- Email: [email protected]
Tell me no lies: Using science to connect with consumers
MARKETPLACE TELL ME NO LIES: USING SCIENCE TO CONNECT WITH CONSUMERS Dan Hill f
ABSTRACT Traditionally, we have viewed purchasing as a fundamentally rational process and have sought to persuade customers using reasonbased features, attributes, and benefits marketing strategies. Market research testing has followed a parallel path, seeking logical verbal explanations to analyze consumers’ motivations. However, major findings in brain research over the last decade have altered our understanding of how we, as consumers, make decisions— suggesting that our most immediate “gut” reactions take place in the emotion center of the brain rather than in the rational neocortex. This article explores the key science concepts that are guiding us toward an approach to marketing that has more heart, that is more mind– body centered than cognitive. Specific research tools will be introduced along with strategic, psychological perspectives on direct-mail and Internet marketing.
© 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. f JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003 Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/dir.10068
61
DAN HILL is president of Sensory Logic, Inc., a scientific consumer insights firm that specializes in gauging both verbal and nonverbal subconscious reactions to marketing communications, store environments, product design, packaging, and presentation. Sensory Logic is located in St. Paul, MN; e-mail: [email protected]
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
FIGURE 1
Fundamental Shift
INTRODUCTION: TRULY ENTERING THE MINDS OF CONSUMERS
Walt the artist-as-businessperson was intuitively at ease with the central role that instinct, emotions, and visual imagery play for all of us as consumers. So in creating the first of his theme parks, what Walt did was create a park that is really a walk-through movie. The famous Disney characters such as Goofy and the others as well as the rides, Main Street USA, and the rest all serve as background props for the movie our eyes “make” as we move through the park. While previous scientific thought and business thinking harken back to the Enlightenment era and Descartes’ famous dictum, “I think, therefore I am,” Walt created a fresh business model based instead on the dictum, “I perceive, therefore I am.” As discussed more fully in Body of Truth: Leveraging What Consumers Can’t or Won’t Say (Hill, 2003), there are six key concepts that should deservedly reorient the thinking of the business world so that companies can catch up to the revelations Walt had already put into action half a century ago.
Over the past 15 years, scientists have learned more about the human brain—and therefore the psyche of consumers—than over the entire previous course of history. In general, however, most of the new scientific insights have not yet been leveraged by companies intent on optimizing their brand marketing efforts. So marketers and market researchers, in particular, stand to gain from understanding the new emerging, scientific consensus about how consumers make decisions. The shift involved is so large that to call it a “paradigm shift” is not adequate; it is more like Copernicus’s revelation that the earth goes around the sun rather than vice versa because the new insights fundamentally challenge our sense of who we are and how we operate. Figure 1 lists four individuals who could be considered the prototypical representatives of how the movement of science and business has been in tandem. But who was the first businessperson to leverage the new insights that brain science offers and that I am about to discuss? His name was Walt Disney. As he moved from cartoons to movies to creating Disneyland, JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
1. The subconscious dominates. Cognitive scientists conservatively estimate that at ●
62
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
TELL ME NO LIES
lected from consumers in a nonverbal manner.
least 95% of our thought processes are not fully conscious. Conscious thought is like the tip of an iceberg, with most of what is happening for us below the surface of the water (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). Thus, we are much less in control of our decision making than we might think. For marketers, this means that appealing on a conscious basis to consumers may not be the ideal strategy. A factory-oriented mentality often means assuming that consumers will appreciate a product’s features in a rational, consciously calculated what-this-offerdoes-for-me basis. In contrast, science is suggesting that more likely it is an impulsive, subconscious, emotional assessment of what-the-offer-means in classic “What’s in it for me?” (WIFM) style. As for researchers, the dominant role of the subconscious casts renewed doubt on the efficacy of relying solely on self-report scores such as those used in Internet surveys, clipboard questionnaires, focus groups, and other similar mediums.
3. More than half the brain is devoted to processing visuals. In evolutionary history, visual acuity has insured human survival. Early man relied predominately on visual clues to determine safety or threat, friend or enemy, and adequate food supply or scarcity. Sight has become the most developed of our senses, accounting for as much as 80% of how we learn about the world around us. So sophisticated is our vision that the rods and cones in our eyes have very specific functions—making it possible to see the panoramic big-picture view as well as to telescope in on fine detail. And the human eye can distinguish 7,000,000 colors (www.colormatters.com, 2002). Perhaps the human brain has developed so extensively around perceiving and interpreting images because twothirds of stimuli reaching the brain are visual. Understanding and utilizing our visual orientation is absolutely essential to generate effective marketing and marketing research practices.
2. Most communication experts agree that at least two-thirds of communication is nonverbal, a percentage that jumps to 90% when the topic has some emotional weight to it. In terms of evolution, humans developed the capacity for verbal communication relatively late in the game. Communicating with words only became possible with the development of the neocortex, the most recently evolved part of the brain that is capable of processing abstract thought. Until then, the species relied on sensory signals to assess and gestures to communicate. According to Edward T. Hall (1981) in The Silent Language, there are ten primary modes that humans use to communicate, and only part of one of those modes involves actual verbal language. Verbal communications are routinely influenced by nonverbal signals we deem to be more credible. So marketing and marketing research can capitalize by exploring the ways in which information can optimally get dispensed to and colJOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
4. We think in images, not words. The brain evolved over time in a series of stages. Scientists refer to the brain as triune, acknowledging the three phases of brain development along with their overlapping, but separate, functions. The limbic brain— center of sensory mechanisms (as well as emotional processes)—first started to distinguish itself from the reptile brain with the advent of mammals. The limbic brain takes in information through the senses and is the part of the brain where dreams occur. It processes visually. The limbic brain was in operation for millennia before the learning brain (neocortex) evolved. Language, because it is a system of abstract symbols, was possible only after the development of the learning brain. We are hard wired to think in images, not words. So again, both marketing and marketing research can improve by no longer adhering to strategies that rely implicitly ●
63
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
FIGURE 2
High Road/Low Road
sensory input prior to any conscious thought. The “low road” is crucial because it dominates the high road three ways over. The first is that on this low road emotional response happens first. There is a neurological “dirty back alley” by which the signal travels quickly to our amygdala: Our emotional hot button, of which we have two, for the amygdala is actually composed of a pair of almond-shaped-and-sized parts of the “middle brain.” The low road typically gets traveled within 3’s—the equivalent, in football terms, of “hut hut hike” (Goleman, 1995). Thus, this low-road response happens before the high-road reaction can kick in because the high road takes a longer path from the middle brain to the larger, more rationally oriented brain. Second, the low-road reaction can largely “eclipse” the high-road reaction if the emotions involved are strong enough. Third, even the high road curls back, neurologically speaking, to the amygdala, adding an extra dollop of the emotional to the process before it ends. So, the low road is king. And marketing and marketing research can benefit from remembering that an emotional response
on the notion that all the text in a directmail letter, Web site page, or other marketing medium will actually get read. 5. We feel before we think. The traditional scientific view held that emotion comes after both conscious and unconscious thought processing, yielding to the larger, rationally oriented learning brain. However, research by LeDoux (1995) into fear circuitry suggests the opposite. He proposed that there are, in the emotional decision-making process, two possible routes—a high road which processes primarily through the learning brain and a low road that processes primarily through the limbic brain—that we unconsciously travel in response to external events. Figure 2 shows how incoming stimuli first get filtered through the hippocampus, the screening device for the psyche, which filters the sensory input for interest and relevancy. Anything of any emotional significance or networked to familiar associations gets in; information deemed worthless by the hippocampus never gets routed by the thalamus to either the conscious, learning brain—the high road— or the sensory/emotion-based leopard (limbic) brain—the low road—which responds to JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
64
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
TELL ME NO LIES
panies verify the extent and quality of the sensory– emotive connection that they should be trying to forge with consumers. The value of using psychophysiological testing methodologies is that consumer insight researchers really can get access to and measure nonverbal body response. The goal of any marketing initiative is to break through the clutter, to pass through the revolving door of the hippocampus and be routed on, maybe fused with other associations, and retained because the new information is fresh, strong, or relevant. In a world where people typically experience over 3,000 advertising messages daily (Schenk, 1997), the hippocampus has neither the time nor the inclination to await rational analysis of every stimulus. An offer has one shot at getting in, its fate decided in a fraction of a second, subconsciously. So testing methods that track fleeting sensory– emotive responses can respond to the question “How on target is the offer in hitting a hot button?” because an emotional hot button is the target. Two tools Sensory Logic uses are able to take away the mask, to get beyond the “lies” or halftruths that consumers might provide either because they do not know their own subconscious thoughts or are not willing or able to articulate what they do know on a conscious basis. These two tools measure both immediate “gut” reaction and sustained likeability, integrating both subconscious and conscious response into their analyses. Gut reaction is measured as impact— the degree of engagement generated by an offer. Appeal is an offer’s likeability; it measures preference. Beyond greater reliability, another benefit of psychophysiological testing is that it is globally applicable. Much research has been conducted to verify that sensory and emotive responses are not culturally specific, but universal. These two tools can be introduced as follows: Biofeedback gauges our initial sensory reactions to marketing efforts, products, or retail setting among other stimuli; facial coding can best be used to gauge emotional responses to those same stimuli or to a range of questions that might be posed regarding a company and its branded offer.
