All marketers and advertisers are in the business
of behavior change. There is not a
marketer in the world paid to keep things as they are. As long as business growth
in a given then every brief will end in someones behaviour needing to
change. As a result of nearly all marketing activity people are ‘required’ to change brands, pay
more, consume more often, or have more people consume.
In order to change peoples behaviour there
are two key factors we can influence; Motivation and Ease. The higher the motivation, and the Easier it
is, then the more likely that behaviour will occur.
Historically, the advertising industry has been
obsessed with just 50% of this equation -
building motivation. The products were available in store, the advertisers job was to increase motivation to get people to go and buy it. The
main weapon advertisers have had to build motivation is ‘creativity’. The issue
with being ‘creative’ is it’s as much luck as it is skill. So even though it’s been the area of focus
for most advertising agencies, none I know have a robust model on how to build
motivation – they just have a creative department that comes up with ‘ideas’.
Sometimes these ideas are brilliant, sometimes average, and often worse than
ordinary. If you ever talk to someone in advertising ask them how their agency builds motivation - at best you'll get a corny metaphor about 'falling in love with brands'. Watch Madmen and you'll learn more about how to build motivation than you will from most agencies. It's not that they can't do it (build motivation), they just don't know how they are doing it - it's often luck.
However, something exciting is happening in
advertising. Some are taking a broader view of how to change behavior rather
than just building motivation. Making the
desired behavior ‘easier’ to complete is just, and often a significantly more
effective way to get the result you are after.
The advent of social media and smart phones,
means that the race is on to making things easier for consumers (us). A Grand Prix winner at Cannes this year
bought a virtual supermarket (Tesco) to train stations in South Korea, everything you ordered was delivered by the time you got the train home. If the desired behaviour change was get more people shopping at Tesco versus competitors this was a brilliant way to do it. They didn't build motivation, they just made it easier.
My prediction for 2012
will be that agencies change of focus as they rejoice not in increasing consumer
motivation, but in making things easier for people.
11 comments:
Interesting post, I totally agree.
It's also really interesting in that video for the Tesco virtual store how someone says, "I like the way it's exactly like shopping in the actual store." It's like the functionality of their existing website wasn't enough until it was married with an artificial replication of the shopping experience. Presumably, clicking around a website is less physical effort (and also more mobile), but I guess the larger visual interface reduces the mental effort behind grocery shopping. Do you have any thoughts about that?
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Hi Matt,
Thanks for your comments. I think you are right about the larger interface making things i) as 'normal' as possible. The less we ask people to do something different the better. They are doing what they normally do. ii) perhaps more interestingly, Im increasingly interested in learning via involving the body. I wonder if we get closer to brands / concepts / learning by using our body more - literally bigger movements = bigger learning. Bit abstract, not throughout through I know. Any thoughts on that appreciated.
Adam,
I never commented on this post, but thoroughly enjoyed it. It comes to mind now because I am in Spain and showing this video to my (Spanish) father-in-law, and explaining your point about the emphasis switch to 'ease' for the consumer.
You know, in behavioral neuroscience, there's a lot of interest in how the brain integrates reward magnitude with effort required to receive the reward in order to come up with a 'value' that is assigned to the reward.
It's interesting.
With all that in mind, it's also possible to think of 'motivation' as the net result of calculating the reward magnitude (both the quality and amount you receive), reward probability (If i do X do I get rewarded 100% of the time? For consumers visiting a store, this is generally 100% unless the store sometimes runs out of the product), and effort required to receive the reward (which is minimized here for the South Koreans).
The net result of these factors influences your 'motivation', i.e., your likelihood in engaging in the reward-procuring behavior (making a purchase).
At least one way to think about it.
I'm not sure about the relationship between the level/value of learnings relative to the size/effort of gestures. While extra effort may increase perceived value, it may also disincentivise enough people from participating in the first place so it's a trade off. The Tesco one works because, as Adam stated, it's actually less effort because it combines the most convenient parts of offline and online shopping.
Even though screens/monitors/televisions seem to be getting larger (iPads/iPhones excluded) and touch is becoming the dominant input method, I find it hard to believe that everyday interactions will look like "that" scene from Minority Report. That said, on the whole it definitely makes sense that more physical interactions are more engaging and will create a stronger relationship towards a brand.
The problem is that as the novetly factor of touch wears off, the value proposition for large-scale touch interaction will become increasingly poor for most interactions. If brands can create a valuable engagement experience that's highly physical then that's a great opportunity, but I'd be wary about people inferring "touch + large = good" from the success of the Tesco campaign. (Adam, I know that's not what you were - just rambling as well. Enjoying these thoughts).
When I mentioned motivation as a 'result' from calculating both reward payoff and effort requirement I did mean (in agreement with Adam and Matt) that increased effort decreases reward, i.e., motivation is something like reward payoff divided by effort (or some kind of function of this sort). This is the way some characterize the role of the nucleus accumbens (which is modulated by dopamine). Most of the work of this sort uses rat subjects. As Matt mentions, though, strange cognitive factors can intervene in the human brain such that increased effort can increase perceived value in some circumstances.
Hi Jon,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts (and I love your site). The way we would look at Motivation and Ease is to not look at they playing off each other but as two independent variables. Higher motivation, and higher ease = greater likelihood to engage in the behaviour. That said the thing about reward is interesting. If something is harder then you do get a greater reward and therefore motivation - something interesting to consider.
Matt I wouldn't be so quick to rule out actual physical gestures being an avenue to increase motivation to do something. Is a covert action (say a thought) likely to contribute to doing something as much as an overt action (say taking the first step? I think that there is increasing evidence that doing seomthgin (physical) increases likelihood to complete the behaviour?? But Matt yes I get what you're saying and think I agree with you - although this post is now better as a discussion I imagine.
Jon - your last post stumbled out of my area of comprehension - I'm just an advertising guy!
Adam, I think I went off on a bit of tangent in that last comment and discussed actions/situations that weren't high value enough to invite physical participation. When used correctly/cunningly, I definitely agree that a physical action can increase motivation to finish and that physical can in some cases be 'easier' than mental. (If you've got any links readily available then I'd be keen to take a peep at the evidence you mentioned).
Using Jon's formula of [reward - effort] = value/motivation then I think there is a chance that some people may be disincentivised from initial participation where the physical effort isn't noticeably easier or more rewarding, but agree that completion rates may be higher. (The Tesco example doesn't fit here since it is both easier and more physical, so a win on both counts - definitely the quadrant brands should be focusing on).
Jon, I'm afraid you lost me when you mentioned "nucleus accumbens," but is my understanding of your formula above correct? I think that this it may be useful as a rough approximation of the calculation used before participation, but I'm not sure the results would be the same as someone calculating the payoff after. That me be because participants would use a different formula, or maybe just input different values within the formula since the effort is likely to be downplayed and the rewards emphasised in hindsight. Does that match up with what you're thinking?
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