The psychology of choice.
Why we buy what we buy, and why we leave the rest on the shelf.
Choice defines us. Choice baffles us. Choice blinds us.
The brain is built to sift through hundreds of choice variables. Processing millions of pieces of information from the world around us to help us recognise people, places, objects and emotions, to decipher what is in front of us, beside us and behind us, what is nearby and far away, under our fingers our noses and in our periphery.
From all this data processing, decisions are made at breakneck speed, many of which we are unaware of or attribute to something as intangible as instinct.However, by focusing on how and why the brain does this, we can unlock the potential for brands to stand out from the information cluttering our senses, and get chosen by more people, more often.
The Uncomplicated Brain
The brain is binary. Things are, or they are not.It is built to recognise patterns to help sort lots of data points into things that are, and things that are not. Like binary code. You can see this in our physiology and how we simplify our choices: left or right; up or down; right or wrong. Which is why eye witnesses are so unreliable - and why brand logos and a product’s silhouette can be so iconic and important - we recognise the outline of objects at a glance and infill in the rest.
We have powerful memories that make up the gaps in information with data points familiar to us, that resemble what we have in front of us. Impressions, if you will, like a 3D printer that build to a memory.This is what people see as your brand, often imprinted on your logo.
For brands to stand out it is about making impressions for us that are powerful and positive so we can draw on them readily. Part of this is about advertising, but a larger part is about the experiences we have with brands; the senses it awakens, the feelings it engenders and the way it interacts with us as individuals, as well as part of our familial and social networks.
After all, the brain can only cope with so much. It is adept at sorting, filtering, and deselecting subconsciously so we only have to actually think about a fraction of the things we see, hear, smell, touch and taste.
When you think about it, of over 5000 brand messages we are exposed to every day very few are even considered, let alone responded to.
So what should brands do to get chosen, to move off the shelf and into shoppers’ baskets? In simple terms, create impact, be clear why you are there and what you stand for.
Getting that right… well that is a longer story.
Sources & Inspiration:
Weber Shandwick/Canvas 8, The Science of Engagement White Paper
Amos Tversky/Daniel Kahneman, The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice. Scientific Paper
Thom Noble, Neuroscience in practice, Admap Paper, March 2013
Dan Ariely, Predictably IrrationalMark Earle, I'll Have What She Is Having; HerdHerb Sorenson, Inside the Mind of the Shopper
Barry Schwartz, the Paradox of Choice
Malcolm Gladwell, Blink
Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing
Jonah Lehrer, How We Decide
Edmund Husseri’s works on Phenomenology