can move “up” and get confirmed on a rational basis. But a rational response will never drop “down” with force to acquire an emotional response. Therefore, asking people to talk about their feelings (a rational, thought-based process) is unlikely to have the same weight or validity as organically experienced feelings. 6. We forget 60% of what we learn in half a day (Ebbinghaus, 1992). The brain makes the fundamental decision about whether to store new information in memory in one of two ways. And, again, the decision to save or discard a piece of information rarely involves conscious, rational thought. One mode sends new sensory data to the amygdala, when incoming information has emotional significance. It hits a hot button and gets stored because the sensory input is fresh, strong, and relevant. The other mode, recognizing the input as related to what we already know, assimilates it. This second path might seem to be essentially rational. But building a web of associations that provides a context for the new information begins with input that makes an emotional connection. Thus, in marketing terms, getting something “new” to register will tend to work best if the offer can be advertised in such an manner that it either has emotional “heat” or can be related to the familiar, to something we already know (Cowley & Underwood, 1998).
NEW TOOLS: USING SCIENCE TO GAUGE MARKETING EFFORTS Based on the six key concepts discussed earlier, I would like to introduce two unique, scientific tools for conducting marketing research that both align well with those concepts. In each case, the tool is meant to adhere to Walt Disney’s “I perceive, therefore I am” model of seeking to understand and enhance what exactly is the consumer’s true experience of an (advertised) offer. The two psychophysiological (mind– body) tools in question can help comJOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
65
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
Why Biofeedback? Biofeedback best suits the special requirements involved in gauging consumers’ sensory reactions to marketing stimuli because it is distinctively sensitive to quick, transitory reactions. Biofeedback offers a good means of capturing sensory response data in real time and on a spontaneous, largely subconscious level. Moreover, it is very objective and precise, and provides highly actionable data. And it can address both the impact and appeal of whatever branded offer concept, product, or marketing execution is being tested. Broadly, biofeedback is a blend of psychology, biology, and electronics. It is most commonly used by psychologists to help patients improve their ability to cope with stress. The psychologist will monitor a person’s biorhythms to help change his/her functional behavior. Biofeedback practitioners are employed by the Mayo Clinic and the majority of the country’s other leading medical research institutions as well as by NASA, which has found it helpful in training astronauts. When applied to business, biofeedback is perhaps more appropriately thought of as biosensing because it is being used not to change or control but instead to measure sensory responses. In that regard, biofeedback can be thought of as turning the telescope around. The intention is to gauge the health—not of the patient but of the corporate stimulus. Biofeedback does so using the body’s own natural electricity. It measures impact in terms of skin conductance level (SCL) by placing sensors on the fingers to record the degree to which a stimulus arouses interest. That level is gauged through the electrical correlate of sweat-gland activity because sweat contains salts that make it electrically conductive. SCL increases in a linear relation to the number of activated sweat glands and is measured by the amount of electrical current that the skin will allow to pass in units known as mhos. Appeal is gauged via electromyography (EMG) by attaching small, noninvasive electrodes onto the face. These skin readings track how much a person likes or dislikes a stimulus by measuring the electrical correlates JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
of smile (zygomatic) and frown (corrugator) facial muscle contractions. EMG measures the electrical energy given off by the nerves that signal a muscle to contract, with the appropriate electrical unit being the microvolt (i.e., one millionth of a volt). This tool allows researchers to access, in real time, the true sensory reactions of consumers before those reactions are translated and reorganized by the rational, learning brain. The importance of such access is that there is, as the saying goes, no second chance to make a first impression. In scientific terms, the question of which sensory impressions get taken in by us and fed to the amygdala, our emotional thermometer, sets into motion the decision-making process.
