Consumer Behavior on the Couch: Freudian Theory

Sigmund Freud proposed the idea that much of one's adult personality stems from a fundamental conflict between a person's desire to gratify his/her physical needs and the necessity to function as a responsible member of society. This struggle is carried out in the mind among three systems:

Id - All about immediate gratification without thinking of consequences, our inner party animal. The id operates from the pleasure principle and wants to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the id is selfish and illogical. It is the little red devil sitting on your left shoulder.

Superego - The counterweight to the id. It is a person's conscience. It follows society's rules and tries to prevent the id from seeking selfish gratification. It is the little white angel sitting on your right shoulder.

Ego - The system that mediates between the id and the superego. It's basically a referee in the fight between the id and the superego. It balances the opposing forces according to the reality principle which finds ways to gratify the id that the outside world will find acceptable. It is the person making the decision based on the id and superego's demands.

Freudian theory applies to marketing in the Ego system, and how consumers make unconscious decisions that guide purchases. The implication is that consumers cannot necessarily tell us their true motivation when they choose products, even if we can devise a sensitive way to ask them directly. The Freudian perspective also raises the possibility that the ego relies on the symbolism in product to compromise between the demands of the id and the prohibitions of the superego. The person channels her unacceptable desire into acceptable outlets when she uses products that signify these underlying desires. This is the connection between product symbolism and motivation: The product stands for, or represents, a consumer's true goal, which is socially unacceptable or unattainable. By acquiring the product, the person vicariously experiences the forbidden fruit.

The field of motivational research borrowed Freudian ideas to understand the deeper meanings of products and advertisements. This approach adapted psychoanalytical (Freudian) interpretations with a heavy emphasis on unconscious motives. It basically assumed that we channel socially unacceptable needs into acceptable outlets - including product substitutes. Ernest Dichter conducted in-detpth interview studies on more than 230 different products and found a couple of interesting major consumption motivations associated with specific types of products:

Motive                              Associated Products

Power                                             Sugary products and large breakfast, bowling, electric trains, hot rods, power tools

Virility                                          Coffee, red meat, heavy shoes, toy guns, shaving with a razor

Security                                         Ice cream, full drawer of neatly ironed shirts, real plaster walls, home baking, hospital care

Eroticism                                      Sweets, gloves, cigarette lighters

Moral purity                                White bread, cotton fabrics, harsh household cleaning chemicals, bathing, oatmeal

Social Acceptance                       Ice cream, coffee, toys, sugar and honey, soap, beauty products

Individuality                                Gourmet foods, foreign cars, cigarette holders, vodka, perfume, fountain pens

Femininity                                    Cakes and cookies, dolls, silk, tea, household curios

Reward                                          Cigarettes, candy, alcohol, ice cream, cookies

Master of environment               Kitchen appliances, boats, sporting goods

Disalienation                                Home decorating, skiing, morning radio broadcasts

Magic-mystery                             Soups, paints, carbonated drinks, vodka, unwrapping gifts. 

So next time that you purchase a product ask yourself which hidden motivation may be guiding you in buying that specific product? Even better, next time you see an ad you may be able to identify the hidden motivation that is associated with the product being sold.

Pavlov's Packaging

The design of a package generates expectations that allows us to imagine the pleasure that the product itself will give us. Every time that stand in front of a shelf to decide what to buy, our brain goes through a number of processes that combine our knowledge with our expectations. 

We base our decision on past experiences when picking a tried and true product and also when deciding wether to try a new product or not. In either case we are always moved by desire. 

Conditioned Desire

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist known primarily for his work in classical conditioning. The concept for which Pavlov is famous is the "conditioned reflex" developed in 1901. He studied salivations among dogs and learned that when a buzzer or metronome was sounded in subsequent time with food being presented to the dog in consecutive sequences, the dog will initially salivate when the food is presented. The dog will later come to associate the sound with the presentation of the food and salivate upon the presentation of stimulus. 

We function similarly than Pavlov's dogs when we are in the presence of a food package, and its design functions as the stimulus of the buzzer. The mere fact of seeing and recognizing a package reminds us of the experience of consuming the product or makes us imagine the experience of eating it if we haven't had it before. 

When we see and hold a package we perceive it with all of our senses, that experience wether good or bad stays registered in our memory as an association with the product and the brand. 

As consumers are bombarded with options, brands get less and less attention in a supermarket shelf. Great packaging design should understand the values and desires of the consumer and connect in a deeper emotional level. We like to think of product packaging as a half-second commercial where great design makes or breaks a sale. 

