A research paper by Research Surveys senior research executive, Diane Gantz, at the SAMRA 2006 Convention last week, addressed the issue: 'Consumers are not rational - destroying the myth'. This paper aimed to provide marketers and researchers with a deeper understanding of the dynamics of consumer decision-making, suggesting new approaches to research design.
"Essentially, we know that consumers are irrational in much of their purchasing behaviour, yet researchers still design questionnaires as if they were rational," explained Gantz.
"Consumers often make split-second decisions using their gut feel as to whether or not they like something. Consumers rely on their subconscious to make decisions and often take their cues from past experiences with a brand or their brand relationship. The subconscious therefore affects choices and how consumers decode information. This needs to be taken into consideration when designing questionnaires.
"Market researchers often design long questionnaires covering a broad range of topics, prompting consumers on specific variables, for example long image attribute lists and product/service attribute or satisfaction rating questions. The standard battery of questions typically looks at various aspects related to usage and brand image, in order to evaluate how consumer decisions are made. We expect consumers to tell us what it is they like or dislike about brands, but consumers are not always able to do this. They often do not know or cannot articulate why they have a positive or negative feeling about something. Ironically, attempting to explore consumers' subconscious minds, researchers can change their preference, by making them think of things they would not normally think about."
To make things worse, marketers then go ahead and use this information to formulate marketing and communication strategies, says Gantz.
According to authors such as Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point; Blink) the emphasis in marketing research should be on holistic measurements, rather than individual attribute-based measurements. Explains Gantz: "Should this view have validity, it has a very clear implication that the focus of our analysis should be on holistic measurements and trying to determine whether the consumer leans towards or away from a brand without delving into too much detail of the mechanics of why. Ideally, these measurements should be taken as close to the beginning of the interview as possible as it is also probable that, as the interview progresses, the respondent will become more and more tuned in to the subject under discussion, and become more 'rational' - something we should be trying to avoid."
Gantz says that a large part of many marketing research studies is driver analysis. In these situations, the market researcher attempts to identify, and then weights the drivers which are pertinent to brand choice or product choice. However, the use of driver analysis pre-supposes a rational consumer. Implicit in the assumption is that there is an attribute model in the consumer's mind in which attributes are weighted according to their importance, and purchase decisions subsequently made on the basis of the brands which score best on the identified attributes. "This approach could be fundamentally flawed, if the consumer is, in fact, irrational. We need a review of the traditional approach to driver analysis, to the point where we question whether it is pertinent at all to many product categories."
So, how do consumers make decisions?
Traditional marketing research implicitly assumes the consumer is rational and makes purchasing decisions consciously. The conscious is logical, meticulous and considers a lot of detail. Rational decision-making is most applicable in situations of high involvement with product categories as well as when decisions will impact on personal, social and economic factors. Involvement refers to importance of brand choice to the consumer.
The latest thinking on the theory of rational decision-making is that it is perhaps only applicable in a context where consumers are familiar and experienced with the subject or object and therefore have formed well-articulated preferences (Bettman et al, 1998). Gladwell (2005) referred to a strawberry jam example where food experts and college students had to rank 44 different brands of strawberry jam from top to bottom. Overall, the students' ratings correlated high with the experts' ratings. In practice this means everyone knows what a good jam taste like, even though some are not jam experts. However, when students were asked to explain why they preferred a certain jam to another by looking at very specific measurements of texture and taste, the students were unable to explain why. They just knew they did. This suggests that the criteria used by students for ranking the jam was very different to that of the experts. "By making people think about jam... turned them into jam idiots". It is therefore often pointless to ask consumers for reasons why they like or dislike a brand, as they are unable to explain themselves, says Gantz.
Decision-making situations where the subconscious is most likely to steer the decision include the following:
The biggest drawback in traditional marketing practice is to ignore the fact that consumer decisions are significantly influenced by the subconscious, which is driven by emotion and past experiences, rather than rational cognitive thought.
If consumers are often making decisions using their gut feel or subconscious, how do market researchers approach research design in order to gain an understanding of what is driving them? Is it even possible to attempt to do so?
Currently, Gantz says, questionnaires tend to be too long, and include the proverbial 'kitchen sink' to ensure that nothing is left out that may be important when it comes to analysis. The two key factors influencing a project's price are the questionnaire length and sample size, so with a long questionnaire, the sample often has to be cut to meet the client's budget.
Gantz concludes: "If my thesis is correct, a lot of what we ask is unnecessary and invalid, and therefore our approach to questionnaire design needs to change to be more simple and holistic. Many of the questions we currently include as routine can be discarded, leading to shorter questionnaires, but in turn, larger sample sizes, that will allow us to drill down into the data to identify homogeneous groups of customers who share similar feelings towards a brand. Understanding these people better can shed more light on how to manage a brand, than by analysing responses to questions at an aggregate level."
"There are many influences on consumer behaviour and purchasing decisions and it is almost impossible for the market researcher to understand exactly why consumers behave in a certain way. In many instances, consumers are limited in their ability to provide market researchers with the reasons why they like or dislike a brand due to the influence of their subconscious on decision-making. Consumers, when pressed, will supply answers purporting to be the motivation for their attitudes. However, there is a strong likelihood that the reasons supplied will be overly rational, and hence invalid."
Trying to understand the subconscious' influence on consumer behaviour and the way the mind works are extremely difficult and the marketer is essentially forced to look at other ways to understand the consumer. "We do not have the luxury of including various individual attribute-based measurements because they presuppose a rational individual, which is essentially wrong. These types of questions can safely be excluded from questionnaires resulting in far shorter questionnaires. Although we would like this information, it is simply not available to us.
"This forces us to concentrate on more holistic measurements in terms of disposition of the brands in question. With holistic measurements the focus should be to identify pockets of consumers who have similar attitudes towards the brand, rather than trying to understand the reasons for a positive or negative feeling towards the brand by trying to understand the subconscious. Once we have identified the consumer segments with similar attitudes, the market can be quantified before making the choice whether this is a viable market to target or not in terms of profitability."
Following a holistic approach and combining it with non-linear techniques to identify homogeneous sub-segments of consumers who behave in the same way, will provide marketer researchers with more accurate information and a more in-depth understanding of the relevant target market, rather than just classifying consumers into groups where they do not really belong. By failing to drill down into the data in a systematic and insightful way, we fail to see the bigger picture, Gantz emphasizes.
"Being able to understand consumer dynamics will enable marketing researchers to provide much more value to clients in terms of strategy development and strategic recommendations."