Why Facial Coding? Darwin was one of the earliest to recognize that humans are social creatures whose faces reveal and communicate emotions—whether we know it or not. In social interactions, we learn from and interpret other people’s nonverbal signals. Human response to any stimulus is, in fact, likely to be accompanied by a revealing facial expression. All of these factors contribute to making facial coding a robust research tool. Facial coding is used to measure consumers’ emotional response to stimuli. Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen, who developed the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), first systematically studied facial coding in the 1960s. FACS is now used in psychiatry, by both the FBI and CIA for security purposes, and by computer animators at production companies such as DreamWorks. FACS is based on the facial muscle movements that accompany facial expression because consistent correlates have been found in expressions across cultures. An action unit (AU) is defined as the minimum visible, anatomically based muscle activity involved in the movement of the face. There are 43 identified AUs located across the face’s three regions: (a) brow and forehead; (b) eyes, eyelids, bridge of nose; and (c) cheeks, nose, mouth, chin, and jaw. A facial expression is described in terms of the particular AU that singly or in combination ●
66
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
TELL ME NO LIES
execution. How the list is understood needs to be revisited because it is not who they are but what they are deep inside that matters most. As Walt Disney knew in creating a theme park meant to resonate with his “guests” at a deeper, emotional level, the key is to plan on how the sensory “clues” or details will then set up the emotional response. In Walt’s terminology as a former cartoonist and movie maker used to thinking box by box, frame by frame, the key question becomes: “What’s the end frame?” In other words, what is the emotional deliverable at the end of the consumer’s experiential sequence? So in planning Main Street, USA, for instance, Walt drew on his childhood memories of small-town life in Kansas because he (correctly) believed that at least the myth of bucolic lives lived in close-knit communities would resonate deeply with his fellow Americans. In contrast, demographic, even psychographic, profiles run the risk of being insufficiently intimate and, therefore, insufficiently actionable in terms of achieving results. It offers a start, but the danger lies in capturing merely external sign posts in terms of understanding what matters most—and the most deeply—for the targeted audience. Now, don’t get me wrong. Demographic and psychographic information provides an outline: It gives you the list, a means of segmenting—a means of determining which slices of the general public are deemed most feasible in terms of achieving greater market penetration. You cannot conduct a test with everyone, so choices have to be made, and demographic profiles provide a means of making choices. Nevertheless, once research participants have been identified, recruited, and are onsite, new means need to be explored to gain a richer, deeper understanding of how they are likely to respond. The new scientific model of consumer decision making is sense–feel–(think)– do. In direct-mail terms, this translates as follows: The sensory stage is certainly essential. After all, a direct marketer has probably about 3 seconds in which to get the mail recipient sufficiently interested so that he or she will open the envelope and discover its contents—and biofeedback can be instrumental in determining whether a via-
with other units produces facial movement. FACS has determined which of these AUs constitute the expression of seven basic emotions: sadness, anger, happiness, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt. False versus genuine smiles can be detected because they use different muscles. In consumer-research applications, study participants are videotaped either during oneon-one interviews or while viewing or experiencing the stimulus being tested. A second-by-second analysis of the videotape is then conducted to reveal the AUs that can be reliably distinguished when a facial movement is inspected repeatedly in stopped and slowed motion. Full expressions last only a few seconds, on average. There also are “microexpressions,” with involuntary muscle movement “leakage” that will often reveal in a fraction of a second what the subject is actually feeling. Impact is assessed by capturing the frequency of the emotions reflected in the participants’ faces during the interview. Appeal reflects the sum of the positive versus negative (micro)expressions that were revealed. Like biofeedback, facial coding is not influenced by gender, racial, or cultural differences. Facial muscle activity correlates to specific emotions the same way in New York and New Guinea. The global applicability of this tool makes it tremendously useful in marketing research.
GUIDELINES: WHAT THE TOOLS REVEAL AS SUCCESSFUL Our testing for the applications of direct-mail and Internet marketing reveals several key patterns to bear in mind to be successful. Therefore, strategically oriented, psychological perspectives on these two marketing media provide a conclusion. However, it should of course be noted that both media typically work as part of multichannel marketing campaigns, so rarely if ever are they operating alone in today’s business climate.
Direct Mail In direct mail, the great truism is that it is the list, then the offer, and only then the creative JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
67
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
ble level of initial engagement will be reached. Second, the emotional response also must be adequate to then make the call the action happen. And here, the use of facial coding can help to determine whether the offer—as communicated—has reached the heart of what turns on the recipient. In other words, does it “ring their bell?” Getting the right people is important (the
list). But closing the deal by forging a quick, impulsive sensory– emotive connection with the list is even more important. In this regard, science has now brought us new insights by which companies can profit. The degree to which our decision-making process is subconscious and emotionally driven by the leopard brain’s amygdala shows that the
Psychophysiological Research: An Application Example Sensory– emotive testing has a variety of marketplace applications. Tests often measure consumer response to advertising campaigns in print and television commercials, record conscious and unconscious reactions as consumers walk through stores or restaurants or watch a movie, or discover positive and negative response to new products. This methodology has been used successfully for pretesting direct mail. A sample research project was completed for a client interested in determining which envelope design had the best chance of being opened, how envelope/letter formats compared to less traditional formats such as self-mailers, and how to improve direct-mail pieces to generate greater consumer response to the offer. The search project involved 40 participants (a projectable sample size), with testing done in two locations to reduce geographic bias. Individual interviews, averaging 30 minutes, were conducted for three to ten stimuli. Participants in the study, when interviewed, were given an explanation of the testing procedure and then were prepared for biofeedback. Sensors were placed on two fingers and on the face. Biofeedback readings were taken during the initial viewing of the direct-mail samples (stimuli). This first-sight response (“curb appeal”) is critical in measuring impact—the degree to which a stimulus engages the viewer, who may not even be conscious of any sensory reaction. After viewing each item, the interviewees were shown the stimuli again and videotaped while commenting on them. Videotape of subjects’ verbal responses was later analyzed using facial coding. These data yield information about a more sustained reaction than that measured earlier with biofeedback (i.e., the degree of emotional buy-in). Specific facial muscle activity noted in conjunction with thoughts being verbalized clearly indicated to what degree the viewers liked the direct-mail item about which they were speaking, thereby determining the offer’s appeal. By the end of the interview, data had been collected by means of biofeedback, facial coding, self-report scores, and verbal response. It was analyzed in multiple ways to draw conclusions and present the client with actionable results. Recommendations were made regarding the relative strength of individual direct-mail pieces. The value of psychophysiological testing was proven in this scenario by reactions to one of the direct-mail pieces. Almost half of those interviewed said they found the creative approach, which was minimalist and had low production values, boring. However, the scientific methodologies revealed that the piece was generating strong negative emotions, but with high impact. This outcome resulted in the outer envelope being opened, despite the stated impression of interviewees that the creative approach was uninteresting. Traditional testing methods would not have revealed that this piece, surprisingly, could be used effectively. The piece would be read as boring, and the creative perceived as invisible. The research showed that this approach got interviewees’ emotions going, although the creative had a negative effect on brand equity. A self-mailer that was part of this same research had on its cover a collage of 13 people. Reviewing the videotapes, it was learned that the cover had no focal point for the interviewees’ eyes. This resulted in the likelihood of both low opening and readership for the self-mailer. The insight gained was that creative that lacks arresting imagery risks not breaking through the clutter of communications that consumers are confronted with daily. In this case, sensory– emotive research helped the marketer learn why some approaches lead to better results while other approaches were destined for lower response rates.
