ARTICLE POSTED BY: Kris Medford

At this summer’s annual IIR Shopper Insights in Action conference, there was a surprising focus on biology and chemistry, and how all of these subconscious human processes relate to decision making.

This year, the conference had a slight feeling of Bill Nye the Science Guy meets shopper insights. We heard some intriguing facts about how our senses of smell and sight, for example, work in relation to branded scents, and—of special interest to me—why we humans tend to look beyond what is right in front of our faces.

In Shopper Sciences, we are often called upon to create disruptive solutions in store, putting brands in the shopper’s line of sight. One of our constant challenges, especially in mass retail, is that it’s not just our client that wants to be disruptive. It’s every brand in that category, and every category in every aisle. We’re working in any extremely noisy environment.

That’s why the key takeaway for me is the science that explains what we had already found to be true. Humans look for shortcuts, both intentionally and unintentionally, to accomplish our daily tasks with greater speed. From a shopping perspective, this offers additional insight as to why brands are so powerful: they offer a shortcut to decision making.  Now we know it plays into the very way we are programmed for efficiency.

From a shopper sciences perspective, where it’s our goal to get shoppers out of the efficient “auto-pilot” mode, this insight has big implications.  When every brand and category assumes it’s unique and tries to be disruptive at the same time, the store suffers from the Times Square Syndrome—everything is bright and shiny so nothing stands out. Our human drive to efficiency makes us look beyond everything.

So, what does this mean?  It means that we need to think holistically (at the category, adjacency, and store levels) and to think differently by communicating beyond brand and category borders whenever possible so that efforts toward disruption have a better chance to succeed.

Tags: Shopper behavior, Shopper insights, Shopper Marketing | No Comments »-->