Sustainable sales tied to behavioral science

Early 20^th-century Philadelphia department store magnate John Wanamaker was famously quoted, “Half the money I spend in advertising is wasted; trouble is, I don’t know which half.” His expressed exasperation has stood the test of time and remains relevant today. Are you confident your marketing investments are firing on all cylinders? Are you sure the levels of engagement you expect are being achieved, especially in an era of extreme uncertainty when consumer attitudes and behaviors are shifting?

What Wanamaker didn’t have access to in his day were the significant achievements in insight into consumer mindset, an outcome of modern behavioral science. Now, we have a litmus test and series of steps that can be applied to design marketing programs that help erase the sense of gambling that can accompany consumer outreach investments.

• In this article we will map the journey to more effective marketing communication, a path that helps resolve Wanamaker’s dilemma.

The trouble begins at the front door of strategy when brands focus their messaging and tactics on themselves, their product features and benefits – and not on the aspirations, needs and wants of the consumer. Moreover, unless understanding of how people operate is factored in, the entire effort becomes more ‘luck of the draw’ than an informed, assured path to sustainable business growth.

The most important insight to consumer behavior that drives business results

Recent studies, including a report from Google on mastering consumer engagement, can be summarized in one over-arching conclusion that impacts how strategy is best formulated: Human beings consistently function on a predictable track to reduce or avoid taxing their brains. Researchers call this “releasing cognitive burden,” meaning people sidestep messaging that is perceived as complicated or too risky.

Marketing that is designed to help consumers with their DNA-driven efforts to make decisions easier and friction-free will lift the doubt – and help bring assured victory to outreach efforts. This is especially meaningful at a time when every single dollar spent on consumer outreach needs to perform like 10.

Understanding this path of least resistance, helps explain why emotion is more powerful than analytical storytelling to motivate outcomes and purchase behaviors. The remarkable processing that goes on underneath our cognitive radar is a form of editing that helps us preserve mental energy. The sub-conscious brain has greater influence over purchase decisions than we give it credit.

The recipe for engagement and improved outcomes

Three primary strategic components should be considered in planning, and three tools can be applied to ‘load the deck’ in your brand’s favor.

1. Message simplicity and clarity

What is the consumer-relevant problem you solve and how do you solve it? Consumers prefer brands that help them, that provide utility and are useful. The caveat here is a tendency for brands to complicate this communication with lengthy explanations of technology and formulation advantages. On the one hand it might be presented as reasons to believe but in reality, this just stresses the consumer’s brain so they ignore it.

Moreover, this approach puts the brand in the role of story hero, which embeds an immediate disconnect for the consumer. People see themselves as the hero of their life journey and the brand’s role should be positioned as their guide and coach.  This consumer perspective needs to be respected alongside the requirement to keep communication simple and crystal clear.

2. Power of social proof

Trust is an essential element of creating a relationship with consumers and moving from consideration to purchase. How trust is created has changed as consumers grow increasingly skeptical of promises and claims made by businesses. In sum, people believe other people first.

Social channel conversations and reviews are a primary driver of trust. This is why consumers will research product reviews and examine social channels to measure the veracity of what brands claim about their product attributes and benefits. The confidence they acquire from the endorsement of others works to simplify decision-making.

3. Authority bias

Alongside the importance assigned to consumer voices in social channels are the words and opinions of respected experts and influencers. Note the word respected here is extremely important. We have ample evidence that certain classes of influencer have grown less effective when they perform more like paid endorsements rather than authentic, independent guidance.

Editorial media, physicians, chefs/food experts, health and wellness gurus and others of similar credential can be enlisted to help educate consumers on the guardrails of how to define excellence and reliability. These views and opinions work as a form of believable shorthand to help remove risk and create comfort in moving consumers along the funnel.

Tactical tools to deploy alongside the strategic components

Behavioral research also confirms that human beings resonate to a small collection of tools that can work to help close the sale.

• Scarcity – we are hardwired for preference of anything that is in short supply and acquires greater perceived value because it is not abundant.

• Speed – a newly minted desire borne of the Internet age is our requirement to have needs satisfied quickly. If you can move from transaction to front door fast, that advantage helps close the deal.

• FREE – this is still a magic word. Engrained in our cultural heritage is respect for the concept of free. If you can include a bonus with purchase or some other value can be attached to the transaction at no cost – such that the word FREE is in the offering, it’s a compelling incentive.

The new age we are in and role of beliefs, values and mission

Another important strategic consideration is the emergence of shared values and mission as a component of preference. Research also confirms that consumers want their purchases to be a symbolic “flag” of their beliefs and what they think is important.

