Lessons Learned: Three Lessons from the New Book Gimme! The Human Nature of Successful Marketing

For too long, many marketers have ignored the basics of how human beings are wired and how they work emotionally. As a result, the effectiveness of their marketing and advertising suffers. Marketers who understand the emotional triggers and genetic characteristics of their consumers are better able to persuade and convince them with their marketing programs. John Hallward's book, Gimme! The Human Nature of Successful Marketing, explores these evolutionary traits in ways marketers can easily understand, so they can better leverage these primary human drivers of behavior for greater marketing success.

Here are three lessons from John's book.

Lesson 1: Our Self-Centered Genetic Traits

Humans are the consequence of genetic evolution, whether through Intelligent Design, or through random gene mutations (survival of the fittest). Some manifestations of evolution found in all cultures include emotions, habits, memories, desires, moods, thinking, and motivations. We share these characteristics because these are the consequence of our genes. The better we can appreciate these characteristics, understand how we are genetically wired, and why we act the way we do, the better we can advertise and better persuade others.

Many brands today are under attack from copycat brands, from price brands, from the powerful retailers, and from globalization. At the same time, advertising is fragmenting (and possibly decaying), consumers are becoming less loyal, and market researchers struggle to find the answers. The solution for brand managers is neither to cut costs nor to rely on promotional activity. Competing on price and promotions is not a proprietary own-able characteristic, invites low cost competition, and trains the consumer to look for price deals. The low cost manufacturers win, with lower margins, and less attractive stock performance.

The profitable solution is to build brand equity. Many emerging studies prove the attractiveness of healthy brands in supporting shareholder value, stock performance, and reduced investment risks. Brand health can be achieved in our modern world by innovation in a tangible way, and/or to add something (emotionally) intangible above and beyond the raw functional performance of the product/service. Such emotional elements can include the creation of unique emotional associations to brands, to enrich brands across the human senses, and to create effective advertising properties. This is where we need insights about how humans are wired, and how we can better leverage the drivers of motivation.

Genetic evolution is self-centred by the very consequence of how evolution rewards the stronger genes. We are born with the gimmes, and we are taught to suppress them as we grow up in society, but the gimmes do not go away. We evaluate choices by assessing "what it the benefit and the costs to me?" - We evaluate things which make our life more positive. These are our personal "gimmes". The gimmes happen when we choose a brand: "What emotional pay-offs do I get for choosing brand X over Brand Y?" We make our decisions by evaluating what emotional (positive) pay-offs we will get from our decisions, with the gimmes at the centre. Good selling practices recognize this self-centered focus. Selling of brands or motivating a friend is about catering to their gimmes. Advertisers and people in general can get what they want as an outcome of giving to others what others want, at an emotionally motivating level. This concept directly recognizes the genetic self-centered nature of humans. This is a foundation for the art of manipulation. It is not about the brand. It is the emotional gimmes the brand satiates.

Lesson 2: Thinking Beyond the Unique Selling Proposition

Consumers do not want one characteristic or one unique selling proposition (USP). Consumers want it all. Why should a consumer have to choose between the longest lasting pain reliever versus the fast acting, or the safest, most gentle, or the cheapest priced? The concept of marketing a USP is not a consumer-centric view. It is not a realistic, relevant reflection of how consumers operate. Furthermore, a USP for a brand is limiting in appeal by the very definition of trying to sell one main benefit to the sub-segment of consumers which most values that one benefit. Consumers want pain relievers to be fast-acting, and safe, and strong, and inexpensive and more.

The consumers' emphasis on one or more of these benefits changes from occasion to occasion, and from mood to mood. Consumers are not stable, nor consistently rational. Although segmentation research allows us to place consumers into distinct groups, and to put a descriptive label on each person, consumers are not fixed with just the characteristics of the one segment. The reality is all consumers have all emotional needs within them. Some elements/associations are stronger and some are weaker, depending on the person and the day. Our emotional desires fluctuate such that what appeals to one person in one week might be less appropriate for the same person the next week. These fluctuations are hard to target because a population of consumers are all in fluctuation. This is why segmentation research can be so frustrating to market researchers when trying to neatly explain brand behaviors. Unique segments do not buy just one or two uniquely defined brands. And segments are not stable.

Instead, brand managers should be targeting all consumers with the intention of painting their brand with the emotional associations the brand can satiate. Market research should focus on emotional need states in all consumers rather than focus on segments as if they are stable and mutually exclusive.

Lesson 3: Emotions and Emoti-suasion

Consumers mostly make their decisions based on emotional desires, personal needs, self-perceptions, values, cognitive styles, and so on. We consciously and subconsciously evaluate choices based on the emotional pay-offs expected from our behaviors. The more a brand can add emotional rewards, beyond the physical rational performance of the product, the greater the opportunity to be more competitive. Our Ipsos database proves this. The graphic illustration below shows the direct relationship between brands with many emotional associations earning greater commitment (which also holds true for brand equity, and purchase interest).

Perhaps, then, marketing should be oriented more to the consumer's self-centered emotional pay-offs which are associated with experiencing the brand; and less oriented to the brand's features, performance, price, and so on. Emotional elements are the ultimate decisive characteristics in brand choice. Brand characteristics are simply the ingredients which comprise the consumers' self-centric emotional assessment. Furthermore, this is not about simply making emotional advertising. I am referring to the emotional association of experiencing the brand. As we see in our pre-test data-bases, overly emotional advertising can fail by not linking emotions to brand use.

An example will help clarify. A manufacturer of power hand drills will likely work to position their brand based on product features, targeted to a definition of consumers, leveraging the product features to support this targeting and messaging. They might reference flexibility of their brand for many jobs, or they might reference a long battery life, or new techie features such as a laser guided beam of light, or leverage their low price. However, we all know that consumers are not really buying drills simply to have a power tool at home. Consumers want holes in things, or want to put screws into things. But a consumer-centric approach should go further.

Consumers who buy drills want specific emotional pay-offs. They want to avoid disappointment by ruining the surface they are drilling; They want to experience pride for a job well done; They want to feel like a competent person and have others appreciate their handy-work; They want their spouse to appreciate the accomplishment; They may even want the new thrill of doing the job themselves. Or maybe the buyer wants the latest greatest drill to show off to their neighbor or colleague. Most realistically, consumers want to experience many of these pay-offs...and do not want to be ripped off on the price, to have security in knowing the warranty is good, and to make the shopping experience quick and efficient. And since many top brands of drills put holes in things equally well, it begs the question of which brands offer the desired emotional pay-offs we seek as consumers? To simply leverage features of the drill, which many other brands similarly offer, is missing the self-centered nature of our decision making process.

About the Author

Advertising research expert John Hallward started his career with Procter & Gamble, and Johnson & Johnson. He then co-founded in 1986 the firm of Tandemar Research Inc., a leader in advertising research for top advertisers. After Tandemar was acquired by Ipsos in 2000, he went on to become Director of Global Product Development for Ipsos ASI, where he is also a member of the board. Gimme! The Human Nature of Successful Marketing is his first book.

Gimme! The Human Nature of Successful Marketing Published by Wiley ISBN 0-470-10029-X US $24.95 / CAN $29.99 / UK 16316.99 Available from booksellers everywhere or online at gimmebook.com and amazon.com