Behavioural science’s gift to marketing: better hunches
Paul Fishlock argues that behavioural science’s gift to marketing is not failsafe formulae or silver bullets but ‘better hunches’.
Our industry’s best, both client and agency side, have always been brilliant intuitive behavioural scientists – even though most of them are totally unaware of it.
Some ideas just feel right; you just know they’re going to work. Others tick every box on the brief but … it’s just not doing it for me. Pick any famous and effective campaign from ‘I still call Australia home’ to ‘Think Different’, and, at its foundations, you’ll find the intuitive application of the principles of behavioural science. It’s usually why it worked.
So if we’re already applying behavioural science (albeit unknowingly) why does marketing need to embrace it in a formal sense? (i) There aren’t enough great people with great instincts to go around; (ii) even great people get it horribly wrong sometimes; and (iii) if you understand where your great instincts come from you can make them even better.
Couldn’t agree more. Best piece I’ve read here all year.
Great article Paul! I would add one additional application beyond the creative leap.
The value of behavioural science is that a small nudge, can create large changes – be it in framing, anchoring and adjustment, context etc. The reality however is that these changes are often found from a myriad of small experiments.
Behavioural change doesn’t need to be applied to just ‘the big idea’ for it to have considerable impact on solving business problems.
A more fertile starting point can simply be applying the many known behavioural biases to equip ourselves with a deeper understanding of our customer’s needs & anxieties.
For instance; Auto-play videos on landing pages can trigger ‘danger cues’ and result in lower conversion – obvious in hindsight, and rooted in widely available behavioural science theory.
Starting small, experimenting faster and scaling our success is key to finding behavioural science application success.
Excellent article and I shared it on LinkedIn with a mostly Asian crowd. Appreciated that last comment from Kyle R as well!
Another valuable Fishlock insight. Thank you.