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Around 80% of all the decisions we make are made subconsciously.
Why is that important? Because there is a 51% correlation between a brand first mentioned and the brand chosen/purchased.
However, that doesn't mean all you have to do is generate 'brand awareness' to be successful.
Brand awareness has little to do with brand understanding or preference.
To achieve that, we need to get into people's subconscious and stay there.
How does that happen?
Ponder this...
“We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit”
– Aristotle
“Our circumstances are the result of our thinking. Therefore, to change our circumstances, we must first change our thinking”.
- Albert Einstein
These are well known observations on human nature, philosophy, psychology - call it what you will.
Application of observations made in social sciences provide a crucial link to understanding the process of creating desire for a brand.
It is now pretty well accepted in informed marketing circles that ‘Brand awareness’ is not enough. It has little to do with influencing behaviour.
So what does a brand need if it’s not more awareness?
What does it need to be relevant, integral to a consumer’s life choices/behaviour?
A brand needs ‘Salience’.
(from the latin ‘salire’ – to leap. In architecture and geometry, it means to protrude. To jut out.)
Research suggests that the higher the salience of the brand in mind, the lower the prospect of brand defection.
Put simply, if your brand doesn’t come to mind in a meaningful way, it not likely to be considered.
Or in other words, a successful brand, a salient brand is context sensitive.
Context is important to brand salience.
Ask someone to name a brand of soft drink you may get a different answer depending on the context – if they’re in a bar, or on a beach, it’s a cold day, a warm evening, they're entertaining or simply quenching themselves. The brands and the order in which they mention them are likely to differ.
Marketers put a lot of emphasis on measuring ‘brand awareness’ in the belief that it provides an accurate indictation of purchase intent.
Yet each of us know from our own experience, life just isn't that simple.
If a brand appears vague in what it represents, it's not very likely to be considered is it?
However, by familiarising ourselves some of the findings of social sciences regarding understanding subconscious behaviour, we can take into consideration how the brain manages incoming information when consider developing 'brand salience'.
Everything we think, do and feel begins in the mind.
However, the mind or brain is not a simple, mono-form vessel…..like a bucket.
It is a multi-layered organ. Like an onion!
The outer layer – the Conscious bit – says, we know what we think and we can explain our thinking.
The middle layer – the pre-conscious – says, we understand our feelings and predjudices but are not willing to explain them.
The inner layer – the subconscious – says, we are not only unaware of our true attitudes and feelings, but we would not discuss them if we could.
This is where the real you resides, the true you, the YOU that even YOU cannot manipulate or deceive.
Right here, I am compelled to quote Bart Simpson (on the subject of smoking):
“No, I don’t know why I did it,
I don’t know why I enjoyed it,
and no, I don’t why I will do it again”.
In his book Straw Dogs, John Gray suggests that the difference between humans and other species is not our capacity to reason. There are plenty of examples in the animal kingdom that demonstrate 'reason'. No, Gray says it is our incessant need to find meaning in everything around us, that sets us apart.
Targeting human 'conscious' behaviour achieves little.
Why? Because, it is not likely to receive a truly authentic response.
Like Bart Simpson, we don't always know why we feel the way we do. Sometimes it's to do with survival and other times it's about reward. Or a bit of both.
The deeper a thought gets into our brain/our psyche, the more emotive/unconscious the response is from the ‘real you/me/us’.
Let’s substitute an onion for the real thing and get technical.
Anotomically speaking, we are talking about this particular organ …….
In the surrounding HIPPOCAMPUS – all information is received via:
Eyes - visual
Nose - olfactory
Ears - audible
Taste - gustatory
Touch - kinostatic
This is processed through the Hippocampus …….and that’s where it is retained (albeit temporarily) until it is forgotten or it passes into the tiny, central
AMYGDALA where it is retained (pretty much) for good.
But, guess what? It takes 2 long years for a piece of information to obtain permanent residence in the Amygdala. This is the deep subconscious part of the brain. But once in, it is unlikely for it to ever disappear from recall.
So, if it takes 2 years to get your idea, your brand, into that precious little spot, why bother?
THIS IS THE 'BIG BECAUSE' ...
As I said at the top of this page, around 80% of all decisions we make are made subconsciously. In other words, we are primarily driven by our emotions. It's instinctive. It's primal. It's Darwinian.
THAT’S A VERY BIG BECAUSE, because
If we manifest our subconscious through our emotions, then...
- emotions inform, help us to articulate our needs and aspirations
- emotions limit reasoning
- emotions are hard to hide (especially from ourselves)
- emotions enhance recall of experiences/events
We are ruled by our emotions.
Bob Ashwood 11 Rendezvous Street, Folkestone, Kent, CT20 1EY t: 07704 325188
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