Great packaging must combine art and science, where sophisticated research and analysis is converted into visually stimulating design. It must look beyond creative talent and seek to understand human behavior and target consumers in a compelling, fresh, and entertaining way. A well done product package delivers the brand message to consumers directly, while its appetite appeal makes a consumer imagine the flavors and experience of consuming the product. Just like a buzzer would make Pavlov's dogs salivate with desire. 

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The Importance of Emotional Branding

Brands are built on the unconscious part of the brain

A couple of years ago the New York Times released an article that made it clear that "over the last fifty years the economic base has shifted from production to consumption. It has gravitated from the sphere of rationality to the realm of desire; from the objective to the subjective; to the realm of psychology."

Simple ideas have turned from being basic concepts to consumer-based concepts. Food is no longer about cooking or chores but about "home and lifestyle design". Airplanes are less about transportation vehicles and more about "travel organizations." We are operating within different sets of values and in order to be relevant brands must understand this changes and compete accordingly.

But what constitutes a great brand concept apt to compete in our new environment? Goods and services alone are not longer enough to attract or retain existing markets or clients. What drives consumers to buy and become loyal to a brand?

In his book Buy-Ology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, Martin Lindstrom talks about how we are deeply irrational beings. We make irrational decisions when selecting and purchasing products all the time, most of us are guilty of picking the second magazine instead of the first in a shelf and we can't explain why. He used FMRI methods to test how people react to objects belonging to their own religion and then compared to reactions of objects belonging to beloved brands, amazingly the same areas of the brain are lit on both scenarios, leading us to think that we feel just as strong about religion as we do about some brands.

What are the drivers behind such deep connection? We believe that emotional branding plays a big role. By emotional we  mean how a brand engages consumers on the level of the senses and emotions; how a brand comes to life for people and forges a deeper, lasting connection. This means that understanding people's emotional needs and desires is really, now more than ever, the key to success. Corporations must take definite steps toward building stronger connections and relationships and recognizing their customers as partners. Industry today needs to bring people the products they desire, exactly when they want them, through venues that re both inspiring and intimately responsive to their needs.

Emotional banding provides the means and methodology for connecting products to the consumer in an emotionally profound way. It focuses on the most compelling aspect of the human character: the desire to transcend material satisfaction and experience emotional fulfilment. A brand is uniquely situated to achieve this because it can tap into the aspirational drives that underlie human motivation.

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The Psychology of Mobile Advertising

The mobile advertising market is soaring. According to eMarketer, the global mobile ad expenditure is expected to reach $45 billion in 2015. A major reason for this increase are intersitials - full screen ads that come at a "logical break point," as Google's Jonathan Alferness explains.

The new ads that organically appear within content are being fueled by technological advances and increase use of larger screens in smarphones. Intersitials have higher levels of organic engagement, thus allowing for longer viewing times and more tolerance. According to AppFlood, revenue generated from this new ad units increased to 43 percent between the first and second quarter of 2014.

Why are intersitials so successful? It is no secret that psychology is a big factor in the success or failure of an advertisement. According to Adweek, the reason for intersitials great success is familiarity, since they function in a very similar way to regular TV spots. We are so used to watching a show and having regular intervals with commercials. With the new technology, intersitials can be customized to selected content and that leads to a greater level of connection, actually creating a sensation of a bonus rather than a distraction.

According to Jane E. Raymond, professor of experimental consumer psychology at the University of Wales in Bangor, "we actually process information in gulps. The brain goes out, grabs a bit of information, digests it, then grabs another bit." The way the human brain processes information is a perfect fit with formats such as Interscroller, that place the commercial seamlessly within the flow of content allowing advertisers to deliver small "gulps" of information.

Another psychological mechanism that contributes to the success of intersitials is that our brains actually benefit from short distractions. According to a study by Psychology Today, students focus for only three minutes at a time. After the three minutes they where desperately looking for something else on which to direct their attention, therefore rendering intersitials as a welcome distraction.

Another psychological factor that plays in the success of intersitials is the "isolation effect", where people have higher recall levels for things that stand on their own. By breaking content in parts, and taking the entire screen, intersitials give a natural punctuation to the content that is being read, actually improving the reading experience.

As technology keeps improving it seems that advertising is moving from something forced upon us to content that is customized, relevant and that can actually enhance our experience.