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
68
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
TELL ME NO LIES
radio, the World Wide Web is intimate. We surf the Internet in a private world that provides us with a feeling of discreet distance and security. So the one-on-one quality of radio is something the Internet shares—and expands on by being able to turn a simulated conversation into a true dialogue through interactive Web sites. Like print, the Internet has, of course, imagery, headlines, and text. Like print ads, reliance on heavy text rarely invites interest. Like outdoor advertising, most of us zoom by the pages on a Web site, granting them about as much opportunity to grab our attention as we have time for with the typical billboard along the highway. A visual, a handful of words, and it is done. Finally, even more crucial as a point of comparison in critiquing Web sites are retail environments, or more specifically, fast-food restaurants. They are the epitome of instant gratification. Simple floor plans, a menu board we can absorb fairly quickly, and fast service. We are a species that, through evolution, has learned to equate survival and comfort with being able to gain a quick, reliable sense of whether a given vista or situation presents promise or peril— or is of no real, meaningful consequence. In short, we want to be readily oriented. The truth is that most Web-site designers could gain a lot of insight by hanging around McDonalds. Food served up hot and fast, wrapped like tiny presents. It may not be especially nutritional, but little bites will do the trick so nobody chokes. The biggest enemy a Web site has is often itself: too much (empty) content. And getting around within most Web sites is not nearly as easy as it should be. Facilitate grab and go, and be friendly about it. Slow-to-load video and top-heavy pages are losers, lacking immediacy. People will not wait or scroll down. Design your Web pages with easy access in mind, comparable to fast-food locations near interstate on/off ramps. On the Internet, let us get on and off the information highway quickly and without the distress of getting lost either before or after we come through the door. At present, Internet usability testing tends to focus most readily on the number of “errors” the participants make in navigating the site. In
outer layer of cultural and socioeconomic factors do not reach nearly as deep as do the psychological factors inherent to the species. Getting a better read on the target audience’s inner voice lets a company decide who gets its message. But that’s not all: It also lets the company plan when, where, and how the message gets delivered to hit the right emotional buttons. The other unavoidable truism is that most people sort their mail into three piles: important, kind of interesting, and trash. Getting through the clutter with an offer so interruptive that it results in action is key. But getting attention by shouting signals junk mail. Once perceived as junk mail, it has no chance of overriding the clinical learning brain and, instead, securing an emotional connection. Survivors of the initial sort are successful most likely because they offer either the positive WIFM of hope or the negative WIFM of fear. It is a heaven-or-hell dynamic. There are, obviously, qualifiers here. If the hellish trick is too manipulative, it is sure to offend. In contrast to TV spots, high production quality direct mail can get you in trouble because instead of conveying status and credibility, as is true on TV, slick is like shouting and can signal junk mail. But strive for stickiness because the longer the recipient lingers with the mailer, the better your odds at success. Think of the long, winding road of hope that sweepstake entrants travel, following complicated instructions. Is theirs a rational response? No, their involvement is really something else: It is generated by deep and imaginative yearning, far from the logical mind.
Web Sites The Internet is a medium still shaking itself out. It is new enough that suggesting what the rules are may not be as valuable as comparing it to media we know more about. Like TV, it is a highly visual medium. It requires dominant imagery to grab and guide us. Unlike TV program viewing in which time slows down, the Internet is more like channel surfing. We get involved setting our own compressed pace—we click onto the next page when we want to do so. Like JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
69
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
FIGURE 3
Convergent Analysis
keting to those consumers, and in business that is what it is all about. Figure 3 compares six design options. Options F and C were supposedly the big winners, at least on a conscious, rational basis (see triangles in the upper right “preference zone” quadrant). But F had the lowest sensory, biofeedback results, and C was unexceptional. F and C were appeal winners for emotion-gauging facial coding, but participants did not find these options engaging (low impact scores). B is worth the extra look because its biofeedback and facial coding scores show good impact and decent appeal.
that respect, testing runs the risk of becoming an exercise in watching the participants type. Of greater interest and value to companies, however, should be the ability to, once again, understand the emotional “end frame” of what the participants’ experience is of the site. Whether it is how well the subject line grabs somebody in an e-mail blast to how well the home page generates initial intrigue and establishes relevancy and credibility, more needs to be done to get to the heart of consumers’ experience. Greater engagement for consumers will almost inevitably mean greater profits for the companies marJOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
70
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
TELL ME NO LIES
Test Results Convergent analysis considers the individual scores from biofeedback (body), facial coding (heart), and self-report (mind) in combination with each other to provide an overall performance statement for each stimulus. By its nature, convergent analysis compares each entry against others in the group with which it was tested. The convergent ranking is established by evaluating the triangles formed by the three individual scores for each of the entries and by determining the most optimally positioned triangle. A “tighter” triangle indicates that the reliability of the analysis is very high. The placement of the triangle within the chart reveals the strength of the stimulus. A placement in the upper right-hand quadrant (the Preference Zone), indicating high impact combined with high appeal, is usually ideal. Sensory Logic’s research has validated some perceptions of traditional direct mail, and indicated why some well-worn techniques for getting mail opened often have the opposite effect that marketers intend. One such category is called “Shouting for the moment.” When target prospects are shown direct-mail packages with teaser copy that ranks as high impact but with offers or messages that do not pay off on that impact, the creative has no appeal (neither high nor low appeal). Our research indicates that approach will not move the response meter off the dime. Another category is called a “Trough.” Here the teaser copy and/or design may be off the mark, poorly constructed, or the wrong groups targeted. This kind of package does not break through clutter. Our research ranks “Trough” efforts as having no impact and no appeal. Even Michael Jordan could not score baskets from the bench! The last category is one that often gets the strongest negative reaction. These packages are characterized by tricking the reader into them, for example, by using an official or government look-alike envelope. Our research consistently ranks them as combining high impact with very low appeal. Sensory Logic calls this combinaJOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
tion a “Poison Pill,” with evidence that it has a strong “fear factor.” This design makes the recipients feel that they have to open the envelope to avoid unpleasant repercussions. Naturally, the “fear factor” applies more strongly to the envelopes than to the letters, which will likely be discarded if the recipient feels manipulated into reading them. Most methods for measuring consumer response to visual stimuli such as direct-mail advertising are based on an outdated assumption that decisions related to these stimuli are driven by rational human thought. Because response to direct mail happens so quickly, and in unconscious thought, most people simply cannot verbalize why they did or did not open the mail. The bottom-line benefits of using this unique methodology are found in two key areas: 1. Reducing acquisition costs through more effective marketing communications (creative): (a) Sensory– emotive research ensures that the most effective pieces are mailed. Attitudinal (verbal) responses to the direct-mail stimuli, if considered in isolation, can result in a less effective decision on which pieces to use for the mail campaign. Adding in the psychophysiological measures leads to a better understanding of the overall response consumers have to the pieces, thereby ensuring that the most effective pieces get selected; and (b) it provides more effective guidelines for the creative development process, offering a better understanding of how to use photos with human subjects in a way that is immediately more appealing to the recipient. 2. Better brand management (a) fills a significant gap in the existing research tool kit available to market researchers. Traditional focus groups and mall-intercept interviews provide “disaster-check” results of limited value. The psychophysiological research approach provides much more information for research dollars spent; and (b) it yields important insight into improving the tested pieces because it closely tracks consumer response during the stim●
71
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
ulus, connecting significant emotional triggers to specific visual cues. Most traditional diagnostic tests do not offer this level of specificity for making improvements on tested pieces.
Ebbinghaus, H. (1992). In K. Roman & J. Maas (Eds.), How to Advertise (p. 84). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York: Bantam. Hall, E.T. (1981). The Silent Language. New York: Anchor Press. Hill, D. (2003). Body of Truth: Leveraging What Consumers Can’t or Won’t Say. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. LeDoux, S. (1995). The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. New York: Simon & Schuster. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books. Schenk, D. (1997). Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut. San Francisco: Harper. www.colormatters.com/optics. Retrieved October 17, 2002.
Psychophysiological testing gives access to significant consumer insight using data that are unavailable through traditional market-research protocols. These new tools can help guide us beyond worn-out campaign strategies, beyond convincing arguments for a better offer, toward marketing approaches with heart.
