Since we’ve been discussing stories with Kevin, I thought I’d share this one here. Readers of my Mindshop! E-zine will see it when they receive the next edition (sorry for the duplication, but you can comment on it easily here). ———————————————————————————————————————————- I sat looking across the desk at the man holding a set of white boards close to his chest. “We’re really excited about this,” he said nodding confidently, whilst looking up at the rest of us with big eyes that said “please me”. I could feel the energy in the room, the sense of anticipation, the others not aware and not affected by the incongruence between his tone and his body language. I sat back with an impending sense of doom. “We’re sure this is going to be so good for the brand.” His statement did nothing to change my feelings, but the others were shifting on their seats […]
Consumer Behaviour: Where’s the Reason?
I really appreciated all of the comments received in response to yesterday’s post and I wanted to pick up on one that, as a consumer behaviour expert, I found fascinating. It also was one of the last comments posted so people scanning through what others have said wouldn’t have seen it. Mark (MarketingScoops) said: “I had an interesting shopping experience today. I had no intention of shopping but I received a 40% off one item special on my blackberry. Once I was in the store, I entered the shopping mode and bought 3 things. The super special got me in the store and completely changed my mindset.” This reveals a couple of very interesting issues. It reinforces my point about a lot of consumer behaviour not being “need” based, but being triggered far less rationally and influenced much more indirectly. It illustrates the route to understanding consumer behaviour: whilst there […]
Consumers: Reality is Over-rated Part iv
It seems from many of your comments about focus groups that many of you have experienced some of the problems I mentioned in relation to asking consumers about their perceptions. To be fair to focus groups I should point out that I was talking about research more generally. There’s little doubt in my mind that the focus group, per se, is far and away the most useless, unreliable, misleading and distorting ‘tool’ in the marketers armoury. Actually, I should qualify that a little. A focus group in a viewing facility is the pinnacle of disastrous research techniques, but the focus group part of that is no small component. I would really appreciate hearing more details from those of you who have had bad experiences with focus groups. Please email me if you have any stories to share (and I’m happy to respect requests for confidentiality). Back to the subject at […]
The Problem With Eyes
I read recently that a study has found that we don’t see things all the time. Brain activity has peaks and troughs (about ten per second) and when it’s in a trough we don’t see. Then there is inattentional blindness. You know, the thing that happens when a man in a monkey suit walks across a two-ball basketball counting game (it happens all the time, but people fail to see monkey-man because they’re so busy counting the number of passes). And then there’s the problem that my wife can’t find her keys or her phone or her address book (often her address book). Because I understand the psychology of looking at stuff I know that her strategy is a reckless one. It’s no good putting stuff down any old place and relying on your eyes to find it when you start looking. You might momentarily have your attention elsewhere, or […]
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