Top Takeaways from Social Media Week

It has been a busy and exciting couple of weeks with Social Media Week and the World Business Forum. We want to share the top insights starting with Social Media week, a yearly get together of brands and agencies all discussing best practices on how to go about social media. Below are the top takeaways:

1. Social Media shifts from earned to paid media

The category is slowly but surely moving away from fluffy goal metrics such as more "likes" or "re-tweets".  2014 has seen the main social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter move away from the earned media space and into the more commercially viable paid media category. This allows firms to shift focus and be actually able to measure fluctuations in sales.

2. ROI taking center-stage

Social media for business is here, but not everyone knows how to use it yet. Case studies do show brands actually showing monetary wins from their social media campaign, but not all of them show actual ROI figures. Last year people talked a lot about ROI but this year some companies actually demonstrated ROI and proved it.

3. Know your audience

Know your global audience, research which times zones they are in, their language and what they care about. Once you know them well, you can create content that appeals to them and know when they will see it. The main social platforms have great analytics tools for this.

4. Go Glocal

Global brands' content can no longer be just local, it must be customized to become glocal local (glocal), this means that content must be customized to fit the needs of different audiences. It must be similar enough so that you share the same message but personalized to the different areas or groups that form your audience.

5. Be the cool kid

Similar to the previous point, global social media professionals must know the tools that their audiences use around the world. Just because one platform is very popular in the US does not mean that it has caught on another part of the world. As an example WeChat is the social platform in China despite the fact that is virtually unknown in the US.

6. Social media is not a channel

Social media is still not fully understood, some businesses still treat it as a weird peripheral strategy. Too often firms struggle with social media not through lack of connectivity but because they still treat it as a channel, rather than just another part of the organization. Businesses should strive to understand what they stand for and utilize social platforms as an extension of their identities.

There where definitely some interesting insights, we hope you find this list useful and remember to keep checking the blog for more enlightening insights from the World Business Forum.

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Twitter Introducing Weather-Targeted Advertising

The competition for advertisers among social media platforms is on fire, as a way to continue being a key player, Twitter is constantly developing new ad tools and features. Now, the social site is introducing weather-targeted ads, in collaboration with the Weather Channel, Twitter will enable advertisers to target their product ads to real-time local weather conditions. 

So for example, a clothing brand could send promoted tweets for coats and boots to people facing cold conditions, or an coffee chain could promote their frostier products during a heat wave. Twitter's new system will allow advertisers to allocate targeted tweets based on the elements such as temperature, rain, humidity, wind, and dew point. The tweets will also be targeted by the Twitter subscriber's location, interests, devices, and keywords. 

The owner of the Weather Channel announced this new initiative pointing that the company is the first media company to use Twitter's advertising API (application programming interface). That system will allow the Weather Company to automatically buy ads across Twitter and gain access to the users' information. Sales teams from the Weather Company and Twitter will pitch the opportunity to advertisers at launch, the Wall Street Journal reported. This service is expected to start soon and its forecast look sunny and bright. 

"Marketers have a search strategy and a social strategy," said Curt Hecht, the Weather Company's chief global revenue officer. "Marketers also need a weather strategy."

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6 Steps to a Stronger Social Media Presence

Having a social media account is not enough. Firms should take advantage of the free traffic by engaging in meaningful ways. Here we share 6 ways to build a strong social media presence.

1. Immediacy 

Real time engagement is the key. Make a habit of searching what customers are saying about your brand and interact immediately. Plan to monitor continuously during key events or breaking news and react quickly by engaging your audience. 

2. Monitor Reputation

It is human nature to be more inclined to write a review or comment when things go wrong, so it is only natural that online conversations always tend to degrade. Don't ignore bad comments or reviews, engage and try to recover the user from a bad experience. Be on top of what is happening and learn from bad reviews to improve the customer experience.

3. "P" for Place

Your social media strategy should include a place where your community can have free conversations, try to allocate strategically wether so you can be able to better monitor 

4. Content
Content should be engaging, in order to win with social media create by using the three most important factors:

Information - Peaks under the curtain, exclusive access, teach something and give a vehicle to teach someone else. 

Identity - Anything that furthers someone's identity is more likely to be shared.

Emotion - Stirring powerful emotions that move people.

5. Community

Give your product a voice, a personality. Community is very important because a big part of the purchase decision is based in belonging to something that enhances your lifestyle. 

6. Think Ad-Hoc
In order to engage your customer base try to customize as much as possible. By creating sub-communities tied by #hashtags you can target and engage different smaller groups with more personalized communications.