REFERENCES Cowley, G., & Underwood, A. (1998, June). Memory. Newsweek, 51.
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
72
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
ABSTRACT Traditionally, we have viewed purchasing as a fundamentally rational process and have sought to persuade customers using reasonbased features, attributes, and benefits marketing strategies. Market research testing has followed a parallel path, seeking logical verbal explanations to analyze consumers’ motivations. However, major findings in brain research over the last decade have altered our understanding of how we, as consumers, make decisions— suggesting that our most immediate “gut” reactions take place in the emotion center of the brain rather than in the rational neocortex. This article explores the key science concepts that are guiding us toward an approach to marketing that has more heart, that is more mind– body centered than cognitive. Specific research tools will be introduced along with strategic, psychological perspectives on direct-mail and Internet marketing.
© 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. f JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003 Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/dir.10068
61
DAN HILL is president of Sensory Logic, Inc., a scientific consumer insights firm that specializes in gauging both verbal and nonverbal subconscious reactions to marketing communications, store environments, product design, packaging, and presentation. Sensory Logic is located in St. Paul, MN; e-mail: [email protected]
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
FIGURE 1
Fundamental Shift
INTRODUCTION: TRULY ENTERING THE MINDS OF CONSUMERS
Walt the artist-as-businessperson was intuitively at ease with the central role that instinct, emotions, and visual imagery play for all of us as consumers. So in creating the first of his theme parks, what Walt did was create a park that is really a walk-through movie. The famous Disney characters such as Goofy and the others as well as the rides, Main Street USA, and the rest all serve as background props for the movie our eyes “make” as we move through the park. While previous scientific thought and business thinking harken back to the Enlightenment era and Descartes’ famous dictum, “I think, therefore I am,” Walt created a fresh business model based instead on the dictum, “I perceive, therefore I am.” As discussed more fully in Body of Truth: Leveraging What Consumers Can’t or Won’t Say (Hill, 2003), there are six key concepts that should deservedly reorient the thinking of the business world so that companies can catch up to the revelations Walt had already put into action half a century ago.
Over the past 15 years, scientists have learned more about the human brain—and therefore the psyche of consumers—than over the entire previous course of history. In general, however, most of the new scientific insights have not yet been leveraged by companies intent on optimizing their brand marketing efforts. So marketers and market researchers, in particular, stand to gain from understanding the new emerging, scientific consensus about how consumers make decisions. The shift involved is so large that to call it a “paradigm shift” is not adequate; it is more like Copernicus’s revelation that the earth goes around the sun rather than vice versa because the new insights fundamentally challenge our sense of who we are and how we operate. Figure 1 lists four individuals who could be considered the prototypical representatives of how the movement of science and business has been in tandem. But who was the first businessperson to leverage the new insights that brain science offers and that I am about to discuss? His name was Walt Disney. As he moved from cartoons to movies to creating Disneyland, JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
1. The subconscious dominates. Cognitive scientists conservatively estimate that at ●
62
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
TELL ME NO LIES
lected from consumers in a nonverbal manner.
least 95% of our thought processes are not fully conscious. Conscious thought is like the tip of an iceberg, with most of what is happening for us below the surface of the water (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). Thus, we are much less in control of our decision making than we might think. For marketers, this means that appealing on a conscious basis to consumers may not be the ideal strategy. A factory-oriented mentality often means assuming that consumers will appreciate a product’s features in a rational, consciously calculated what-this-offerdoes-for-me basis. In contrast, science is suggesting that more likely it is an impulsive, subconscious, emotional assessment of what-the-offer-means in classic “What’s in it for me?” (WIFM) style. As for researchers, the dominant role of the subconscious casts renewed doubt on the efficacy of relying solely on self-report scores such as those used in Internet surveys, clipboard questionnaires, focus groups, and other similar mediums.
3. More than half the brain is devoted to processing visuals. In evolutionary history, visual acuity has insured human survival. Early man relied predominately on visual clues to determine safety or threat, friend or enemy, and adequate food supply or scarcity. Sight has become the most developed of our senses, accounting for as much as 80% of how we learn about the world around us. So sophisticated is our vision that the rods and cones in our eyes have very specific functions—making it possible to see the panoramic big-picture view as well as to telescope in on fine detail. And the human eye can distinguish 7,000,000 colors (www.colormatters.com, 2002). Perhaps the human brain has developed so extensively around perceiving and interpreting images because twothirds of stimuli reaching the brain are visual. Understanding and utilizing our visual orientation is absolutely essential to generate effective marketing and marketing research practices.
2. Most communication experts agree that at least two-thirds of communication is nonverbal, a percentage that jumps to 90% when the topic has some emotional weight to it. In terms of evolution, humans developed the capacity for verbal communication relatively late in the game. Communicating with words only became possible with the development of the neocortex, the most recently evolved part of the brain that is capable of processing abstract thought. Until then, the species relied on sensory signals to assess and gestures to communicate. According to Edward T. Hall (1981) in The Silent Language, there are ten primary modes that humans use to communicate, and only part of one of those modes involves actual verbal language. Verbal communications are routinely influenced by nonverbal signals we deem to be more credible. So marketing and marketing research can capitalize by exploring the ways in which information can optimally get dispensed to and colJOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
4. We think in images, not words. The brain evolved over time in a series of stages. Scientists refer to the brain as triune, acknowledging the three phases of brain development along with their overlapping, but separate, functions. The limbic brain— center of sensory mechanisms (as well as emotional processes)—first started to distinguish itself from the reptile brain with the advent of mammals. The limbic brain takes in information through the senses and is the part of the brain where dreams occur. It processes visually. The limbic brain was in operation for millennia before the learning brain (neocortex) evolved. Language, because it is a system of abstract symbols, was possible only after the development of the learning brain. We are hard wired to think in images, not words. So again, both marketing and marketing research can improve by no longer adhering to strategies that rely implicitly ●
63
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
FIGURE 2
High Road/Low Road
sensory input prior to any conscious thought. The “low road” is crucial because it dominates the high road three ways over. The first is that on this low road emotional response happens first. There is a neurological “dirty back alley” by which the signal travels quickly to our amygdala: Our emotional hot button, of which we have two, for the amygdala is actually composed of a pair of almond-shaped-and-sized parts of the “middle brain.” The low road typically gets traveled within 3’s—the equivalent, in football terms, of “hut hut hike” (Goleman, 1995). Thus, this low-road response happens before the high-road reaction can kick in because the high road takes a longer path from the middle brain to the larger, more rationally oriented brain. Second, the low-road reaction can largely “eclipse” the high-road reaction if the emotions involved are strong enough. Third, even the high road curls back, neurologically speaking, to the amygdala, adding an extra dollop of the emotional to the process before it ends. So, the low road is king. And marketing and marketing research can benefit from remembering that an emotional response
on the notion that all the text in a directmail letter, Web site page, or other marketing medium will actually get read. 5. We feel before we think. The traditional scientific view held that emotion comes after both conscious and unconscious thought processing, yielding to the larger, rationally oriented learning brain. However, research by LeDoux (1995) into fear circuitry suggests the opposite. He proposed that there are, in the emotional decision-making process, two possible routes—a high road which processes primarily through the learning brain and a low road that processes primarily through the limbic brain—that we unconsciously travel in response to external events. Figure 2 shows how incoming stimuli first get filtered through the hippocampus, the screening device for the psyche, which filters the sensory input for interest and relevancy. Anything of any emotional significance or networked to familiar associations gets in; information deemed worthless by the hippocampus never gets routed by the thalamus to either the conscious, learning brain—the high road— or the sensory/emotion-based leopard (limbic) brain—the low road—which responds to JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
64
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
TELL ME NO LIES
panies verify the extent and quality of the sensory– emotive connection that they should be trying to forge with consumers. The value of using psychophysiological testing methodologies is that consumer insight researchers really can get access to and measure nonverbal body response. The goal of any marketing initiative is to break through the clutter, to pass through the revolving door of the hippocampus and be routed on, maybe fused with other associations, and retained because the new information is fresh, strong, or relevant. In a world where people typically experience over 3,000 advertising messages daily (Schenk, 1997), the hippocampus has neither the time nor the inclination to await rational analysis of every stimulus. An offer has one shot at getting in, its fate decided in a fraction of a second, subconsciously. So testing methods that track fleeting sensory– emotive responses can respond to the question “How on target is the offer in hitting a hot button?” because an emotional hot button is the target. Two tools Sensory Logic uses are able to take away the mask, to get beyond the “lies” or halftruths that consumers might provide either because they do not know their own subconscious thoughts or are not willing or able to articulate what they do know on a conscious basis. These two tools measure both immediate “gut” reaction and sustained likeability, integrating both subconscious and conscious response into their analyses. Gut reaction is measured as impact— the degree of engagement generated by an offer. Appeal is an offer’s likeability; it measures preference. Beyond greater reliability, another benefit of psychophysiological testing is that it is globally applicable. Much research has been conducted to verify that sensory and emotive responses are not culturally specific, but universal. These two tools can be introduced as follows: Biofeedback gauges our initial sensory reactions to marketing efforts, products, or retail setting among other stimuli; facial coding can best be used to gauge emotional responses to those same stimuli or to a range of questions that might be posed regarding a company and its branded offer.
