We Are People, Not Data Points – See Us Live

Times of societal stress demand that marketers comprehend the authentic experience of individuals’ personal worlds, which includes one sillogical preferences, innocent desires, messy assumptions, and untested deductions. The key to making a successful transition will be found in focusing on the changing ethos; in short, taking note of what tongues are saying.

This emotional-cognitive progression is ceaselessly informed by the development of one’s self-identity, which underlies their unconscious purchase calculus. Understanding this process entails a shift in perspective from seeing consumers as data points to valuing consumers as people. Traditional attitude and usage studies, surveys and focus groups, are not adequate to the task.

Identities -Moving Beyond Interests

Traditional methods of inquiry that focus on product attributes often catch the superficial, top-of-mind impulses. But to succeed, brands must fit into peoples  lives, rather than the other way round. So let’s focus there.

People buy into things that fit their personal brand of meaning. The core task of marketing is, therefore, to entrain peoples’ emotional based logic that shapes self-identity and product-identity, into narrative. That force wins sales and boosts profits.

Brand is that spasm of sentiment – illogical, immediate, and rock-solid – that convulses us when we perceive a product as a venue to manifest our latent selves; brand is about what people wish to become, i.e. Just Do It, not what they are.

A critical implication for marketers is the need to understand peoples’ identities, not just interests. Satisfying consumer needs is but commodity, not brand. Marketers should not waste time asking what people like, need or want. They will do better to discover who these people are.

Hearing, Not Just Listening. Seeing, Not Just Watching

Listening for identities requires the skills of a “loving Interrogator” into the process by which people make meaning, justify it, and author a vision of their future selves. To elicit peoples’ “self-stories” requires establishing an environment in which people can live at the level of “themselves as an idea.” This demands skills beyond the moderator in terms of the questioner’s subjectivity and courage. As Samuel Beckett said, “let peoples’ words do what they want to do and do what they have to do.”

Within this stance, peoples’ words are heard from several perspectives: as outward communications, as self-talk, and as shadow (what is talked about is more than what is said). Recurrences and derailments of logic in self-narratives provide critical information that people should be held accountable for if we hope to reveal what they will give up and what they will hold fast to.

This is not psychotherapy, demographics or personalities. This approach exposes the cognitive zigzags of mind that lead to the formation of beliefs and attachments. This is the currency of marketing since people are at their core pattern, symbol and metaphor makers, makers of meaning and storytellers.

The Grand Narrative Leads To ROI

Once self-stories about I and their world are understood, the analytical task is to locate the “core metaphor and mythology” that composes the “grand narrative.” Such a report from the interior represents a primordial expression that embodies folk dreams as well as one’s fears. Such analysis can produce ideas that balance poetic abstraction with mundane specificity, a story well honed and vivid, that may be called an exercise in “spontaneous craftsmanship.”

The goal is the unexpected insight into how our internal emotional dialog connects to the outside tangle of societal structures. In other words, we need to find in each subject the cultural detritus of ALL minds, the controlling cultural ideas that exist in everyone’s mind.

From such deep insights can arise potent communication plans that have the maximum chance of increasing ROI, as it is here that marketers can tap the primal structure of the authentic human experience.

When it all works, marketers can create – a message, a campaign, content, multi-platform strategies, etc. – that lodge indelibly into peoples’ lives so that even when they do not think about it, their existence resonates.

Whether Campbell’s or Hermes, this act is required of all market leaders, of any corporation that seeks to profit through brand magic.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Dr. Bob Deutsch, Brain Sells

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Marketers rarely, if ever, talk about happiness directly, but in designing digital offerings that promise an “experience,” or when focused on building customer relationships, the covert subtext of most advertising should be the creation of the feeling of happiness.

Must-Have vs. Want

A complication usually arises, though, when advertising creative meets the CMO’s meat-grinder that tends to delimit brand into tomorrow’s sales’ numbers. Perhaps one way out of this dilemma is for marketers to note the difference – emotionally, experientially and cognitively – between consumers’ musting and wanting.

When a person is on the prowl for a specific item they must have – say, a classic black dress, a box of tampons or their brand of after-shave -the consummation of a “must” produces the feeling of relief.

A very different emotional experience derives from something you want but meet up with unexpectedly. This buying situation gives rise to satisfaction.

Relief (minimizing loss) and satisfaction (maximizing gain) are experienced differently and are, in fact, represented by different neurological activity patterns.

If I like a product and buy it because its attributes meet my interests, I can be relieved to have it. If I feel a product reflects my identity and expands its latent expressions of self, a certain relationship develops with that product. It is that relationship that makes me happy.

