WATCH: Busting Common Myths of Consumer Psychology

Do goldfish really have longer attention spans than today’s consumers? Can face scans really recognize consumers’ emotional states? What secret talent makes me a hit at kids’ parties? Learn the answers to these and other fascinating questions by checking out this very fun conversation with Jasravee Kaur Chandra on her podcast, Jagged With Jasravee, the Marketing Show. I promise you won’t be sorry!

Here are a few excerpts from our conversation:

When you are in the human sciences, it is important to always keep your mind open and always accept that there’s more to learn. When I hear the “truths” about human behavior or consumer psychology, that’s always a red flag. That seems to imply that there is a right answer or a complete answer. And those answers are usually incomplete because we’re always evolving, we’re always growing, and we’re always learning more. The more we look at consumer psychology, the more questions there are the more there is to learn. And so when I hear these statements that I consider myths, it’s important for us to challenge them. Because bad psychology equals bad marketing.

[Consumer] behavior changes very rapidly, but motivations are much more stable over time. And so when we think about building strategy, when we think about how we’re going to anticipate or respond to behavior change, having an understanding of deep motivations really makes a big difference.

[Another myth is that whe] shoppers act on “autopilot”, they’re not really thinking and can’t be influenced … But even though someone may be shopping on autopilot, there is a tremendous amount of thinking going on beneath the surface. They might not be as aware of it, but there are a lot of decisions being made and influences that are happening.

If our shoppers are shopping on autopilot and they’re just buying the lowest price, or they’re just buying the same thing they bought the last time every time, that is on us [as marketers]. We have trained them to do that by overusing price promotion or by not providing anything interesting in the category for them to shop differently. And so we have to think about new ways to get attention and then influence shoppers as as they go about their shopping trip.

You can watch the full interview HERE.