in a digitally enabled world. The conclusions weren’t ground breaking but covered such things as:

Negotiated truth (the idea that truth can be reached via dialectic between two or more sources ala Wikipedia) vs Absolute truth (where one source defines what it sees as true. ala the Encyclopedia Britannica).

For young audiences the former seems to be the model for what is true and whilst there is widespread understanding that Wikipedia should not be used for university essay’s it is still the source they tend to turn to check a fact.

Amongst the other things we touched on was, sources of truth. From the research we carried out young people have a completely different set of trusted sources to say over 25’s. Now this isn’t surprising in a modern age – the kids are much happier to read around a news source online and draw their own conclusions.

I was chatting to a chum the other day who happens to work for a well known red-top. We were chatting about truth and papers and what’s going on with digital in that industry. One of the interesting things he said to me was that lately, his paper was being turned to by football fans checking their facts. They were literally e-mailing or picking up the phone to check on transfer rumours… interesting isn’t it.

We’re all really happy to read around a topic, but certain topics have traditional authority figures who we still turn to.

Again, the other day I was talking to someone about libraries. They came up with the fact that in the UK 85% of casual library visits (i.e. people who don’t routinely use the library) are tourist enquiries. Funny eh? Aside from books libraries are most trusted as sources of local tourist information. I think this is really interesting.

In a world where digital access and apps (library applications are there or there abouts) are all the vogue it’s really important to understand exactly what it is a consumer wants from you, what he or she trusts you to deliver… and then to deliver it. And then maybe monetise it.

This week saw the 100^th anniversary of New York’s Library. I noticed because I live in Norwich, and Norwich was the first city in the world to have a public library. I love libraries and I worry for them. I also love e-readers… I wonder what the future holds. Maybe I’ll have a think.

Politwits and deselection – why not to use social networks for personal politics

I like new words as much as the next man – spuffle is my favourite, it’s the word Hugh Laurie created to describe the foamy cover you put over a microphone.  So here’s a new one for you… Politwit. Go on then, I hear you ask derisively, if you must, what is it? And the answer, drum roll please…

Politwit

Noun

A person who makes a political point on a social network (e.g. twitter)

The verb should be easy enough to derive…

Over recent months I’ve noticed (as I’m sure we all have) the increasing trend towards using social media to make political points. Just about every modern political party is busy sinking their hands into the new social media opportunity – and this is all good and fine, I guess.

Now politicians spend a lot of time being boring. It’s expected of them. Invite a local councillor to dinner and you almost expect, after a glass or two of sherry, a discussion on PR or the pedestrianisation of Norwich city centre (a hot issue where I’m from fifteen years ago, and one I saw Alan Partridge lampoon live at the Theatre Royal Norwich on one memorable occasion). Invite a Euro MP to tea and… well it’s likely to be expensive. Normal people on the other hand, tend not to bang on about politics so much.

Actually I talk quite a lot about politics, which is probably why I don’t get invited to many dinner parties. My point here is that most people you know on a social or superficial level don’t make sweeping political statements all that much.

So, yesterday the UK went to the polls. It was dubbed ‘Super Thursday’ by the media, though it had no shiny costume, cloak or pants as far as I could see. In the build up to polls opening social networks were awash with everyday people making political points (I did it myself). And to some extent this is all part of a healthy democracy. To some extent.

The problem is, I didn’t sign up to social networks so people could push things I don’t believe in at me. Most of my social friends and followers are business colleagues, mates, acquaintances and people who I can’t be arsed to send Christmas cards to… not you of course, I like you.

What I don’t want from these people, and what they almost certainly don’t want from me, is pushy political ‘Vote for X’, hilarious political cartoons clearly commissioned by X central office, or clever but misleading points on electoral reform.

In short the content did not match the context, and it failed to do so because we were making political points.

It doesn’t happen with these people in the real world. It shouldn’t happen online.

Stephen Fry (whom I love, and I expect to see at tomorrow’s post season celebration down at carra Rud. On the ball City! Etc.), spent ages trying to convince us that AV was the right choice – and he may have had a point, however that’s not why we all follow him. We follow him because we love him, because he’s warm, clever, amusing and a national treasure – not because of his political views. Which makes him (and me I hasten to add) a Politwit.

I’ll go further. Over the last few days I’ve seen loads of people saying that they are getting bored of Mr Fry (I’m not, I love him). I suspect this has more to do with politics than any sudden dislike of the man. I’ll call this ‘Deselection’ – see what I did there.

Politweet too much and you get deselected. Nice, and at the same time sickly huh?

It’s not just politicians. Recently a rash of charitable campaigns have sprung up insisting we change our status to reflect their views… and if we don’t. If we don’t... nothing actually. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter to tell people I support cancer charities (which I do, very much as people who know me well will tell you). I’m on Twitter because I like to tweet and to hear what others have to say. I’m on facebook for all kinds of reasons – but not for politics.

The lesson is obvious and as old as the hills – the content must match the context.

The buzzwords are new and instantly forgettable – Politweet and get Deselected.

There you go.