Higher purpose matters. Your ability to weave deeper meaning and a belief system into your brand promise and presentation is vital to sustainable growth. This is an evolutionary change that has been underway in earnest for more than five years. The pandemic has pushed the momentum under this cultural shift even further.

Prestige, wealth and other more materialistic attributes have fallen away while people now believe that brands have a role to play in making the world a better place. At a more personal level, they want to know how brands are acting in their best interests and helping them in tangible ways to achieve their life goals.

The rise of the “B” Corp is evidence of how this can play out when companies design their business to operate in service of others around issues of importance such as hunger, poverty and the environment.

Having a great product is table stakes now. Imbuing your brand and business with a higher purpose is a defining characteristic and quality consumers want. It is another piece of evidence that the company has a moral center, high standards, a value system, and thus can be trusted.

• All of these strategies and characteristics at a very human level operate as trust creators to ease the buying decision and dilute risk. This matters because human beings don’t want to burn mental calories with heavy analysis of information in order to get to a reliable decision to buy.

Your ability to remove risk and create trust is job one to build business. If you would benefit from guidance on how to bring these tools together for optimal impact and effect, please use this link to start a conversation about how we can help you do that.

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How are you deploying it?

The incredible disruption spawned by the global pandemic is creating an important opportunity to reframe the marketing conversation around your brand. During difficult times people are more receptive to brands making bolder moves. Uncertainty provides the latitude to experiment, in the context of answering cultural changes that are having a profound impact on how people view the world around them and what they care about in times of change.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Cultural shifts create influential moments when consumers are open to new ideas. Behavior change, which is hard to accomplish, becomes more attainable. What we know about people is the role that perceived risk has in their decisions. When a change is adopted by many, it can quickly become the default choice for the very reason human beings are a copying species. Popularity provides reassurance.

Permission operates in the same way. Witness what is happening now with work at home. Companies, especially in the tech sector, are making this a permanent adaptation and by virtue of doing so signaling a new acceptable default for how business will operate. If it were merely served up as an optional choice (as it has been for years!) the adoption curve falls immediately because of the perceived risks of not being in the office and any stigma that might accompany that perception. Companies that offer unlimited vacation see the same outcome as people don’t suddenly leave for extended periods for the same reasons – fear their career will be compromised and so the “choice” isn’t activated. Averting negative experiences is a highly motivating and universally common behavioral trait among consumers.

Human beings are hard-wired to avoid personal risk

The over-arching impact of COVID-19 on the value proposition of health and wellness moves the interest in healthy lifestyle from aspirational to practical to necessity. As we’ve said previously, Health is the New Wealth, essentially means there are life-maintaining, risk-mitigating reasons to shore up the immune system. This is having an impact on food and beverage brand growth in the coming year. The default for health and wellness has now changed – it’s visceral and existential. This also helps sponsor an emotionally charged marketing environment.

It’s important to note that humans are not governed by algorithms. We do not make decisions based on rational thus predictable assessments of facts. If we did, 1 + 1 = 2 could be applied to marketing activity with assured outcomes. Instead – we are feeling creatures who think and not thinking creatures who feel. Yet for some reason right alongside the birth of digital marketing platforms and the ability to amass data, we have become too preoccupied with marketing plumbing at the expense of paying closer attention to the (human behavior) water inside.

Psychological insights are simply more powerful and unilaterally effective than any form of technological or engineering advantage in products and service marketing. Said another way, a terrific well-designed product with subpar marketing behind it can fail – while a lesser product with better and more humanly relevant marketing strategies in support will win the race. How can this be? …Because now we can create high levels of satisfaction by knowing what truly ”floats the consumer’s boat,” more so than any advantage created by a less emotionally-compelling ingredient innovation or product feature.

Marketing is not a form of cosmetic surgery to apply a thin layer of magic fairy dust on the top of a product that succeeds on its own merits just because it is well crafted. Dyson vacuum was renowned as an engineering marvel, yet its suction power wasn’t really the big leap forward over other conventional models. Its sexy design created perceptions of new and modern (visual cue), while the ability to actually see dirt in a clear cup provided enormous levels of personal accomplishment and emotional satisfaction to people who could observe the outcome of their floor-cleaning efforts for the first time. The marketing behind Dyson was masterful in elevating the value of having one in the house as a symbol of being progressive and innovative while embracing the fashion of an edgy, differentiated design.

The most important move to make on the successful marketing path is….

Our job (and yours) is to identify the single most powerful motivation driving customer behavior in a client’s category. Armed with this understanding we place the consumer at the center of planning, working to apply our understanding of context, perceptions and emotions that are tied to their behaviors. We translate that insight into more effective communication.