can move “up” and get confirmed on a rational basis. But a rational response will never drop “down” with force to acquire an emotional response. Therefore, asking people to talk about their feelings (a rational, thought-based process) is unlikely to have the same weight or validity as organically experienced feelings. 6. We forget 60% of what we learn in half a day (Ebbinghaus, 1992). The brain makes the fundamental decision about whether to store new information in memory in one of two ways. And, again, the decision to save or discard a piece of information rarely involves conscious, rational thought. One mode sends new sensory data to the amygdala, when incoming information has emotional significance. It hits a hot button and gets stored because the sensory input is fresh, strong, and relevant. The other mode, recognizing the input as related to what we already know, assimilates it. This second path might seem to be essentially rational. But building a web of associations that provides a context for the new information begins with input that makes an emotional connection. Thus, in marketing terms, getting something “new” to register will tend to work best if the offer can be advertised in such an manner that it either has emotional “heat” or can be related to the familiar, to something we already know (Cowley & Underwood, 1998).
NEW TOOLS: USING SCIENCE TO GAUGE MARKETING EFFORTS Based on the six key concepts discussed earlier, I would like to introduce two unique, scientific tools for conducting marketing research that both align well with those concepts. In each case, the tool is meant to adhere to Walt Disney’s “I perceive, therefore I am” model of seeking to understand and enhance what exactly is the consumer’s true experience of an (advertised) offer. The two psychophysiological (mind– body) tools in question can help comJOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
65
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
Why Biofeedback? Biofeedback best suits the special requirements involved in gauging consumers’ sensory reactions to marketing stimuli because it is distinctively sensitive to quick, transitory reactions. Biofeedback offers a good means of capturing sensory response data in real time and on a spontaneous, largely subconscious level. Moreover, it is very objective and precise, and provides highly actionable data. And it can address both the impact and appeal of whatever branded offer concept, product, or marketing execution is being tested. Broadly, biofeedback is a blend of psychology, biology, and electronics. It is most commonly used by psychologists to help patients improve their ability to cope with stress. The psychologist will monitor a person’s biorhythms to help change his/her functional behavior. Biofeedback practitioners are employed by the Mayo Clinic and the majority of the country’s other leading medical research institutions as well as by NASA, which has found it helpful in training astronauts. When applied to business, biofeedback is perhaps more appropriately thought of as biosensing because it is being used not to change or control but instead to measure sensory responses. In that regard, biofeedback can be thought of as turning the telescope around. The intention is to gauge the health—not of the patient but of the corporate stimulus. Biofeedback does so using the body’s own natural electricity. It measures impact in terms of skin conductance level (SCL) by placing sensors on the fingers to record the degree to which a stimulus arouses interest. That level is gauged through the electrical correlate of sweat-gland activity because sweat contains salts that make it electrically conductive. SCL increases in a linear relation to the number of activated sweat glands and is measured by the amount of electrical current that the skin will allow to pass in units known as mhos. Appeal is gauged via electromyography (EMG) by attaching small, noninvasive electrodes onto the face. These skin readings track how much a person likes or dislikes a stimulus by measuring the electrical correlates JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
of smile (zygomatic) and frown (corrugator) facial muscle contractions. EMG measures the electrical energy given off by the nerves that signal a muscle to contract, with the appropriate electrical unit being the microvolt (i.e., one millionth of a volt). This tool allows researchers to access, in real time, the true sensory reactions of consumers before those reactions are translated and reorganized by the rational, learning brain. The importance of such access is that there is, as the saying goes, no second chance to make a first impression. In scientific terms, the question of which sensory impressions get taken in by us and fed to the amygdala, our emotional thermometer, sets into motion the decision-making process.
