HOW TO DO GOOD STRATEGY GOOD. PART 3
HOW TO DO GOOD STRATEGY, GOOD. PART 3
Part 3 in how to create good strategy in the world of branding, marketing & communications.
THE CONSUMER
This could logically be said to be your first focus. Following a Design Thinking modality; you would want everything you imagine, engineer, and design to revolve around this human being. And yes we will get there but right after we have formed a big-picture business understanding of what we are trying to achieve.
Now we put that aside and look for our Human Truths.
Back a couple of decades ago, the intent was to muster all work around a central human truth – not about the product, not about the functional and not about making the sale. I don’t raise issue with any of this. There was a tendency, however, at times to become too universal in these insights. And ultimately too manipulative in terms of working them in reverse order to rationalize a good idea the creative team had.
Insights need to work harder than just that.
How are the humans in the situation currently behaving? What do they believe? What are the barriers standing in the way of what they currently believe or do and what we hope we can convince them to believe and do?
And here is the clincher. What is the emotional basis for decision-making – what emotions are going to drive the behavior and choices we want them to make? I don't mean just liking our brand. Go back to the emotional understanding of what makes the Guinness drinker lovingly order one on Saint Patrick’s Day with their mates? What the emotion or lack thereof that stands in the way of them ordering it say ‘any old time’?
Emotion trumps Reason every time.
Having worked on the global launch of MINI way back when. (no not in the 60’s -the new model owned by BMW). If you had asked people why they purchased their MINI they would say things like ‘good for getting around town’, ‘a surprising amount of trunk space for a small car’, ‘great gas mileage’. Some may have gone as far as to say they liked ‘The Design’.
We all know that the real truth about why they bought the MINI over every other practical, small, good on gas, well-designed, small car was one thing: The Emotions it provoked in them.
Like that nobel prize winning psychologist said ‘90% of all human decisions are based in emotion not rationale’. (I paraphrased so I didn’t have to look up the Kahneman quote).
Dig into the emotional context. If there is nothing extremely striking or observable about that, then at least look at Lifestyle context and how the situation fits into their human needs. What role does my brand play? What role could it play? What’s driving their decision-making? What’s holding them stuck in their current pattern?
Dive into their world. Be Freud and lay them on your couch. Get in their heads.