People feel happy not when a product or a store demonstrates an understanding of the consumer as a purchasing process, but when it authentically displays it understands who the consumer is as a person.

Understanding of a person as an identity is different than explaining them as a consumer. At best the former generates “liking” while the latter establishes “attachment.” I can like a transaction but I am happiest in a relationship.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Dr. Bob Deutsch, Brain-Sells

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You cannot market to men the same way you market to women. It’s not a simple transformation of changing colors, fonts or packaging. Men and women are different biologically, psychologically and socially.

Of course, when it comes to attractiveness, both sexes want to garner attention, but each for different reasons. For men, looking good is looking strong, confident, authoritative, adventurous – a standout. Men concentrate on looks to the extent that it signals something about what they do, have done or can do. Regardless of how much a woman wants to attract in the contest of beauty and brains, their focus is on hope and details, and they concentrate on how appearance reflects their inner being.

Consider four fundamental gender differences and their impact on marketing:

Time

Men tend to hone in, more quickly than women, on what they’re looking for. Men are not browsers. A male motto, “Get what I want and move on.” Men shop for what they need “now.” Women can shop for something and put it away for “later.” (An interesting reflection of how men and women relate differently to time is found in how differently they follow instructions for antibiotics prescribed by their doctors: Very often, men will stop taking antibiotics as soon as they feel better, even though the regime’s effectiveness calls for a full 14-day intake. Women, much more frequently than men, complete the recommended regime.) Women want to get the underlying dynamics of things while men attend to the mundane mechanics of life.

Causality

Men are concrete and tend to tightly focus their awareness; their notion of cause and effect is linear and men are visually-oriented because of this concrete literality.” What you see is what is, literally). Seeking clarity, men create absolute distinctions: black-white, yes-no.

Women often think, “it depends.” You never hear a man voice this sentiment. These different ways of defining what leads to what also impacts what goes with what. Men dislike ensembles. Men tend to buy individual items. In contrast, many women like to think about how they can put together “outfits” and are creative in selecting, say, a variation on a scarf or a belt that will change the nature of one basic dressing.

Space

Men structure and relate to space as compartmented and sequential. To men, space is not relational, as it is for women. For example, when a woman gives directions, she will say, “Go three blocks south (as she points or orients in the direction indicated), then bear right, and when you see the clock tower, watch for your street on the right.” Men say, “Go three blocks to Pullman Street and turn left on to Main, the turn left to Brighton Street.”

These kinds of underlying, fundamental gender differences can have critical implications not only for what makes an item compelling, but also for store design and product layout. For example, many women like the challenge, the somewhat disorganized variety and the catch-as-catch-can nature of places such as TJ Max or Marshalls. Men, even men who shop in such places because of price, are not there out of joy or desire.

Other People

For the male it’s every man for himself. Men prize individuality and self-reliance. They conceive of other people as “my competition.” Daily life for them is a contest with winners and losers. This is in contrast to women, who often view other people as a source of strength. Note, too, that men never shop together. Women often shop with a friend and make a “day” of it. A man focuses on himself – the “me” while a woman is focused on the “we.”

Men are interested in power. Women are more interested in security. Men relate to “things” themselves. Women relate to the relationship between things.In today’s world, men might, for example, be paying more attention to grooming aids than they did years ago. But men are still grooming to go up the hierarchy, to be Number One, and be recognized as Number One. Modern man is still primal man, regardless of how much hair a man has to groom.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Dr. Bob Deutsch, Brain Sells

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In that search I have inadvertently uncovered something about viva la difference: Women Cycle, Men Consummate.

Marketers need to understand the implications of this difference.

The male is oriented to the present, the concrete, the visual, the “hit,” the win, the “me.” Evolutionarily speaking, the male must bring home the bacon. No Dilly-Dallying. No excuses. The male is in the now and, above all else, is a pragmatist.

The female is oriented the conceptual, to underlying dynamics, to the relationship between things, and to stability over the long-term. The female understands and sees patterns over time.

Males act and say things like: “You’ve got to act, you can’t wait too long.” “You must know how to look at the environment, know what the data and specs mean. Then pounce.” “My goal is feeling powerful and getting peoples’ attention.”

Females act and say things like: “It takes time to have things in order.” “I want to feel good about where I am and what I’ve done.” “My goal is continuity, building positive relationships, and long-term stability.”

A Seattle couple that started a small business together have different ideas about inventory. Wife: “I live to reinvest in inventory when I have cash, so I can buy stuff off-season and sell it next year at a bigger profit. I also like to have inventory just as a customer service.” Husband: “Get rid of inventory as fast as possible.”

