Do you still base your marketing outreach around vintage, traditional tactics that you learned as an undergrad like A-I-D-A and the 4 P’s?
Decades ago, a psychologist named Carl Jung studied decision-making and found direct relation to emotion and the unconscious mind, completely debunking the effectiveness of these simple marketing formulas. These outdated practices incorrectly assume the audience is “a blank slate waiting to be written upon by the marketer.”
After tried-and-true proof that incorporating psychology into business practices increases RIO and general interest, marketers are finally beginning to abandon their comfort-zone and travel into the realm of Cognitive Science Communication. Embracing this scientific mindset allows marketers to get inside the human mind and discover the areas of motivation.
“Consumer psychology recognizes that the mind of the consumer is the creator of marketplace reality, not the activity of the marketer. Accordingly, consumer psychology focuses on emotional along with rational thinking, and unconscious as well as conscious motivation.“
–Peter Noel Murray, Ph.D.
As Jung explained it, emotion plays a critical role in creating meaning: “Thinking tells us what this thing is; feeling tells us what this thing is to us.” Recognizing that consumers make decisions based on an emotional response will allow for marketers to play off of emotion instead of attempting to entice a reaction.
The most important part of embracing social science into your marketing practice is recognizing that the unconscious mind is the main driving force of human behavior. When the unconscious is stimulated, entire areas of the brain that dictate motivation become active (i.e. the drive for social comparison or security).
So why do traditional marketers approach each consumer with the same equation? Why do we assume these marketers are experts in human beings?
Psychology is an incredibly important discipline to study if you wish to run a successful marketing campaign. Here at Volume PR we have thoughtfully incorporated the social sciences of psychology, sociology and anthropology into our Cognitive Science Communication practices.
For more on Jung’s role as a “Consumer Psychologist”, check out this great read from Psychology Today: .
