Have Google Solved the Marketing Funnel with the "Messy Middle"?

Our brains crave order.

The process of simplifying, organising and categorising is fundamental to the way our brains cope with having to process the truly mammoth quantities of data being passed on to us through our senses.

And marketers are certainly not exempt from this. This is why we have things like the marketing funnel, customer journeys, empathy maps, customer personas, and the list goes on. While this is generally a good thing, as it allows us to understand complex data, and filter it in a way that is both useful and actionable, it runs the risk of oversimplifying a concept, and losing critical parts of the story.

This leads to myopic or otherwise misleading views of consumer behaviour that can do more harm to your marketing strategy than good.

Historically, we've coped with this by creating different versions of the funnel, in an attempt to account for previously un-accounted for nuance. While this works to a certain degree, it has resulted in every Tom, Dick and Harry having their own version of the "Funnel".

Enter Google.

However, their "Funnel" is a remarkably refreshing take, one in which deviates quite substantially from the traditional funnel, in a way that accounts for advances in behavioural science, consumer behaviour and the sheer variability in consumers' paths to purchase. Introducing Google's "Messy Middle"

Google's "Messy Middle"

The basic idea of Google's "Messy Middle" is a revision of what is typically called the "Consideration" stage of the marketing funnel. Looking at consumer behaviour, we can easily see that we are far from rational, and our path to purchase is far from linear. Because of these two factors, the term "consideration stage" is misleading in that it over simplifies what is really a complex and highly variable psychological process (I was going to use the word unpredictable there instead of variable, but decided against it as the more knowledge a marketer has of behavioural science, the more predictable it becomes, as we will soon see).

Google's revised model is reminiscent of traditional funnels at the top - starting with an "Exposure" stage, and at the bottom - finishing with a?"Triggers and Purchase" stage. Instead of a clearly defined "Consideration" stage, Google have identified a period in the journey they've aptly named the "Messy Middle", which involves loops through periods of "Exploration" and "Evaluation". In Google's own words, "The loop is our best attempt at describing the non-linear nature of the messy middle". While a consumer's journey through these loops can be highly individualised, it's the mission of the brand to ensure that when the consumer does emerge the loop, their brand is victorious. So, how do you do this?

What they have done, is look at 6 existing biases in behavioural science that influence the messy middle, and effectively work to nurture consumers through to purchase more effectively. What I am going to do, is a brief overview of the 6 principles they've outlined (if you'd like to learn more about each, I'd encourage you to read the full paper), highlight additional behavioural science principles that influence this stage, and finish with the key implications and next steps for marketers.

6 Influences on the "Messy Middle"

The following 6 principles of behavioural science are introduced, and then applied in a series of experiments, to measure their effects on a set on fictional (and sometimes real) brands. Let's start with what biases they've looked at:

Category Heuristics: A piece of information relevant to a particular category used to aid in evaluating alternatives, such as mega pixels in a camera, rooms in a house, cylinders in a car, etc.

Authority Bias: Ever since the infamous Milgram experiments we have known (albeit quite apprehensively) how prone we are to unwavering obedience to authority. This is another instance of our brain outsourcing cognitive load - in this case to someone who we deem as trustworthy.

Social Proof: In a similar fashion to the above, our brain will also offload cognitive load to the "crowd", and use the behaviour of others to guide our own (particularly in complex or ambiguous situations).

Power of Now: The part of our brains that deal with planning for the future uses up a lot of energy, so we try avoid using it as much as possible (much to our own detriment). If we can't have something now (or in the immediate future), we will tend to desire it less.

Scarcity Bias: As a shortcut of evaluating an object's worth, we will look to it's availability, as an indication. If an object is perceived as rare, or highly exclusive, we will place a much higher intrinsic worth on that item, regardless of it's actual properties or utility.

Power of Free: While it may seem obvious that "Free" is highly enticing, it has a heightened appeal that exceeds any other monetary discount. In a famous experiment by Dan Ariely, people were given the choice of a free $10 gift card (a gain of $10) or a $20 gift card they could purchase for $7 (a gain of $13). Despite the clear rational choice, most chose the former.

The efficacy of these tactics are without question - while results of each are already prevalent in the relevant literature, Google conducted a series of their own experiments on the above 6 working in tandem, and found that that they resulted in profound shifts in consumer brand choice. In one experiment, they applied all 6 principles to a completely unknown brand, and it shifted consumer preference from already known and favoured brands up to 73%, a staggeringly large shift considering the subtlety of these principles.