Everyday people show their peculiarities, whims and irrational behaviors, wishes and fears. Armed with this knowledge we’re able to blaze new trails for brands that want to and can be more relevant to consumer needs. This happens because the brand’s deeper meaning and values now operate in sync with what people believe and care about.

In this unprecedented marketing environment, here are some questions to consider:

• How can your brand contribute to the cultural conversation going on right now?

• What are your users’ shifting attitudes about themselves?

• What higher purpose can your brand fulfill that matches the beliefs consumers value the most?

• With health and wellness now more important than ever to people, how does this play out in your strategic plan?

You have permission now to experiment outside the rational comfort zone, offering new reasons-to-believe that are tied to deeper meaning and values that transcend the product itself. A small example of the human emotional condition at work here: why is it that consumers perceive a car drives and performs better when it is clean? Not really rational is it!

We work to change the way people see your brand

Our role as creative communicators is to pay attention to the consumer who buys our clients’ product or service. Perception often leads reality and our job is to manage those perceptions, knowing that the reality is never far away in a digital world where anything that can be known, will be known.

The four horsemen of an effective strategic marketing plan are:

• Context (in which it is consumed)
• Environment (in which it is sold)
• Cultural setting (that drives surrounding beliefs)
• Who says it (the voice employed to build trust)

Harkening back to our earlier point about risk aversion and disaster avoidance, trust might be the most important consideration to directly address in the strategic plan. Trust drives purchase behavior. It can also disappear quickly if not managed with great care.

This explains why social media is such an important channel to deploy strategically. For the very reason the voices involved are consumers and not the company. People believe other people long before they’ll accept what a business claims about its product. Social proof serves as verification and validation of what you want people to understand and accept about your brand.

In a tough marketing environment, trusted brands will succeed and it doesn’t happen organically. Trust is acquired and earned over time. This is perhaps the most powerful argument for investing in brand building. Consumers trust those they know and believe. They also trust the wisdom of crowds and translate socially accepted choice as ‘vetted and approved’.

Now is the time to step beyond your comfort zone and consider bolder moves. If logic were the only defining path-to-purchase then every brand in a category would be on equal footing. However, that isn’t the case because logic doesn’t respect what we know about people and how they behave.

Your super power is the ability to embed context and relevance in brand communication. Emergent can help you navigate and design more engaging brand outreach and active social communities. Let us know if you’re interested in finding a fresh perspective.

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Emerging brand navigates change at the speed of a SpaceX rocket launch

Over the last five years there has been an unprecedented shift in food culture to favor new and emerging food brands. These new brands have found traction by reinventing existing food and beverage categories or creating new ones with elevated recipes, higher quality ingredients and an ethos to go with it.

When the pandemic suddenly descended like a quick-forming Hurricane headed on-shore, we watched in earnest to see how these bright upstarts would weather the storm. On the one hand, these new businesses often fulfill the desire for healthier options right out of the gate. On the other, as young organizations without the deep cash reserves of legacy counterparts they can be vulnerable.

Among the new brands Emergent has been following is PREVAIL jerky. PREVAIL was founded and is guided by Glen Kohn in Chicago, a financial services investment expert (understands the balance sheet) who had a personal penchant for jerky making that turned into his life passion.

Answering a prevailing trend of higher quality, better for you

PREVAIL has reinvented the jerky category with a truly clean formulation that rids the meat-centric snack option of unwanted preservatives, horrific sodium levels, added sugars and ingredients that food allergy sensitive consumers can’t stomach. What’s extraordinary is the taste and eating experience, an uncanny ‘secret sauce’ ability of Glen’s products to deliver a jerky sensory bite but without the toughness often associated with dried meats.

We wanted to find out how Glen and PREVAIL were faring as COVID-sponsored upheaval sent shockwaves through many businesses that are in early stages of their development and growth curve. Glen graciously answered five questions intended to gauge the impact of the pandemic. We include our observations and insights following Glen’s answers.

Five Questions for Glen Kohn and PREVAIL Jerky

1. In the last 60 days much has changed for emerging food and beverage brands. How has the pandemic impacted your business and what changes have you made in how you go-to-market?

Glen Kohn: “Many of our retail locations such as hotels, health clubs and coffee shops closed down at the start and some remain closed. Given what was happening around us in retail channels, we knew to retain our momentum we needed to pivot to online. On the ingredient supply side, we believed that beef prices would likely go up, so we got out ahead of the possible challenge in April and purchased 100% grass-fed beef to control our costs.” 

Emergent: What’s evident here was the quickness and resolve Glen and his team showed to get ahead of the shifts and do their best to keep the velocity moving. Especially important was the supply chain decision given the significant escalation in beef prices.

PREVAIL sells at a premium to other traditional category jerky brands. While the value proposition justifies the extra cost, in an uncertain economy, it is possible for price premium acceleration to hit a ceiling and generate resistance from users. Wisely Glen avoided the pricing meltdown. He also sidestepped taking a hit on slender margins by banking his supply.

2. What specific shifts, changes have you created to your sales and marketing strategies?

Glen Kohn: “We quickly shifted to go after more e-commerce retailers, corporate snack boxes, and B to B online platforms. We also saw a spike and increased interest in Affiliate programs. Dollars that were allocated to retail channel tastings and events were shifted to bolster PR and social media spend.”

Emergent: Food retail industry watcher and guide Brick Meets Click recently published a report showing online grocery transactions were up 18% from 62.5 million in April to an astounding 73.5 million in May. Also in May, household penetration reached 33% as 43 million consumers shopped e-commerce channels for food and beverage. This is way ahead of earlier food industry studies that forecasted household penetration on a much slower ramp, and offers proof that the pandemic has caused an inflexion point with online ordering. Out of necessity consumers have become more comfortable with this shopping behavior. Glen’s pivot to emphasizing e-commerce was a smart move.

Trust is at a premium these days and now more than ever, people rely on the recommendations of other consumers to inform their brand selection decisions. Social proof is the most important mechanism to validate what Glen wants the world to believe about his product efficacy and to encourage trial.

3. How have investors reacted to the COVID-19 situation and what do you think they’re looking for now from brands like yours?

Glen Kohn: “Food is definitely king now. As evidence, shelf stable, healthy snacks are booming. If anything, now is the time to invest in food and beverage brands while other industries such as travel and hospitality wrestle with systemic challenges to their business model post-pandemic. Investors will spend their money on businesses with strong ongoing sales traction.”

Emergent: Equity investors often point to company leadership and their business skills as a primary driver underneath their investment decisions. Glen approaches the business not just as a guy with passion and a great recipe, but also a business brain who isn’t hesitant to make decisions in the midst of uncertain conditions. Combined with better jerky category relevance and salience, you can see why Glen should continue to attract operating capital as he works to scale the enterprise. Stay-at-home conditions and protein snacking make great bedfellows. 

4. How do you see consumer priorities and behaviors changing as a result of the economic uncertainty and lifestyle impacts of the pandemic?

Glen Kohn: “Consumers are increasingly turning to healthy foods during the pandemic. The food industry is one of the only industries to surge during this time. People are snacking more throughout the day and they are looking for healthy alternatives that the whole family can enjoy.” 

Emergent: The pandemic has ushered in significant transformational changes in consumer attitude and behaviors. In our recent article, “Health is the New Wealth” we outlined the sea-change in the reshuffling of priorities and needs for people. The COVID-19 event has dramatically demonstrated how ‘out of control’ the world can be, upending every single aspect of life, lifestyle and career. What is the one thing people can control in a seemingly uncontrollable world? Their investments to enhance their own health and wellbeing through what they put in their bodies and active efforts to take better care of themselves.

A healthy immune system is at a big premium these days. Brands that actively partner and help guide consumers on their journey to healthier living have an extraordinary opportunity to build a lasting and sustainable relationship. Glen sees this and his company is positioned to take advantage of it.

5. What guidance would you offer to the founders and investors of new emerging brands that will help assure their continued development? What are the top three things you believe they should do to help ensure continued growth?

Glen: “From what we have heard and seen it’s best to diversify channel strategy and watch behavioral changes. We have seen brands that were primarily in one retail channel and were crushed when the country shut down.

• Be nimble.
• Cash is king.
• Don’t be afraid to take a chance.
• When the timing feels right be a first mover.” 

Emergent: During uncertain times when the future appears to be unpredictable and changes are occurring around you at unprecedented speed, occasionally fear can set in that causes businesses to turn inward and go dark as they “ride out the storm.” We have ample historical evidence that this is a recipe for disaster. Brands that continue to invest in their growth, in communication with consumers, that remain present and work quickly to adjust to the changes going on around them are likely to emerge in much better condition than those which retreat.

You can’t cut your way out of a recession. No question cash management and burn are fundamental business issues to address. That said, it is more important than ever to be a builder and as Glen says, a first mover.

A brand name that inspires consumers during uncertainty

PREVAIL is an interesting and compelling brand name. On a very visceral level it is aspirational to the consumer experience. People want to prevail over what looks at times to be insurmountable odds. This brand as guide, coach and expert authority can take the journey with consumers as a trusted source and resource.

The characteristics and drivers of successful brand building have changed as consumers seek deeper meaning and shared values with the brands they prefer. Equally, brands need to position themselves as partners in helping improve their consumers’ lives.

To help them prevail.

Emergent is expert in helping build new and emerging brands and businesses. If you’re looking for fresh ideas and perspective, let us know.

Editorial note: Emergent would like to express our heartfelt thanks to Glen Kohn for participating in this story. We appreciate his time and efforts to help inform the industry.

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Time to stop talking about wiping down surfaces

A veritable flood of email communication is heading outward by the minute from brands and retailers, serving mostly as a reminder of hygiene activity and safety practices. While doing so is certainly admirable, it abrogates the one maxim of effective communication that, now more than ever, must be observed to build consumer trust and relationship.

First, for clarity, we recommend the hygiene regimen focused emailing should cease. It serves only to remind people of the coronavirus threat. It is also placing the company at the center of the message rather than the consumer. Hygiene has its place, but not as a lead message.

Effective storytelling begins with observing these important criteria:

• How is my brand communication being helpful and useful to the consumer in the new conditions they find themselves?
• How can I help improve customers’ lives at a time when homebound stresses multiply, and families are living in isolation?
• What utility are you providing that earns permission for engagement and hence is seen as value-added rather than corporate interruption?

Successful communication places the consumer at the center of messaging

The consumer MUST be the hero of your messaging. Their needs, concerns, conditions and challenges are paramount at a time when anything else may be greeted as irrelevant or spam. Granted it’s important to provide information on safety practices and supply chain integrity. That said, you should lead content strategy with consumer-relevant stories over internal mandates.

What’s going on right now that informs messaging strategy:

1. People are homebound and contending with the growing stresses related to confinement, absence of lifestyle options and restricted social activity.
2. Children are out of school and disrupted from their learning routine and quality interaction with friends. Boredom is a real thing.
3. The home is the center of the universe and meal preparation activity becomes a never-ending call to action.
4. Online communication and contact are at a premium and is a threshold for engagement while screen time explodes.
5. Economic uncertainty bubbles underneath as people grow wary of the quarantine consequences for business and jobs.

What to convey in your outreach messaging:

• Be empathetic. Put the brand in league with consumer concerns during this time of crisis. A human, conversational voice is essential. Edit out corporate speak or self-promotion.
• Offers and generous incentives are important as a thank you and to help ease the stresses on family finances. This may sound like self-promotion but it isn’t. It’s just a well-timed reward.
• At no other time in the history of modern cultural change has health and wellness become more important. Now is the time to weigh in on stories aimed at helping people take better care of themselves, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. This is your higher purpose right now.
• The kitchen is now the center of the home universe. This is the time to become helpful on menus ideas, preparation hacks, e-commerce ordering tips, interactive cooking experiences with the kids, recipes, pantry stocking advice, food freshness guidance, home baking (the most challenging of culinary skills), and ways to take the drudgery out of home meal prep. Pivot to online cooking classes with your corporate chef.
• Time needs filling with activities that have more going for it than consuming massive quantities of Netflix programming. Here are some ideas, advice, guidance on activities and pursuits that take advantage of the extra down time:

Music

Art projects

Reading and learning; podcast listening is on a tear

Exercise, yoga and online experiences to promote same

Meditation, mental health and wellness

Home repair and refurbishment

Pet behavioral training

Interactive activities with pets

Spring housecleaning tips

Organization and decluttering the home

Games, puzzles, and other hands-on moments of home-based entertainment

Spring gardening

Online workshops for any of these

You may be asking what’s this got to do with my business, and the answer is, it’s about them and how marketing becomes useful to people in extraordinary conditions.

Unselfishness is put to the test

Ample evidence exists that earning trust and belief is best served when the consumer believes you are genuinely concerned about them and improving their lives. At its core this requires a move towards a less selfish form of marketing that puts their intrinsic needs first.

Given the incredible circumstances in which we find ourselves, this axiom is more important than ever. Reciprocity is the guiding principle that should help direct your strategic thinking. When the brand becomes an enabler, guide and coach, you are seeding the opportunity for a welcomed and appreciated relationship.

This will require a reorientation from traditional command and control forms of marketing. However, the more enlightened approach will put your brand in position to engage at a time when there are fewer distractions. People are looking for the voices that provide useful guidance in these uncertain times.

If you need help in navigating the right message and content, we’re here to assist.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.