Why Facial Coding? Darwin was one of the earliest to recognize that humans are social creatures whose faces reveal and communicate emotions—whether we know it or not. In social interactions, we learn from and interpret other people’s nonverbal signals. Human response to any stimulus is, in fact, likely to be accompanied by a revealing facial expression. All of these factors contribute to making facial coding a robust research tool. Facial coding is used to measure consumers’ emotional response to stimuli. Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen, who developed the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), first systematically studied facial coding in the 1960s. FACS is now used in psychiatry, by both the FBI and CIA for security purposes, and by computer animators at production companies such as DreamWorks. FACS is based on the facial muscle movements that accompany facial expression because consistent correlates have been found in expressions across cultures. An action unit (AU) is defined as the minimum visible, anatomically based muscle activity involved in the movement of the face. There are 43 identified AUs located across the face’s three regions: (a) brow and forehead; (b) eyes, eyelids, bridge of nose; and (c) cheeks, nose, mouth, chin, and jaw. A facial expression is described in terms of the particular AU that singly or in combination ●
66
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
TELL ME NO LIES
execution. How the list is understood needs to be revisited because it is not who they are but what they are deep inside that matters most. As Walt Disney knew in creating a theme park meant to resonate with his “guests” at a deeper, emotional level, the key is to plan on how the sensory “clues” or details will then set up the emotional response. In Walt’s terminology as a former cartoonist and movie maker used to thinking box by box, frame by frame, the key question becomes: “What’s the end frame?” In other words, what is the emotional deliverable at the end of the consumer’s experiential sequence? So in planning Main Street, USA, for instance, Walt drew on his childhood memories of small-town life in Kansas because he (correctly) believed that at least the myth of bucolic lives lived in close-knit communities would resonate deeply with his fellow Americans. In contrast, demographic, even psychographic, profiles run the risk of being insufficiently intimate and, therefore, insufficiently actionable in terms of achieving results. It offers a start, but the danger lies in capturing merely external sign posts in terms of understanding what matters most—and the most deeply—for the targeted audience. Now, don’t get me wrong. Demographic and psychographic information provides an outline: It gives you the list, a means of segmenting—a means of determining which slices of the general public are deemed most feasible in terms of achieving greater market penetration. You cannot conduct a test with everyone, so choices have to be made, and demographic profiles provide a means of making choices. Nevertheless, once research participants have been identified, recruited, and are onsite, new means need to be explored to gain a richer, deeper understanding of how they are likely to respond. The new scientific model of consumer decision making is sense–feel–(think)– do. In direct-mail terms, this translates as follows: The sensory stage is certainly essential. After all, a direct marketer has probably about 3 seconds in which to get the mail recipient sufficiently interested so that he or she will open the envelope and discover its contents—and biofeedback can be instrumental in determining whether a via-
with other units produces facial movement. FACS has determined which of these AUs constitute the expression of seven basic emotions: sadness, anger, happiness, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt. False versus genuine smiles can be detected because they use different muscles. In consumer-research applications, study participants are videotaped either during oneon-one interviews or while viewing or experiencing the stimulus being tested. A second-by-second analysis of the videotape is then conducted to reveal the AUs that can be reliably distinguished when a facial movement is inspected repeatedly in stopped and slowed motion. Full expressions last only a few seconds, on average. There also are “microexpressions,” with involuntary muscle movement “leakage” that will often reveal in a fraction of a second what the subject is actually feeling. Impact is assessed by capturing the frequency of the emotions reflected in the participants’ faces during the interview. Appeal reflects the sum of the positive versus negative (micro)expressions that were revealed. Like biofeedback, facial coding is not influenced by gender, racial, or cultural differences. Facial muscle activity correlates to specific emotions the same way in New York and New Guinea. The global applicability of this tool makes it tremendously useful in marketing research.
GUIDELINES: WHAT THE TOOLS REVEAL AS SUCCESSFUL Our testing for the applications of direct-mail and Internet marketing reveals several key patterns to bear in mind to be successful. Therefore, strategically oriented, psychological perspectives on these two marketing media provide a conclusion. However, it should of course be noted that both media typically work as part of multichannel marketing campaigns, so rarely if ever are they operating alone in today’s business climate.
Direct Mail In direct mail, the great truism is that it is the list, then the offer, and only then the creative JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
67
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
ble level of initial engagement will be reached. Second, the emotional response also must be adequate to then make the call the action happen. And here, the use of facial coding can help to determine whether the offer—as communicated—has reached the heart of what turns on the recipient. In other words, does it “ring their bell?” Getting the right people is important (the
list). But closing the deal by forging a quick, impulsive sensory– emotive connection with the list is even more important. In this regard, science has now brought us new insights by which companies can profit. The degree to which our decision-making process is subconscious and emotionally driven by the leopard brain’s amygdala shows that the
Psychophysiological Research: An Application Example Sensory– emotive testing has a variety of marketplace applications. Tests often measure consumer response to advertising campaigns in print and television commercials, record conscious and unconscious reactions as consumers walk through stores or restaurants or watch a movie, or discover positive and negative response to new products. This methodology has been used successfully for pretesting direct mail. A sample research project was completed for a client interested in determining which envelope design had the best chance of being opened, how envelope/letter formats compared to less traditional formats such as self-mailers, and how to improve direct-mail pieces to generate greater consumer response to the offer. The search project involved 40 participants (a projectable sample size), with testing done in two locations to reduce geographic bias. Individual interviews, averaging 30 minutes, were conducted for three to ten stimuli. Participants in the study, when interviewed, were given an explanation of the testing procedure and then were prepared for biofeedback. Sensors were placed on two fingers and on the face. Biofeedback readings were taken during the initial viewing of the direct-mail samples (stimuli). This first-sight response (“curb appeal”) is critical in measuring impact—the degree to which a stimulus engages the viewer, who may not even be conscious of any sensory reaction. After viewing each item, the interviewees were shown the stimuli again and videotaped while commenting on them. Videotape of subjects’ verbal responses was later analyzed using facial coding. These data yield information about a more sustained reaction than that measured earlier with biofeedback (i.e., the degree of emotional buy-in). Specific facial muscle activity noted in conjunction with thoughts being verbalized clearly indicated to what degree the viewers liked the direct-mail item about which they were speaking, thereby determining the offer’s appeal. By the end of the interview, data had been collected by means of biofeedback, facial coding, self-report scores, and verbal response. It was analyzed in multiple ways to draw conclusions and present the client with actionable results. Recommendations were made regarding the relative strength of individual direct-mail pieces. The value of psychophysiological testing was proven in this scenario by reactions to one of the direct-mail pieces. Almost half of those interviewed said they found the creative approach, which was minimalist and had low production values, boring. However, the scientific methodologies revealed that the piece was generating strong negative emotions, but with high impact. This outcome resulted in the outer envelope being opened, despite the stated impression of interviewees that the creative approach was uninteresting. Traditional testing methods would not have revealed that this piece, surprisingly, could be used effectively. The piece would be read as boring, and the creative perceived as invisible. The research showed that this approach got interviewees’ emotions going, although the creative had a negative effect on brand equity. A self-mailer that was part of this same research had on its cover a collage of 13 people. Reviewing the videotapes, it was learned that the cover had no focal point for the interviewees’ eyes. This resulted in the likelihood of both low opening and readership for the self-mailer. The insight gained was that creative that lacks arresting imagery risks not breaking through the clutter of communications that consumers are confronted with daily. In this case, sensory– emotive research helped the marketer learn why some approaches lead to better results while other approaches were destined for lower response rates.
