The gap between what we say and do
Every researcher, marketeer and brand manager has experienced the remarkable differences between what people say and do. Between what they express and how they feel. Between what they declare and how they behave.
This gap is caused by the simple but inconvenient truth that sub-conscious or implicit brain processes are running the show.
“95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious. When marketing a product to a consumer, it is most effective to target the subconscious mind.”
- Gerald Zaltman, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School
Target the real decision center of the brain
Bookcases can be filled with studies about the implicit brain, but what does it really mean for commerce, marketing and market-research? The main insight is that your consumers’ preferences, decisions, habits, are controlled by sub-conscious processes. Deliberate conscious thinking plays only a minor role. If you want to target the real decision center, aim for the implicit brain.
Access the unaccessible, achieve the unachievable
Implicit marketing improves how you collect information from consumers (research), and how you convey information towards consumers (marketing). On the research side, an implicit approach helps to capture and quantify what goes on in that inaccessible sub-conscious brain region. On the marketing side, to truly achieve influence over preferences and purchases, it helps to make sure the message resonates where it maters most, in the implicit decision center of your consumers’ brain.
