Epi #5: Context Bias - When & Why We Change Our Minds

Context is such a potent bias. Fundamentally changing how we think, feel & act. It changes a no to a yes, black to white (and vice versa) & wholly affects the consumer decisions we make.

It's such an influential principle, it can essentially override most other biases. So, for this reason, we must think deeply about the ever-changing contexts of our target audience before writing ads.

It's the key that unlocks the door to understanding our customers & creating compelling messages that resonate with them.

There are at least seven different types of context.

1. Cultural Context: This refers to the beliefs, values, customs, and traditions of your target audience. Essential for avoiding cultural misunderstandings or insensitivities.
2. Social Context: This involves the relationships and social connections within your target audience's community. Consider how your marketing message might be influenced by social norms, peer pressure, or social status, and tailor your messaging accordingly.
3. Demographic Context: This encompasses the age, gender, income, education, and occupation of your target audience. Understanding the demographic context can help you create marketing messages that are relevant and appealing to specific segments of your audience.
4. Geographical Context: This refers to the location and environment in which your target audience lives and works. Geographical context can influence factors such as climate, lifestyle, and local preferences, which can impact your marketing strategy.
5. Temporal Context: This involves the timing of your marketing messages, taking into account factors such as seasonality, time of day, and relevant events or holidays. Understanding the temporal context can help you deliver your message at the right time to maximise its impact.
6. Psychological Context: This relates to your audience's mental and emotional state, including their needs, desires, motivations, and fears. By understanding the psychological context, you can create marketing messages that address your audience's pain points and tap into their emotions to drive action.
7. Technological Context: This considers the devices, platforms, and channels your target audience uses to access and consume information. Understanding the technological context can help you create marketing messages that are optimised for different devices and platforms, ensuring a seamless user experience.

Now let's dive into some examples of adapting to these contextual factors.

Examples of How to Apply Context

1. Use Contextual Advertising: An easy & obvious one, though so often overlooked. Increasingly, people expect relevant ads. If your advertising messaging is not congruent with its environment, you're asking people to multitask which creates mental friction & reduces the likelihood of doing so.

2. Time, Day, Season: Day-parting, tactical campaigns based on different days, keeping in mind seasons & cultural events. I.e. If it's a beauty brand, will need light moisturisers in Summer & more hydrating ones in Winter. Further, you can integrate programmatic advertising with weather apps to target based on if its sunny or raining.

3. Time-Based Targeting: Time of day, week, or month can significantly influence customer behaviour. For example, people may be more receptive to your ads on weekends or holidays when they have more free time. For instance, you could serve ads for coffee products in the morning or for happy hour deals in the late afternoon.

4. Location-Based Targeting: In addition to time-based targeting, location-based targeting can be used to leverage the context of a customer's environment. For instance, you could target customers who are near your physical store locations with ads that encourage them to visit in person. Ie using NFC technology. You could also use geofencing to serve ads to customers when they are near competitor stores, encouraging them to choose your brand instead.

5. Dynamic Creative Optimisation: Dynamic Creative Optimisation (DCO) involves serving personalized ads that change based on user behaviour, preferences, or context. For example, you could use DCO to serve different ad creatives based on the weather, season, or time of day. You could also use DCO to serve different ads based on a user's browsing history or recent interactions with your brand.

6. Emotional Targeting: We know that understanding our customers' emotions is key to creating effective ad campaigns. That's where emotional targeting comes in. By analysing data & insights, we can identify how our customers feel about different topics and use that knowledge to tailor our ads to resonate with their emotions. Whether it's tapping into their concerns about the economy, their passion for social issues, or their political views, emotional targeting allows us to create ads that truly connect with our audience.

7. Be Relevant: By retargeting consumers with products they've previously looked at, or suggesting complementary purchases, you can stay relevant and top of mind. Having vases next to flowers is likely paying dividends. These up-sell & cross-sell functionalities on eCom work exceptionally well

Conclusion

In conclusion, understanding & leveraging the power of context is crucial for creating effective & impactful advertising campaigns. By considering the various contextual factors, such as cultural, social, demographic, geographical, temporal, psychological, and technological contexts, marketers can craft messages that resonate deeply with their target audience.

Through contextual advertising, time-based targeting, location-based targeting, and dynamic creative optimisation, advertisers can enhance the relevance and personalisation of their campaigns.

By thoughtfully applying these strategies and tailoring marketing messages to the ever-changing contexts of their target audience, brands can unlock the door to truly understanding their customers, resulting in more engaging and successful advertising efforts.

Remember, context is key – harness its power to elevate your marketing and connect with your audience on a deeper level.

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