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
68
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
TELL ME NO LIES
radio, the World Wide Web is intimate. We surf the Internet in a private world that provides us with a feeling of discreet distance and security. So the one-on-one quality of radio is something the Internet shares—and expands on by being able to turn a simulated conversation into a true dialogue through interactive Web sites. Like print, the Internet has, of course, imagery, headlines, and text. Like print ads, reliance on heavy text rarely invites interest. Like outdoor advertising, most of us zoom by the pages on a Web site, granting them about as much opportunity to grab our attention as we have time for with the typical billboard along the highway. A visual, a handful of words, and it is done. Finally, even more crucial as a point of comparison in critiquing Web sites are retail environments, or more specifically, fast-food restaurants. They are the epitome of instant gratification. Simple floor plans, a menu board we can absorb fairly quickly, and fast service. We are a species that, through evolution, has learned to equate survival and comfort with being able to gain a quick, reliable sense of whether a given vista or situation presents promise or peril— or is of no real, meaningful consequence. In short, we want to be readily oriented. The truth is that most Web-site designers could gain a lot of insight by hanging around McDonalds. Food served up hot and fast, wrapped like tiny presents. It may not be especially nutritional, but little bites will do the trick so nobody chokes. The biggest enemy a Web site has is often itself: too much (empty) content. And getting around within most Web sites is not nearly as easy as it should be. Facilitate grab and go, and be friendly about it. Slow-to-load video and top-heavy pages are losers, lacking immediacy. People will not wait or scroll down. Design your Web pages with easy access in mind, comparable to fast-food locations near interstate on/off ramps. On the Internet, let us get on and off the information highway quickly and without the distress of getting lost either before or after we come through the door. At present, Internet usability testing tends to focus most readily on the number of “errors” the participants make in navigating the site. In
outer layer of cultural and socioeconomic factors do not reach nearly as deep as do the psychological factors inherent to the species. Getting a better read on the target audience’s inner voice lets a company decide who gets its message. But that’s not all: It also lets the company plan when, where, and how the message gets delivered to hit the right emotional buttons. The other unavoidable truism is that most people sort their mail into three piles: important, kind of interesting, and trash. Getting through the clutter with an offer so interruptive that it results in action is key. But getting attention by shouting signals junk mail. Once perceived as junk mail, it has no chance of overriding the clinical learning brain and, instead, securing an emotional connection. Survivors of the initial sort are successful most likely because they offer either the positive WIFM of hope or the negative WIFM of fear. It is a heaven-or-hell dynamic. There are, obviously, qualifiers here. If the hellish trick is too manipulative, it is sure to offend. In contrast to TV spots, high production quality direct mail can get you in trouble because instead of conveying status and credibility, as is true on TV, slick is like shouting and can signal junk mail. But strive for stickiness because the longer the recipient lingers with the mailer, the better your odds at success. Think of the long, winding road of hope that sweepstake entrants travel, following complicated instructions. Is theirs a rational response? No, their involvement is really something else: It is generated by deep and imaginative yearning, far from the logical mind.
Web Sites The Internet is a medium still shaking itself out. It is new enough that suggesting what the rules are may not be as valuable as comparing it to media we know more about. Like TV, it is a highly visual medium. It requires dominant imagery to grab and guide us. Unlike TV program viewing in which time slows down, the Internet is more like channel surfing. We get involved setting our own compressed pace—we click onto the next page when we want to do so. Like JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
69
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
FIGURE 3
Convergent Analysis
keting to those consumers, and in business that is what it is all about. Figure 3 compares six design options. Options F and C were supposedly the big winners, at least on a conscious, rational basis (see triangles in the upper right “preference zone” quadrant). But F had the lowest sensory, biofeedback results, and C was unexceptional. F and C were appeal winners for emotion-gauging facial coding, but participants did not find these options engaging (low impact scores). B is worth the extra look because its biofeedback and facial coding scores show good impact and decent appeal.
that respect, testing runs the risk of becoming an exercise in watching the participants type. Of greater interest and value to companies, however, should be the ability to, once again, understand the emotional “end frame” of what the participants’ experience is of the site. Whether it is how well the subject line grabs somebody in an e-mail blast to how well the home page generates initial intrigue and establishes relevancy and credibility, more needs to be done to get to the heart of consumers’ experience. Greater engagement for consumers will almost inevitably mean greater profits for the companies marJOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
70
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
TELL ME NO LIES
Test Results Convergent analysis considers the individual scores from biofeedback (body), facial coding (heart), and self-report (mind) in combination with each other to provide an overall performance statement for each stimulus. By its nature, convergent analysis compares each entry against others in the group with which it was tested. The convergent ranking is established by evaluating the triangles formed by the three individual scores for each of the entries and by determining the most optimally positioned triangle. A “tighter” triangle indicates that the reliability of the analysis is very high. The placement of the triangle within the chart reveals the strength of the stimulus. A placement in the upper right-hand quadrant (the Preference Zone), indicating high impact combined with high appeal, is usually ideal. Sensory Logic’s research has validated some perceptions of traditional direct mail, and indicated why some well-worn techniques for getting mail opened often have the opposite effect that marketers intend. One such category is called “Shouting for the moment.” When target prospects are shown direct-mail packages with teaser copy that ranks as high impact but with offers or messages that do not pay off on that impact, the creative has no appeal (neither high nor low appeal). Our research indicates that approach will not move the response meter off the dime. Another category is called a “Trough.” Here the teaser copy and/or design may be off the mark, poorly constructed, or the wrong groups targeted. This kind of package does not break through clutter. Our research ranks “Trough” efforts as having no impact and no appeal. Even Michael Jordan could not score baskets from the bench! The last category is one that often gets the strongest negative reaction. These packages are characterized by tricking the reader into them, for example, by using an official or government look-alike envelope. Our research consistently ranks them as combining high impact with very low appeal. Sensory Logic calls this combinaJOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
tion a “Poison Pill,” with evidence that it has a strong “fear factor.” This design makes the recipients feel that they have to open the envelope to avoid unpleasant repercussions. Naturally, the “fear factor” applies more strongly to the envelopes than to the letters, which will likely be discarded if the recipient feels manipulated into reading them. Most methods for measuring consumer response to visual stimuli such as direct-mail advertising are based on an outdated assumption that decisions related to these stimuli are driven by rational human thought. Because response to direct mail happens so quickly, and in unconscious thought, most people simply cannot verbalize why they did or did not open the mail. The bottom-line benefits of using this unique methodology are found in two key areas: 1. Reducing acquisition costs through more effective marketing communications (creative): (a) Sensory– emotive research ensures that the most effective pieces are mailed. Attitudinal (verbal) responses to the direct-mail stimuli, if considered in isolation, can result in a less effective decision on which pieces to use for the mail campaign. Adding in the psychophysiological measures leads to a better understanding of the overall response consumers have to the pieces, thereby ensuring that the most effective pieces get selected; and (b) it provides more effective guidelines for the creative development process, offering a better understanding of how to use photos with human subjects in a way that is immediately more appealing to the recipient. 2. Better brand management (a) fills a significant gap in the existing research tool kit available to market researchers. Traditional focus groups and mall-intercept interviews provide “disaster-check” results of limited value. The psychophysiological research approach provides much more information for research dollars spent; and (b) it yields important insight into improving the tested pieces because it closely tracks consumer response during the stim●
71
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
ulus, connecting significant emotional triggers to specific visual cues. Most traditional diagnostic tests do not offer this level of specificity for making improvements on tested pieces.
Ebbinghaus, H. (1992). In K. Roman & J. Maas (Eds.), How to Advertise (p. 84). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York: Bantam. Hall, E.T. (1981). The Silent Language. New York: Anchor Press. Hill, D. (2003). Body of Truth: Leveraging What Consumers Can’t or Won’t Say. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. LeDoux, S. (1995). The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. New York: Simon & Schuster. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books. Schenk, D. (1997). Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut. San Francisco: Harper. www.colormatters.com/optics. Retrieved October 17, 2002.
Psychophysiological testing gives access to significant consumer insight using data that are unavailable through traditional market-research protocols. These new tools can help guide us beyond worn-out campaign strategies, beyond convincing arguments for a better offer, toward marketing approaches with heart.
REFERENCES Cowley, G., & Underwood, A. (1998, June). Memory. Newsweek, 51.
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
●
72
VOLUME 17 / NUMBER 4 / AUTUMN 2003