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Consumer studies & neuroscience: using cutting-edge techniques, PART 2

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What neuroscience techniques can be used to improve the efficiency and reliability of consumer studies? In this article I describe two: the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and predictive validity.

 

 

 

 

In a previous post (see here), I explained how behavioural sciences can improve the efficiency of customer studies. For another one (see here), I introduced the eye-tracking technique and the use of moderating variables as means to reach that aim.

 

 

 

 

Today I introduce two other techniques: Implicit Association Tests and predictive validity

 

 

IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TESTS

 

Implicit Association Tests (or IAT) is a psychological tool that assesses to which extent two concepts are unconsciously related in our brain.

 

 

The basic idea is that consumers’ brains very quickly associate two concepts that are closely related. And less rapidly associate concepts that are not. For instance, words from the concept ‘holidays’ (travel, airport, hotel, beach, restaurant, shopping, hiking) will be more automatically and quickly sorted with words from the concept ‘summer’ (sun, sea, shorts, dress, fruits, light) than from the concept ‘work’.

 

 

Implicit association tests assess the extent to which two concepts are unconsciously related within our brain Click To Tweet

 

 

On the contrary, words from the concept ‘work’ (taxi, meeting, costume, computer, office, colleagues) will be more automatically and quickly sorted with words from the concept ‘autumn’ (orange, pumpkin, chestnut, advent, cold, rain). Of course, some words from the concepts ‘holidays’ or ‘work’ could equally be sorted with the two concepts ‘summer’ and ‘autumn’.

 

 

consumer studies neuroscience

Ultimately, Implicit Association Tests consist of asking people to sort words between combinations of concepts. For instance ‘holidays/summer’ vs ‘work/autumn’, or ‘holidays/autumn’ vs ‘work/summer’. Let us consider that ‘holidays’ and ‘summer’ are more tightly linked in people’s brain than ‘holidays’ and ‘autumn’. We then expect people to sort the aforementioned words (sun, fruit, cold, rain…) more quickly with a combination of concepts (‘holidays/summer’) than with another (‘holidays/autumn’).

 

 

 

Implicit Association Tests are complex, but you can find out more about them on the dedicated Wikipedia page. The most important is to understand that IATs enable to reveal people’s unconscious conceptual associations.

 

 

WHICH APPLICATION FOR CONSUMER STUDIES?

 

consumer studies neuroscience

Implicit Association Tests can be used for customer studies. For instance, imagine that you would like to assess the opportunity to source coffee from a new Asian provider. Are your customers ready to buy coffee grown in Asia? What about Africa or South America like your current products? An Implicit Association Test will assess customers’ unconscious mental association between the concept ‘coffee’ and an Asian origin.

 

 

 

 

 

Two situations can be expected. On one hand, customers show a good association between the concept ‘coffee’ and African and South American origins. But a poor association with Asian origins. It would then be adventurous to try and sell Asian coffee to these customers. On the other hand, unconscious mental associations between the concept ‘coffee’ and African and South American origins are not as high as expected. Then there would exist an opportunity to sell a coffee with an alternative origin, such as Asian.

 

 

 

These results can further be confirmed by testing the predictive validity of alternative packaging.

 

 

CONSUMER STUDIES: PREDICTIVE VALIDITY

 

Neuroscience- and psychology-based consumer studies can assess the predictive validity of packaging’s impact on perceptions. Here we want to understand whether perceptions generated by your packaging can affect people’s intentions and behaviours in real life. That is to say, beyond a simple subjective answer to a survey.

 

 

For instance, our last client wished to emphasize the British origin of its pasta. We tested whether new packets would affect the representation of the pasta as a British product in people’s daily behaviour. To this end we provided a list of 6 meals: 3 British ones and 3 Italian ones. Then we asked people to sort these meals as a function of the likelihood that they would use a given product to cook them.

 

 

If the results indicate that new packaging generates a powerful identification with British origins, we expect people to prefer to cook British over Italian meals with the product. And these are the results we have obtained. Conversely, old packages were preferentially selected to cook Italian meals.

 

 

BACK TO COFFEE

 

consumer studies neuroscience

 

Let us return to our coffee example. We want to determine in which situations (work, restaurant, service area, coffee shop…) customers would like to drink a given type of coffee (Asian, African or South American). Each situation does not lead to the same expectations in terms of service quality or products served. Such a test could assess the relevance of Asian coffee and its appeal to your customers.

 

 

To conclude, neuroscience sets up reliable and powerful customer studies thanks to innovating tools. That way you can access relevant data and insights for your marketing strategy. All of this while avoiding the biases of traditional consumer studies.

 

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Morgan DAVID   

A former academic and behavioural sciences expert, Dr Morgan David is the founder and director of ANALYTICA, a consultancy agency based in the UK and in France. ANALYTICA uses the way our brain works to design better products and better services in the realm of neuromarketing, webmarketing, customer experience, sales strategy and pricing tactics. ANALYTICA created CogniSales, a neuromarketing sales service, CogniMenu, the first new-generation menu engineering service, Predicta Sports, a science-based talent identification tool for predictive recruitment in sports, and the neuromarketing service applied to packaging CogniPackaging.

 

 

 

UX neurosciences

Why UX needs neuroscience

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UX neuroscience packaging

Businesses rely more and more on experimentation to build their marketing strategies. Experimentation is a powerful way to gather objective and reliable data, and make informed decisions. This can be achieved with UX or A/B tests. In this post we explain why and how neuroscience can boost the efficiency of UX tests.

 

 

 

UX TESTS & EXPERIMENTATION

consumer tests neuroscience

In his recent book, Thomke explains how businesses that use experimentation procedures for their marketing strategy reach higher levels of efficiency and outperform their competitors.

 

UX (User eXperience) tests usually look like A/B tests. Typically, after alternative versions (A, B, n…) of a webpage, a product, or a message are designed their impact towards users are measured in normal use conditions. This procedure brings real informational value compared to the subjective verbal statements of traditional user studies.

 

 

UX and A/B tests provide a direct assessment of consumers’ behaviours and decisions. It is then likely that prior knowledge about consumers’ psychology and decision mechanisms can improve UX tests’ performance.

 

 

 

Prior knowledge about consumers’ psychology and decision mechanisms can improve UX tests’ performance Click To Tweet

 

 

UX: A STORY OF PEUGEOT AND RENAULT

 

Let us focus on an example to help you understand. Imagine that you are the head of marketing of a car retail company. You would like to change your website’s landing page as well as the cover page of your brochure. Photos of Renault or Peugeot cars are available. You thus perform A/B consumer tests to determine which photo generates the best impact on your customers. That impact can be measured by the proportion of online visitors entering your website, conversion rate, profits, the proportion of people asking for more information, or customer perception of quality or reliability.

 

 

UX neuroscience

Results are there! Your performance reaches 70% when a Peugeot car is displayed vs. 30% for Renault. Conclusion: Peugeot has a better impact on customers than Renault.

 

 

 

But there is something that our head of marketing does not know. A photo of a Mercedes-Benz car would have had an even higher impact on customers. Perception of quality and reliability would have jumped from 70% (for Peugeot) to 85% for Mercedes-Benz when all photos are compared altogether. A benefit of 15%!

 

 

Let us sum up. User eXperience (UX) can be considered as the experimental comparison between Peugeot and Renault. The neuroscience touch would be the addition of Mercedes-Benz. Using neuroscience, one can anticipate consumers’ psychology, then add alternative options with a predictable impact to A/B and UX tests. In the case displayed here, Mercedes-Benz is expected to have a higher impact than the two French brands, thus adding value to the UX test.

 

 

Neuroscience can help anticipate consumers’ psychology and add alternative options with a predictable impact to A/B and UX tests Click To Tweet

 

 

A/B TESTS & PACKAGING

 

Let us consider as an example a brand of sweets that renews its packaging. Its marketers have performed a consumer test. The effect of several versions of a chocolate bar’s package has been assessed. On some packages, the logo is displayed at the bottom. For others it is on the top. Packages’ backgrounds show different colours. Nutritional specifications are shown on one side or on the back. The ‘Organic’ logo has a small or big size… Consumer tests will undoubtfully identify the more effective package. That is to say, one package that generates stronger preferences and higher purchase intentions than the others.

 

 

UX neuroscience packaging

 

 

But neuroscience could boost the efficiency of this test. How? By reducing the number of alternative packages tested to those that are expected to affect consumers the most. Back to the chocolate bars. Scientific studies have shown that a vertical symmetry axis catches people’s attention less than an asymmetric design. An asymmetrical design could thus impact customers more positively.

 

 

UX: IDENTIFYING THE CAUSES OF PEOPLE’S BEHAVIOUR

 

UX neuroscience packaging

The second benefit of applying neuroscience to UX tests lies in the interpretation of experimentation’s outcomes. Often, the different options assessed in a UX test are created and selected following designers’ intuition. Unfortunately, UX tests rarely enable the identification of what causes the obtained results. This is where neuroscience and consumer psychology bring added value to UX tests.

 

 

 

Neuroscience brings meaning where UX tests highlight simple correlations. Understanding the psychological causes of the higher impact of a given landing page has benefits. Using moderating variables for instance (see the corresponding post here), enables us to develop an evidence- and data-based conceptual framework that is potentially generalizable to other contexts.

 

 

 

 

 

Let us return to the chocolate bar example. Unfortunately, after launching the new asymmetric packaging, sales have dropped by 10%. To understand why, neuroscience can be helpful. Asymmetric packages indeed catches people’s attention more. Yet, they are also considered as harder to read by customers. The chocolate bar is also perceived as a low-quality product when inside an asymmetric package. This understanding of customers’ perceptions and what causes purchase behaviours will no doubt help the brand to further adjust its product and marketing strategy.

 

 

By anticipating how alternative marketing options affect consumers’ psychology and behaviour, neuroscience brings added value to UX tests. This is a powerful tool to help make informed product and marketing decisions.

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Morgan DAVID   

A former academic and behavioural sciences expert, Dr Morgan David is the founder and director of ANALYTICA, a consultancy agency based in the UK and in France. ANALYTICA uses the way our brain works to design better products and better services in the realm of neuromarketing, webmarketing, customer experience, sales strategy and pricing tactics. ANALYTICA created CogniSales, a neuromarketing sales service, CogniMenu, the first new-generation menu engineering service, Predicta Sports, a science-based talent identification tool for predictive recruitment in sports, and the neuromarketing service applied to packaging CogniPackaging.

 

 

logo CogniPackaging packaging

CogniPackaging: packaging efficiency boosted by neuroscience

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logo CogniPackaging packaging

Logo position, colours, font, shape and symmetry of the package, specification layout… All these packaging details may at first appear as secondary. Yet many studies prove they can impact customers’ unconscious perceptions. As these perceptions are unconscious, customers typically are not capable of expressing them clearly when assessing packages. Professionals are then likely to miss crucial insights with important marketing consequences.

 

 

NEUROMARKETING OPTIMISATION OF PACKAGING

 

cognipackaging packaging

Scientific literature about consumer psychology provides evidence that many features of products’ packaging influence people.

 

For instance, customers show increased purchase intentions for pasta packaging where their transparent window has a shape of a circle rather than a rectangle. A chocolate bar with a symmetric package design is perceived as more readable. Also a symmetrical product is perceived to be of higher quality than when the package design is asymmetric. Should you want your Champagne to be perceived as modern and authentic? Then create a label with a simple design. You would like it to emphasize cheerfulness and sophistication? Then design a more complex label.

 

 

cognipackaging packaging

 

 

A neuromarketing approach enables to adjust packaging’s features so as to align customer perception with brand values. Customer studies then help to check that people’s perceptions have been properly anticipated.

 

 

CUSTOMER STUDIES BOOSTED BY NEUROSCIENCE

 

In traditional customer studies, people’s statements and intentions often differ from their actual behaviour. Customers tend to provide answers that display their brighter side (aka social desirability bias). The justification they give for their answers is often wrong. This list of traditional customer study biases could go on and on…

 

 

Consumers do not say what they do, and do not do what they say... Their unconscious perception of your packaging is unaccessible with traditional consumer tests Click To Tweet

 

 

Customer studies based on behavioural science help to avoid the biases of traditional studies. This leaves you with clear answers about how different versions of a product’s packaging are perceived.

 

 

customer studies packaging neurosciences

 

 

INFLUENCING CUSTOMERS

 

cognipackaging packaging

A neuromarketing approach to packaging is truly innovative as it allows you to increase your product’s perception of quality, or to decrease price perception. In both cases, an increase in purchase intention is not only hoped for, but genuinely predictable.

 

 

 

COGNIPACKAGING

 

logo CogniPackaging packagingFollowing the successes of CogniMenu and CogniSales, we created CogniPackaging, the latest neuromarketing service from ANALYTICA. CogniPackaging uses rigorous scientific studies to help you conceive your packaging and then to perform consumer tests about its performance. Our role is to optimise your packaging’s features and influence customers’ perceptions, judgments and intentions. This unique tool is more reliable than using intuition or chance when designing your packaging.

 

Behavioural sciences applied to packaging is the most efficient means to improve the efficiency of your marketing and product strategy.

 

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Morgan DAVID   

A former academic and behavioural sciences expert, Dr Morgan David is the founder and director of ANALYTICA, a consultancy agency based in the UK and in France. ANALYTICA uses the way our brain works to design better products and better services in the realm of neuromarketing, webmarketing, customer experience, sales strategy and pricing tactics. ANALYTICA created CogniSales, a neuromarketing sales service, CogniMenu, the first new-generation menu engineering service, Predicta Sports, a science-based talent identification tool for predictive recruitment in sports, and the neuromarketing service applied to packaging CogniPackaging.

 

études consommateurs neurosciences packaging

Customer studies & neuroscience: using cutting-edge techniques

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études consommateurs neurosciences packaging

What neuroscience techniques should be used to improve the efficiency and reliability of customer studies? I describe two of them in this post: eye-tracking and the use of moderating variables.

 

 

 

In a previous post, I explained why behavioural sciences can improve the efficiency of customer studies. Now that you are convinced of it (if not, read this!), I would like to tell you about the techniques and tools that can be used.

 

 

Here I highlight two of them: eye-tracking and moderating variable use.

 

 

CUSTOMER STUDIES & NEUROSCIENCE: EYE-TRACKING

 

Eye-tracking is one of the most famous neuromarketing techniques. Eye-tracking consists of understanding how and where customers pay attention to in a point of sales. This tool helps to determine how the most important information of a communication setup should be displayed.

 

 

customer studies eye-tracking

The use of eye-tracking has numerous applications. Restaurant menus, packaging, webpages, advertisements, supermarket shelves… In all these situations, it is crucial to know what draws customers’ attention. One can also assess how much attention specific brand packaging is going to receive. This is done by measuring the so-called ‘fixation time’. In other words, the amount of time a customer will look at the claim.

 

 

 

Here are some application examples. You observe that consumers mostly look at the bottom of a cereal box. That could be the ideal area where to indicate how much of the recommended daily intake of fibre this product provides. Your customers look more attentively at the bottom left-hand corner of the wine menu? That could be the ideal zone to propose high-margin, by the glass, wines.

 

 

Eye-tracking helps to determine how the most important information of a communication setup should be displayed Click To Tweet

 

 

A QUESTION OF INFORMATION AVAILABILITY

 

customer studies eye-tracking

Eye-tracking is particularly relevant for video advertisement. But also for live consumer studies in dummy supermarket shelves. The reason why is simple. In both situations, product specifications and claims are accessible to customers for only a short period of time and in a limited space.

 

In other words, customers generally do not have enough time to look in detail at all the available information. It is in this context that understanding what draws consumer attention is genuinely relevant.

 

 

To conclude, eye-tracking is a useful tool for customer studies. This is mostly true when customers take a limited time to regard product specifications.

 

 

CUSTOMER STUDIES & NEUROSCIENCE: THE USE OF MODERATING VARIABLES 

 

Another benefit of behavioural sciences-based customer studies is the use of moderating variables. These variables enable us to identify what causes consumers’ perceptions and judgments. For our last client, for instance, we wished to determine whether new packaging specifying that the product was manufactured in the UK would generate positive judgments. We predicted that individual tendency to favour the purchase of British products could affect judgments. For each participant, we thus used a psychometric scale, called ethnocentrism, to assess individual tendencies to favour the purchase of British food.

 

 

This tendency indeed positively affected the new ‘made in the UK’ claim. Unexpectedly, even consumers with a low tendency to favour the purchase of British food rated the new claim positively. Although we did not anticipate this result, it helped our client readjust their marketing strategy.

 

 

Moderating variables help to identify alternative customer profiles and persuade each of them differently Click To Tweet

 

 

Ethnocentrism measurements allowed us to conclude that the positive effect of the new claim was not only generated by those consumers who usually buy British food. The new claim was relevant for our client’s new marketing strategy.

 

 

Moderating variables are a great tool to understand the differences in perception and ratings between people. It is crucial to efficiently identify alternative customer profiles and persuade each of them differently (see the post below).

 

 

 

AN EXAMPLE WITH WINE PACKAGING

 

In the example below, wine bottles displayed in a wooden box with claims and specifications (“explanatory box”) or with a transparent window (“transparent box”) are judged as more attractive by consumers (“product attitude”). Why is this so? To answer this question, scientists have measured peoples’ perceptions of the luxuriousness of packaging (“perceived luxuriousness”). A luxurious aspect indeed generates higher ratings compared to simple boxes (“plain box”). This result can help the brand to optimize future packages more accurately. For instance by playing on customers’ perception of luxuriousness.

 

 

customer studies neuroscience packaging

 

 

Moderating variables are useful to identify what causes consumers’ perceptions and judgments. They allow for a quick assessment of your products and packages’ likely impact. Moderating variables can also be used to segment your target more efficiently. Basically, they help you to make strategic marketing decisions that are more accurate than those based on traditional customer studies.

 

 

In our next post, we will introduce two other neuroscience techniques applied to customer studies: implicit association tests and predictive validity.

 

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Morgan DAVID   

A former academic and behavioural sciences expert, Dr Morgan David is the founder and director of ANALYTICA, a consultancy agency based in the UK and in France. ANALYTICA uses the way our brain works to design better products and better services in the realm of neuromarketing, webmarketing, customer experience, sales strategy and pricing tactics. ANALYTICA created CogniSales, a neuromarketing sales service, CogniMenu, the first new-generation menu engineering service, Predicta Sports, a science-based talent identification tool for predictive recruitment in sports, and the neuromarketing service applied to packaging CogniPackaging.

 

Neuroscience applied to marketing & sales, what are we talking about?

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neuroscience marketing sales packaging

Among current marketing and sales innovations, neuroscience is holding a leadership. Why? Just two words: efficiency and performance. Efficiency, because neuroscience techniques exclusively rely on science. Performance, because they make marketing and sales strategies more powerful. In this post I describe various applied neuroscience techniques.

 

 

TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS

 

Whenever neurosciences and neuromarketing are mentioned the same mental pictures often come to mind. Pictures of technological tools taken from sci-fi movies, of researchers in lab coats, and of nonsense brain scans. Recognize any of your own mental shortcuts? Indeed, neuromarketing sometimes consists of measuring consumers’ physiological responses when placed in various situations and under various stimuli.

 

neuroscience marketing sales packaging

Magnetic Resonance Imagery (MRI), for instance, helps determine which brain areas fire when consumers are exposed to these stimuli. Eye-tracking consists of identifying what customers gaze at and pay attention to when watching adverts or looking at supermarket shelves. Skin conductance is considered as a measure of stress and focus.

 

 

 

TALKING ABOUT EFFICIENCY?

 

Technological tools are probably the most well-known neuromarketing techniques. Yet, their relevance should be toned down a little. Indeed, these tools are mainly descriptive, and only slightly functional. Concretely, it means that their main purpose is often to measure customers’ unconscious reactions, such as emotions, to various stimuli.

 

These measurements’ predictive value on intentions and behaviours is often weak. For instance, as dramatic and shocking as road safety or anti-tobacco ads can be, their impact on people’s behaviour is rather weak.

 

Eye-tracking techniques helps determine what elements of adverts or packaging consumers place their attention on. This is an interesting tool for branding. For instance to understand how to increase brand familiarity. From a strict functional point of view though, determining where customers gaze is of little interest to influence their judgments and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.

 

 

 

 

In conclusion, technological tools are probably part of the most well-known neuromarketing techniques. Their use and efficiency are still restricted to a very limited array of situations and contexts.

 

 

MASTERING CUSTOMER PSYCHOLOGY

 

neurosciences marketing ventes

Customer psychology refers to the techniques, and our knowledge, of how people perceive information, memorize it and adjust their behaviour accordingly. Contrary to technological tools, customer psychology techniques are less familiar, but more functional and directly applicable.

 

For instance, at ANALYTICA, we have developed CogniMenu, a menu engineering service aimed at boosting restaurants’ sales. To this end, we anticipate how customers make decisions when facing several options. With that in mind, we work on the menu’s layout and pricing so as to encourage customers to pick the highest-margin meals. Thus increasing restaurants’ average benefits.

cognimenu logo menu engineering

 

This is possible because the way that people process information and make decisions is to some extent predictable. CogniMenu organizes information on a menu in a way that guides customers’ towards buying the meals restaurants want to promote.

 

 

IMPROVING CUSTOMER STUDIES

 

neuroscience marketing sales packaging

The benefit of neuroscience-based customer studies is to avoid ineffective, traditional methods that record people’s subjective verbal statements. Contrary to general belief, people do not say what they do, and do not do what they say. In contrast, neuromarketing enables us to understand customers’ perception, representations and judgments whilst avoiding the biases of traditional studies.

 

 

 

Neurosciences vs. traditional marketing: customers do not say what they do, and do not do what they say... Click To Tweet

 

 

It is an alternative method aimed at determining what customers really think about a product, beyond unreliable verbal statements. In a traditional customer study for instance, customers can be asked if they would buy UK-grown tomatoes (verbal answer). Instead, a neuroscience-based study would first assess consumers’ perception of vegetables’ origins from the packaging. Then be asked about their preference between two products. One in which the packaging mentions the tomatoes’ origin and one in which the packaging does not.

 

 

neurosciences marketing sales packaging

 

 

NEUROSCIENCE-BASED PACKAGING

 

neuroscience marketing sales packaging

“Vice product” corresponds to the biscuits, and “Virtue product” corresponds to the fruit juice

Scientific literature is full of neuroscience studies showing how small packaging details affect consumers’ unconscious perceptions and judgments. By understanding how these details influence buyers’ intentions and behaviours, you can set up a marketing and sales strategy that is more powerful and efficient.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEUROSCIENCE-BASED SEGMENTATION

 

neuroscience marketing sales packaging

Taking customers’ personality into account can help you communicate better and more efficiently. Do you think that you should communicate with a whole age category the same way? Then think again. Scientific studies show that whatever the segment you target (age, geographical location, socio-economic status), it is more efficient to adjust promotional messages to your target’s personality to generate sales.

 

 

 

 

 

In conclusion, neuroscience offers many innovative methods to improve your marketing and sales strategy. This enables you to reach your target more efficiently.

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Morgan DAVID   

A former academic and behavioural sciences expert, Dr Morgan David is the founder and director of ANALYTICA, a consultancy agency based in the UK and in France. ANALYTICA uses the way our brain works to design better products and better services in the realm of neuromarketing, webmarketing, customer experience, sales strategy and pricing tactics. ANALYTICA created CogniSales, a neuromarketing sales service, CogniMenu, the first new-generation menu engineering service, Predicta Sports, a science-based talent identification tool for predictive recruitment in sports, and the neuromarketing service applied to packaging CogniPackaging.

 

 

tests consommateurs neurosciences

How to improve customer studies with behavioural sciences?

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customer studies packaging neurosciences

Customer studies… Let’s face it: customers do not say what they do, and do not do what they say. So how can we really understand how customers perceive and evaluate your products and their packaging?

 

 

 

 

In his recent book Experimentation works, Stefan Thomke, a professor at Harvard Business School, quotes a manager from Booking (booking.com) speaking about customers’ behaviour:customer studies packaging neurosciences

 

“We see evidence every day that people are terrible at guessing. Our predictions of how customers behave are wrong nine out of ten times.”

 

 

TRADITIONAL VS NEUROSCIENCE-BASED CUSTOMER STUDIES

 

Traditional customer studies are beneficial to understand people’s preferences and habits. They are a strategic phase of the development of products and packaging. Once strategic decisions have been made, how can we be sure that creations and messages are perceived as expected by customers?

 

 

customer studies packaging neurosciences

Are the colours and texture of a new mobile phone congruent with the claim that it is the lightest phone on the market? Is a Union Jack sufficient for a product to be perceived as made in the UK? Does the font type reflect a product of quality and authenticity? Should the teaspoon on the cereal packet be placed on the bowl’s left or right? Shall the advertisement’s background be the same colour as the displayed product? Should the triangular shape of the pasta packet’s transparent window be pointing downwards or upwards?

 

 

 

Customer studies based on psychology enable us to objectively assess people's perceptions and judgments Click To Tweet

 

 

Such questions about the impact and efficacy of products and packaging can hardly be answered with traditional customer studies. Conversely, all of them have been answered thanks to behavioural science. Customer studies based on psychology enable us to objectively assess people’s perceptions and judgments. They are also useful to understand your clients’ unconscious judgments; the very judgments that they cannot express because customers’ answers are usually biased and influenced by many factors! Eventually, you will obtain accurate information about the psychological impact of your product and its packaging on consumers (e.g. font, colours, claims, weight, size, texture, etc.).

 

 

customer studies packaging neurosciences

 

 

EXAMPLES OF CUSTOMER STUDIES

 

For these products, the darker version was judged by consumers as heavier and more durable than the lighter version, but also less user-friendly.

 

 

customer studies packaging neurosciences

 

 

In this example, biscuit and fruit juice manufacturers wondered whether person-like drawings could improve purchase intentions. Customer studies have shown that the impact of person-like drawings depends on the type of product sold. It improves purchase intentions for “hedonic” and calorific products (biscuits = vice product). However, it decreases purchase intentions for healthy products (fruit juice = virtue product).

 

 

customer studies packaging neurosciences

“Vice product” corresponds to biscuits, and “Virtue product” corresponds to fruit juice

 

 

See these packaging infographics about Campbell’s soup. Each improvement has been tested and validated through studies about customers’ perceptions and judgments. Traditional customer studies could not have found that the logo placed on top attracted too much attention. Or that the spoon triggered a minimal emotional reaction.

 

 

customer studies packaging neurosciences

 

 

The benefit of using neurosciences and psychology for customer studies is thus manifold:

 

 

AVOID INFLUENCING CUSTOMERS’ ANSWERS

 

It is easy to influence people’s answers to a survey. One just has to ask questions in a way that encourages a particular answer.

 

 

Often, the survey designer is not aware of that influence. As a consequence, collected data turn out to be useless and of poor quality. But these data will still be used to make strategic decisions. For instance, Steve Jobs, the iconic but this time misled Apple CEO, said in 2003:

Steve Jobs

 

“People have told us over and over and over again, they don’t want to rent their music… they don’t want subscriptions.”

 

 

Conversely, customer studies based on social psychology principles enable us to assess people’s perceptions and judgments objectively, including unconscious representations and judgments that customers do not verbally express.

 

 

DETERMINING CUSTOMERS’ PERCEPTIONS & JUDGMENTS BEYOND VERBAL STATEMENTS

 

If you think that customer studies are only about assessing your target’s preference for a given product or packaging, then neurosciences won’t help you. Ordinary surveys are sufficient to understand such preferences. Conversely, behavioural sciences allow for more innovative customer studies to be conducted. Collected data about the impact of a product or a packaging are virtually limitless!

 

 

Every detail of a product or its packaging can have a tremendous impact on consumer perception Click To Tweet

 

 

Customer studies based on neuroscience help to confirm whether new products and packaging trigger the expected perception. They enable us to understand customers’ unconscious judgments. Genuine judgments that your customers cannot properly express. Every detail of a product or its packaging can have a tremendous impact on consumer perception. This is why behavioural sciences have become essential for customer studies.

customer studies packaging neurosciences

 

 

In this example, the labels of Champagne bottles vary in complexity. Do you wish to communicate a ‘feminine’ feeling? The label on the right should rather be used. Do you wish to communicate a sensation of ‘modernity’ and ‘authenticity’? The label on the left is more likely to generate them. Would these conclusions have been reached following traditional customer studies and creators’ mere intuitions? No.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN SUMMARY

 

Behavioural sciences enable us to access significantly more data that traditional customer studies. Perceptions, representations, judgments, intentions… Neurosciences, along with social psychology, possess technical tools to accurately assess the objective impact of a new product or its packaging on consumers. And these tools go beyond simple statements that often turn out to be biased and subjective. Your customers show unconscious judgments and representations that traditional customer studies cannot identify. Because each and every conception detail can have an unexpected but substantial influence on consumers’ perceptions and intentions, neurosciences provide more reliable and more objective methods than intuition or chance.

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Morgan David

Dr Morgan DAVID   

A former academic and behavioural sciences expert, Dr Morgan David is the founder and director of ANALYTICA, a consultancy agency based in the UK and in France. ANALYTICA uses the way our brain works to design better products and better services in the realm of neuromarketing, webmarketing, customer experience, sales strategy and pricing tactics. ANALYTICA created CogniSales, a neuromarketing sales service, CogniMenu, the first new-generation menu engineering service, Predicta Sports, a science-based talent identification tool for predictive recruitment in sports, and the neuromarketing service applied to packaging CogniPackaging.

 

 

 

ventes neuromarketing

Using neuromarketing & customer psychology to improve selling processes

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ventes neuromarketing

 

In a former blog post, we explained how neuromarketing and customer psychology can improve product design and packaging. But once your product has been designed and is ready to be sold, how to promote it and sell it efficiently? To this end, neuromarketing and customer psychology bring efficient evidence-based solutions.

 

 

 

1) SEGMENTING CUSTOMERS BASED ON THEIR PSYCHOLOGY

 

In order to promote products on a large scale, marketing segments based on customers’ psychology is a powerful and revolutionary technique. Psychological segments deconstruct traditional segments, like age, gender, socioeconomic status, salary or living area.

 

 

Traditional segments are less accurate than psychological segments to initiate marketing or selling actions Click To Tweet

 

 

Let’s imagine each traditional segment contains a cluster of persons who fit into it. Some segments will merge with one another and define personas: for instance Clare, 38yo, married, 2 kids, living in a suburban area, a qualified worker in a public company. Research in social psychology shows that psychological dimensions like openness to experience, extraversion or need for cognition, blend traditional segments. That means that these aforementioned psychological dimensions gather people from distinct traditional segments.

ventes neuromarketing

 

For what consequence? Traditional segments are less accurate than psychological segments to initiate marketing or selling actions. It’s useless to communicate with every 30 or 40-year-old in the same way. Age and other traditional segments are not the most relevant and efficient segments to tailor a message to your target. Personality is by far more useful.

 

For instance, one scientific study has shown that mobile application sales could increase by up to 79% when their promotional message was tailored to the target’s personality (see our former post here for a more detailed description). These findings led ANALYTICA to create a marketing innovation called PsychoSegments (see video with English subtitles below).

 

 

 

 

2) APPLYING PSYCHOLOGICAL PRICES

 

prix psychologiques ventes

Psychological prices are one of the most popular customer psychology techniques. Psychological prices consist of setting prices at a given threshold above which products are perceived to be too expensive. We all know the principle of prices ending with nine: a pair of trousers will be perceived as less expensive when priced at £49.99 than if it was sold at £50. Beware though! Nine-ending prices cannot be applied to every product or service. We explained why in a former post here.

 

 

 

 

3) ENCOURAGING PURCHASE DECISIONS

 

How to efficiently promote and sell a product? And most of all, how to encourage customers to purchase a product over another? This turns out to be rather simple, mainly because our decisions are predictable! Our brain perceives, analyses information and adjusts our behaviour in a predictable way. This is what we call ‘decision rules’.

 

 

it is rather easy to predict customers’ choice for a given product when the conditions favouring this choice are met Click To Tweet

 

 

Once these rules are known and understood, it is rather easy for an expert to predict customers’ choice for a given product when the conditions favouring this choice are met. Marketers then need to recreate these conditions to encourage selling the highest-margin products, for instance. Choice environments can consist of a commercial offer, where pricing and offer structure influence customers’ choices.

 selling CogniMenu menu engineering

A very concrete example is CogniMenu, a new generation menu-engineering tool developed by ANALYTICA. CogniMenu improves the selling efficiency of restaurants’ menus. The organisation of the menu, its structure and its pricing are all optimised following customer psychology principles. The ultimate goal is to encourage customers to pick highest-margin meals. This directly translates into an increase in average spending and in restaurants’ profits.

 

 

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Morgan DAVID   

A former academic and behavioural sciences expert, Dr Morgan David is the founder and director of ANALYTICA, a consultancy agency based in the UK and in France. ANALYTICA uses the way our brain works to design better products and better services in the realm of neuromarketing, webmarketing, customer experience, sales strategy and pricing tactics. ANALYTICA created CogniSales, a neuromarketing sales service, CogniMenu, the first new-generation menu engineering service, Predicta Sports, a science-based talent identification tool for predictive recruitment in sports, and the neuromarketing service applied to packaging CogniPackaging.

 

 

billets ventes prix psychologiques

How to increase prices without decreasing sales: 1) Psychological prices

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billets ventes prix psychologiques

Setting high prices without impeding sales is the neuromarketing aim of all retailers. Here I describe a simple technique to reach that goal via the use of “psychological” prices.

 

 

 

The linear relationship between sales volume and price is a basic selling principle. If customers act rationally, sales volume is expected to decrease as prices increase. Conversely, sales volume should increase when prices decrease. This idea is correct in theory. Indeed, this relationship is commonly found; especially as far as Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) are concerned. This is because their prices usually show little elasticity. That does not mean that the above-mentioned negative relationship is true in every context. There are situations where price drops do not cause an increase in sales volume. And others where a price increase does not genuinely lead to sales’ decrease. We could just as well conclude that businesses and retailers suffer from missed opportunities to raise their profits!

 

 

psychological prices

 

 

PSYCHOLOGICAL PRICES

 

Psychological prices are certainly the most popular and used neuromarketing technique. Scientific studies show that consumers’ brains tend to focus on the first digits of prices. For instance, a product priced at £7.99 will appear as less expensive as the same product priced at £8.00; despite the 1 pence difference being minimal. This is because our brain tends to focus on the “7” digit for the first price, and on the “8” digit for the second one.

Offering a product priced at £7.99 instead of £8.00 can potentially help you enjoy a higher sales volume. This will also substantially compensate for the 1-pence loss per product. Indeed, your customers will perceive the £7.99 product as less expensive, and thus more affordable.

Following this rationale, a product priced at £7.00 will be perceived as roughly as expensive as a £7.99 product. In both cases, the price’s first digit is the same (“7”). Pricing your product at £7.00 in this situation should not lead you to enjoy as many sales as you could expect. The price decrease from £7.99 to £7.00 will be perceived by your customers’ brain as less important than it really is. Consequently, you may rather suffer from a profit loss of 99 cents per product (12%). This loss may, eventually, be hard to compensate for with an increase of sales; hence, a missed opportunity to raise your profits.

 

 

Consumers' brains tend to focus on the first digits of prices Click To Tweet

 

 

A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

 

psychological prices sales

Please note, however, that psychological prices are a double-edged sword. Prices ending in 9 unconsciously refer to low-quality products. I would, thus, advise against using 9 as an ending for good-quality products. For instance, a high-end restaurant should use round numbers, such as £18, without decimals or options ending with 9. Conversely, a fast-food or casual restaurant would be advised to set its prices according to the psychological prices’ principle (£11.95 for a vegetarian pizza).

 

 

 

Prices ending in 9 unconsciously refer to low-quality products Click To Tweet

 

In a future blog article, I will emphasise the importance of customers’ psychology and the framing of prices for their potential to increase prices and profits.

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Morgan DAVID   

A former academic and behavioural sciences expert, Dr Morgan David is the founder and director of ANALYTICA, a consultancy agency based in the UK and in France. ANALYTICA uses the way our brain works to design better products and better services in the realm of neuromarketing, webmarketing, customer experience, sales strategy and pricing tactics. ANALYTICA created CogniSales, a neuromarketing sales service, CogniMenu, the first new-generation menu engineering service, Predicta Sports, a science-based talent identification tool for predictive recruitment in sports, and the neuromarketing service applied to packaging CogniPackaging.

 

 

packaging

How to use neuromarketing & customer psychology for product design & packages?

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packagesProduct designs & packages are often conceived by creative professionals. Whether they are designers, advertisers or communication experts, these specialists are gifted enough to invent elaborate and original creations. However, aesthetic creations do not automatically translate into something meaningful for customers’ perceptions, decisions and behaviour. Then why and how can we create products and packages that trigger a positive impact on customers’ perceptions and purchase intentions?

 

 

CREATING EFFICIENT PRODUCTS & PACKAGES

 

Offering products and packages in line with people’s needs and expectations is crucial for successful customer-experience and sales.

Neuromarketing and customer psychology help to predict which features of a product or a package will have an impact on people Click To Tweet

 

Neuromarketing and customer psychology help to predict which features of a product or a package will have an impact on people. For instance by determining how their perceptions are going to influence purchase decisions.

 

 

SOME APPLICATIONS

 

Take the example of Champagne bottle labels. It has been proven that labels with complex aesthetics are perceived as more feminine and sophisticated. Conversely, labels with a simpler design are perceived as more modern, successful and authentic.

 

 

packages

 

 

Another study focused on different products like laptops, suitcases, cars and pens. It has been shown that when these products wore dark colours, they were perceived as heavier, more durable, but also less user-friendly than the same products with lighter colours (see examples below).

 

 

packages

 

 

Campbell’s soups relied on neuromarketing the last time they revisited their packages.

 

 

packages

 

 

A final recent study has shown that “cute”, personified food displays, and realistic, neutral ones had a varying impact on purchase intentions depending on the type of food being sold.

 

 

packages

“Vice product” corresponds to cookies, and “Virtue product” corresponds to fruit juice

 

 

ON THE INFORMED USE OF NEUROMARKETING & PSYCHOLOGY

 

We do not advocate that businesses should focus on the “superficial” features of their products. If your product is genuinely bad, customer-experience will inevitably be bad and prospects for repeat business should be reduced to null. Neuromarketing and customer psychology are not to help sell products that are insufficiently attractive, or to help make a product better than it actually is.

 

Neuromarketing and customer psychology are not to help sell products that are insufficiently attractive, or to help make a product better than it actually is Click To Tweet

 

That said, it is essential to take into account how people’s brains work and run empirical, scientific and objective trials. Without these, interpretations about how customers will perceive and react to your product is nothing but pure speculation. Studies of psychology applied to design and packaging, like the ones shown in this post, are manifold. To beat luck and predict which features will positively impact sales, neuromarketing and customer psychology are undoubtedly the most efficient tools currently available.

 

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Morgan DAVID   

A former academic and behavioural sciences expert, Dr Morgan David is the founder and director of ANALYTICA, a consultancy agency based in the UK and in France. ANALYTICA uses the way our brain works to design better products and better services in the realm of neuromarketing, webmarketing, customer experience, sales strategy and pricing tactics. ANALYTICA created CogniSales, a neuromarketing sales service, CogniMenu, the first new-generation menu engineering service, Predicta Sports, a science-based talent identification tool for predictive recruitment in sports, and the neuromarketing service applied to packaging CogniPackaging.

 

 

cerveau marketing psychologie

Why psychology is essential to your marketing strategy

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cerveau marketing psychologie

For some companies and some marketers, psychology is nothing but abstract science. Yet for the most informed ones, it is an innovative opportunity to understand and reach their target in an efficient way.

THE ISSUE

The challenge faced by marketing and sales campaigns is to accurately assign customers to different profiles. Campaigns thus either reach a single sociodemographic segment that is irrelevant and too extensive (generation X, Y, socioprofessional category, age, interests, and so on). Or they attempt to reach too wide a spectrum of various prospects in a unique and single manner. The latter strategy bears the risk of not reaching anyone by speaking to everyone all at once…

 

PSYCHOLOGY DECONSTRUCTS TRADITIONAL MARKETING SEGMENTS

Customers of a given segment – socioprofessional categories, sociodemography, age, location – can actually show substantial psychological differences. These customers won’t be sensitive to the same sales and marketing messages. Conversely, customers from these different traditional marketing segments may be sensitive to the same marketing content owing to similar psychological profiles.

psychologie marketing segmentation

The benefit of integrating psychology to your sales and marketing strategy is simple. Psychological segmentation criteria allows you to 1) categorize customers in a more accurate and relevant way than traditional marketing segments; and, 2) adjust sales and marketing content to different psychological profiles. Taking psychology into account enables you to establish new marketing segments that turns out to be more accurate, more efficient, and based on science.

WHAT ARE THESE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILES?

segmentation psychologie marketing

Your target can be categorized using psychological variables called psychometric scales. For instance, personality can be assessed following 5 scales – aka the Big Five – which are extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openess to experience and conscientiousness. These scientifically-validated scales generate a score for every customer that is assessed. Sales and marketing content can then be tailored to different personalities for greater efficiency.

Morgan DAVID psychologie marketing
Click here to read the post ”
Interview about neuromarketing
with Morgan David, director of Analytica”

WHICH CONTENT FOR WHICH PROFILE?

In neuromarketing, the prevention-promotion psychological scale helps us identify different types of customers. On one hand, customers can be more sensitive to prevention-based content, such as the reduction of potential risks or uncertainty (ʺThe braking system of this new car model reduces braking distance and thus diminishes crash risksʺ). On the other hand, customers can be more sensitive to promotion-based content which emphasizes benefits (ʺWith a more efficient engine, this new car model allows you to cover longer distances with a single full tankʺ).

CONCRETE RESULTS

Bringing customer psychology to sales and marketing strategies remains underused. Yet, some pioneering companies have already obtained spectacular results. In a 2017 study, British and American researchers assessed the efficiency of tailoring advertising content to customers’ personality. The personality scales used were extraversion and openess to experience. Scientists recorded the number of mobile app. sales when advertising content was tailored to customers’ personality. These sales were compared to a second campaign where advertisements were the same for every customer. Results show that mobile app. sales increased by 79% when advertising content was tailored to customers’ personality.

psychology marketing strategy sales
Psychology applied to marketing and sales strategy in 3 phases

In a future post, we will discuss how to assess customers’ psychology and how to adjust sales and marketing content accordingly.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Morgan DAVID   

A former academic and behavioural sciences expert, Dr Morgan David is the founder and director of ANALYTICA, a consultancy agency based in the UK and in France. ANALYTICA uses the way our brain works to design better products and better services in the realm of neuromarketing, webmarketing, customer experience, sales strategy and pricing tactics. ANALYTICA created CogniSales, a neuromarketing sales service, CogniMenu, the first new-generation menu engineering service, Predicta Sports, a science-based talent identification tool for predictive recruitment in sports, and the neuromarketing service applied to packaging CogniPackaging.