If the above 6 principles were previously unknown to you, than go forth and conquer! These 6 will give you plenty of ideas to action, and you can skip to the next section. For my more savvy marketers, they'll quickly recognise most of these principles, and will be left hungry for more. For you, allow me to add 3 more principles.

3 Influences to Add to Your Repertoire

While there are literally hundred of biases/heuristics I can bring up, it is these three that I've identified to have the most impact, that did not feature in Google's original 6.

Narrative Bias

I'll admit, I was quite surprised to not see this featured in Google's original 6 (especially considering its use in their own advertising). In our brain's unending quest to simplify the world around it, the narrative bias is quite possibly it's most used method, and is our brain's tendency to interpret information as part of a story. When stories as presented to us, they are encoded into our memory at a much greater rate than isolated bits of information.

This is because of a process called neural coupling. When we are being told a story, the neurons firing in our brain actually mirror those of the person telling the story, otherwise known as narrative transportation. This opens the proverbial floodgates of persuasion opportunities, as storytelling will allow you to embed the benefits of your product or service directly into the psyche of a potential customer. By bringing your product/service to life in such a way for a potential customer, it greatly eases the burden of decision-making.

This is something I'll dedicate a future article to with examples from famous world-class advertising throughout history.

With Google's emphasis on the "Messy Middle", we can see how varied the path to purchase is. This also means our prospective buyers are also being exposed to plenty of our competitor's marketing material. Using story telling as a method of communicating our brand gives us a significant advantage over competitors, as consumers will be able to process, understand, and remember what we're saying much more - which we know affects their future propensity to buy.

Affect Priming

It is no new revelation that emotions are more persuasive than rational appeals (at a ratio of about 24:1), and that during decision-making, we rely more on our emotional state, rather than the facts available to us). While priming deserves an entire article dedicated to it in and of itself, the idea of an affect prime is simply to use a cue to elicit an emotional response congruent to the product or service in question, which eases and quickens our brain's processing. This correlation can also be learned through exposure to media, as we can see Coca Cola doing in the below example.

By so clearly linking Coke to happiness, it can develop a strong neural link between brand and emotion. Now, when a consumer is at a decision point for soft drinks, Coca Cola is a prime for happiness. Wanting to reduce the cognitive load of decision-making, the consumer will use this emotion as a guide, rather than a more rational comparison of nutritional value.

Framing

Apart of Daniel Khaneman's "Prospect Theory", Framing is the way a piece of information is presented to a consumer, which greatly affects it's ability to create a change in behaviour.

Consider Google's use of the Category Heuristic and their example of megapixels in a camera. A very similar tactic was used by manufacturers of the first MP3 players - this category heuristic was data storage (say 100 mega-bytes). When Apple entered this space, they knew they could frame this appeal in a much more persuasive fashion. So, in the advertisements for iPods, instead of saying "150 mega-bytes" or "50 additional mega-bytes", they said "1000 songs in your pocket". The iPod went on to be a meteoric success.

This frame was much more successful than the category heuristic as it brought a highly technical feature to life, in a way that everyone understands (what is a megapixel anyway?) and therefore simplifying the decision process.

What Now?

The idea of a "Messy Middle" can be intimidating for our brains, as carries with it a lot of uncertainty. However, Google have outlined the 3 best things marketers can do, now armed with this information

1. Ensure Brand Presence: A line straight out of Byron Sharp's "How Brand's Grow", the importance of your brand being present where customers are buying cannot be understated. You can employ all the behavioural science principles you want, if you're not on the shelf (or the search results) you wont be bought.
2. Employ Behaviourial Science: With a middle that's only getting messier, it is the brands that look to psychology and behavioural science that will create marketing that is much more persuasive, and conducive to how consumers actually make purchase decisions.
3. Close the Gap Between Exposure and Purchase: You'll notice the key theme of all 9 of the aforementioned behavioural science principles is they they all work to simplify decision-making. You're goal as a marketers is to make the path to purchase as easy as possible, removing all barriers, whether real or psychological, as possible.

While the above behavioural science principles are certainly no fix-all, it is up to us as the behavioural architects to understand each, and know when and how they can best be employed.