Male: Do what you set out to do and finish the job. Female: Evolve.
Male: Achieve. Female: Experience.
Male: Stay on top of things. Female: Create good relationships.
Male: Get the biggest piece you can. Female: inner peace.

Females want to understand things and want to be understood. Males are more focused on explanation.

Explanation entails seeing the world as governed by finite laws that humankind can direct through successive approximations. Understanding requires comprehending meaning from the inside out, in its unfolding. To understand, the world can’t be approached from solely an intellectual stance.

In general, the two genders have different ways of perceiving causality, time, and power. This implies seven principles for making your brand more appealing to women:

1. Pattern, not just point. Recognize that women have the ability to perceive more than the metric of a product attribute or an instance in time; they appreciate the underlying pattern (idea) that gives rise to the fleeting moment.

2. Authenticity, not just immediate appearance. Recognize that persona, biography (or history), and current contingency must all be factored in, and that universal principles underlie particularities.

3. Quality, not just quantity (size). Recognize that for women bigger and more is not necessarily better; and that a steady build is often better than an impulsive response.

4. Connectedness, not just individuals. Recognize that communality can reign over dominance. We are all bound together.

5. Society, not just markets. Recognize that markets are numbers, and that markets can be counted and the goodies duly noted. But numbers are not people. Women are people and people have personal feelings and social intentions.

6. Quality of Life, not just accumulation. Recognize that there are material and spiritual needs made up of individual wants and musts, but that are cast in the context of a social matrix.

7. Reasonableness, not extremism or absolutism. Recognize that all issues have grays, and exaggerations to one side or the other only cover-up the reality of subtlety and nuance.

Marketing to women is not as easy as ‘pretty in pink’ or ‘basic black’. But knowing the inner reality of women can help marketers feel more in the pink and put them in the black.

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The world has since changed dramatically. And, despite the rise of digital and the economic downturn, most old marketing axioms are still operative, miring marketers in an approach designed for a bygone era.

Take the relationship between supply and demand – its reversed. Today demand is scarce, supply plentiful. Second, over the past half-century we have learned so much about how people engage with brands.

We now understand that people are not two-dimensional datum to be manipulated by coupons or the latest hot-button offer. Current anthropological, linguistic and neuro-scientific evidence demonstrates that humans attach to things (product, person or idea) through a process of identification that coalesces longings at the personal, social levels.

Human behavior cannot be comprehended by the old-school logical conceptions of action. What Don DeLillo said about how he writes a book is true for life, “Things begin to happen just outside the range of the immediate action. There’s very little sense of logic behind it.”

Life, No Straight Line

Now that we agree life is not a straight line, marketers need to accept tools that address reality. Case in point, the Purchase Funnel, a guest that attends most new business meetings: Awareness, Consideration, Preference, Action, Loyalty. But people Are Not Linear.

When one considers consumers as people, one immediately appreciates that logic is a puny force in the face of emotion and belief. Identity trump interests and narrative transforms products into relevant stories crafted by one’s own brand of meaning. In this cuisineart-like, improvisational, non-linear process, awareness does not precede consideration, then tumble into preference and finally into action.

Zig-Zagging To Attachment

In actuality, the attachment process carves a zigzag route in the service of emotional reasoning as people make symbolic associations with what is familiar, participatory and self-expansive in their image of the product. Only if and when the product is successfully transformed into a personally meaningful idea, does manufacturer reap the benefit of one’s loyalty to self. This process can take time, or immediately convulse, but the best a marketer can hope for is a spasm of sentiment that bears no logical relationship to product attributes.

Note what two people say about Apple’s iPhone. “Apple is a smile. It makes me smile. I’m a happy person. Apple and me are the same.” “The iPhone, like Apple, is a circle, it’s smooth and glides. It’s easy and feels good. All other phones are boxes; they have corners and squares, are highly structured, have many rules, are too technical and linear. The iPhone is fun and natural and let’s me do my own thing.”

Purchase Funnel Vs. Yellow Brick Road

The emotional logic of human longing is as merciless as the laws of gravity, but more curvaceous. The time is right for marketers to come to terms with the meanderings of authentic life, and reflect back to people their true nature: poised and unsettled, majestic and mundane, courageous and hesitant, marooned and moored, tough and tender.

Only then will marketers share in attracting people while, at the same time, having people soar.

Marketers must respect people as curvaceous souls, and supplant the purchase funnel with the idea of The Yellow Brick Road. This will both re-humanize advertising and make it, again, a cultural act. Then people may incline towards more products and once again love advertising as they did in the era of Bill Bernbach and David Ogilvy.

The Blake Project Can Help: The Brand Positioning Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers