How Are Buying Decisions Made?

"The most effective form of communication is one in which the recipient is already predisposed to believe the information." [Center for Cultural Studies & Analysis]

One day I would love to be a strategist at a "think and do" tank. It's possible I already am without using the title. What seems like a million years ago and was only two, the company I worked at engaged in a full business development profile assessment for the employee base that supported sales as well as the management group.

We employed the Birkman^® Method and determined quickly that sales is from Mars and marketing from Venus - nothing new here. As I wrote at the time, it is really important to understand how differently the sales and marketing groups think and what that means as respects how they behave. What does each group hear when it comes to translating the organization's goals into their work? The other side of that is how do we as individuals behave when faced with buying decisions?

That is the million dollar question, isn't it?

I met Dr. Margaret King and James O'Boyle from the center for Cultural Studies & Analysis a few years back when we talked about our cultural underpinnings. This Philadelphia-based think tank decodes how consumers determine value in products, concepts and ideas. Their work continues our conversation on content within context and marketing as context building. Their philosophy:

• our senses detect sensation
• our brain translates sensation into perception
• perception is shaped by culture and context
• culture is a complex adaptive system
• context is a bordered system all systems can be decoded, modeled, explained, and understood

Culture determines what people perceive as important. It is the platform on which your brand equity and market position stand. Yet it is most often the least understood part of the marketing process.

Branding and market position are both outcomes of, and markers for, cultural position, which is the grounding value of products, services, ideas, and experiences. This value must be searched out not just in the market but also in the place where all things are first desired and finally bought: the mind of the consumer.

By far the most concrete and fascinating aspect of Dr. King's and Mr. O'Boyle's research is captured in a chart that documents the basic characteristics of life development stages. Take a look at the chart and start answering some questions for yourself and your own behaviors, as well as those of your family members. What life stage are you in?

Gen Y individuals may find themselves nodding when thinking about learning and conflict both as characteristics that underlie their behaviors, for example. The value of consumer goods for them lies in validation of rapidly evolving social mobility.

Now let's try another one, ready? What do you think are the basic characteristics of life development stages for individuals who are engaged in social media as advisers right now? Vote now!

Whether you selected "other" or not, I'd love to learn from you. Do you think the value associated with the profile you selected computes with what you intended? In your experience, how is that information translating into buying behavior?

Comments

[Bam Azizi]

as a strategist my self i get where you're coming from. getting into people's psyche is like finding the holly grail. in all my years of research i've found that what influences people is rather chaotic and unpredictable. the only element we can control is the initial promise made. meaning, keep the quality up and everything else will work itself out, given that you keep on spending on advertising and promotion.

i tend not give data too much attention, i look at it and analyze it but to make it the primary source of inspiration for strategy is extremely risky. data tends to give you insight in the past, as a strategist you always want to look towards the future!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Bam:

Thank you for providing input from your perspective. I actually think that we are more predictable than we think we are ;-) Especially when it comes to life stage and context. What the center studies is especially useful and significant for entertainment companies and group behavior. the idea is to design an environment that is integrated with individuals' preferences - what they seek as values.

It's amazing how much one can learn from observation. Data is one piece of information, cultural implications for behaviors is a whole different ball game. I recommend this a lot - you might enjoy Bob Johansen's book "Get there Early" about using foresight to insight to action. It is aligned with your thinking about the future.

[Peter Buick]

Social media, as it is today, is too diluted and subject to "FADs" to be usefully definable and measurable today.
The closest thing is the BIQ metric. But that is a monitor, not an instigator.
I am an x-marketeer, but I find the concept of thinking you can leverage social networking (SN) as a marketing tool, pretty cheesy. It's also upside down. Social networking is where people react to X, not really where X is experienced.
Using SN as a backdoor to make it an experience, is the sort of thing SN users will rebel at and we've already seen some SN marketing campaigns backfire badly.
When you look at systems that are proven to have worked "previously" like Frank Kern's Mass Control, Jeff Walkers PLF1, Mark Joyner's Mind Control, we can see that SN is still not the instigator, but the exponential'ifier (that isn't a word but...).
Marketeers need to stop thinking they can control peoples thoughts. It's not nice, doesn't work reliably and misses the point of marketing.
With my own system, "Get Real", we don't even try to manipulate people, for the reasons I've just stated.
Can you work out what we do, do? No it isn't that!
Marketeers need to stop trying to use technology to leverage experiences and go back to the core values of having something worth experiencing.
Only upside down cakes work upside down.
IMHO it's as simple and as complex as that.

Peter.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Peter,

Now let's try and read the post and see what it says ;-) First off, I am not talking about social media when I share the work of the center for Cultural Studies & Analysis - I'm talking about people and how we behave. Nobody can predict the future and nobody can control anyone, agreed.

If we follow so far, then the simple poll was for social media advisers to vote for themselves the category in which they think they fit. That's all. No need to get defensive or to think that I am advocating something that I am in fact not saying.

A further thought - every conversation is a negotiation, whether you admit it or not. It's a departure to (hopefully) get to a new place. What's real? Who decides that?