What planning can learn from behaviourism

I've been having nightmares about our latest advertising campaign.

An old friend of mine, Samuel, is a cognitive behavioural psychologist and a goldmine for insights into human behaviour. As a planner I have been compelled to learn about the key principles of cognitive behavioural psychology or CBT.

The interesting part about CBT practioners is that they treat the human mind as a black box, downplaying the analysis of feelings or thoughts. The logic here is that the mind is so dynamic that trying to predict behaviour through attitude change is meaningless. Instead, the focus is on analysing inputs and outputs: if we change A in the environment of the subject, what will be the resulting behaviour B?

In short, a persons behaviour sequence looks something like this:

1. Antecedents (something that triggers behaviour) > 2. Behaviour (the action itself) > 3. Consequence (the reward).

I have tried to make sense of this from a branding and communications perspective. Here’s a summary of my findings.

Modify or die
According to the behavioural line of thought, the core principle of branding and communications should always be about modifying or reinforcing behaviour. Thoughts and feelings are nice to change, but when it comes to business, action speaks louder than words.

Hasn’t advertising always been about stimulating behaviour?
Both yes and no. Advertising, in its broadest definition, stimulates feelings or thoughts which in turn might (or might not) change behaviour. Since seeing a newspaper ad or watching a TV ad is quite far from the actual behaviour (e.g. the buying), its role can not be any other than generating positive thoughts about a brand or product. But nobody runs down to the store to try a new product straight away after watching an ad.

Following this argument, there some implications for how we design branding and communications:

1. Communications should guide behaviour by rewarding it. The best example of behaviour-guiding communications are in-store promotions or coupons where the behaviour is directly rewarded through a monetary incentive.

2. Communications should make sure the consequences of the behaviour at hand are clear. Trial marketing is an example of this, as it lets people experience the consequence of the product for free. Experience marketing takes this one step further by incorporating the promise with the actual delivery.

One could argue that there’s nothing new here. Companies like Procter & Gamble have been practising this for decades. Yet, if advertising ultimately is about stimulating behaviour, why does it focus so much on stimulating the black box, the thoughts and feelings? Maybe because most advertising and consumer behaviour theories and models taught at business schools are over 50 years old.

Solution: be more precise about examining the consumer behaviour in each specific case and be more flexible about the design of integrated communications and the role of each media. Channels should be seen as complements rather than substitutes. Ideally, this should result in a smart combination of highly creative and inspiring “above-the-line” ads with effective point-of-purchase comms in one integrated package. More Gorillas and less tactical advertising (“cheap bananas”) on TV!

Branded action, not branded words
3. Employer branding should be behaviour-driven, not value-driven. A large Swedish bank boats core values like Commitment, Continuity, Mutual respect and Professionalism. From a behaviour perspective, abstract words like these are hard to decode into action and therefore rather useless. What does “professionalism” imply for the day-to-day behaviour of most employees? Probably not a lot.

Solution: break every brand principle down to tangible instructions for action.

What do you think about this?

Comments

[Mark Earls]

Interesting thought.

However, the most important aspect of any individual human's environment is other people (humans being a social species). So much most CBTers would admit - particularly those working in addiction etc...

The problem with traditional behaviourism is that it's rooted in the early 20th Century Anglo-Saxon/American notion of the independent individual.

What if we tried to shape the people-environment around our consumers?