Findings from the neuroscience marketing firm Neuro-Insight show what consumers are buying or think ... [+]
Consumers decide what products and services are essential—and which are indulgent—depending on how long they’ve been in isolation. That’s one of the findings of new research from neuroscience-marketing firm Neuro-Insight, and it has captured the attention of leading CMOs navigating how best to move forward amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Neuro-Insight, people purchase something if they view it as a need or get a strong gratification from it—a process driven by the subconscious rather than a conscious decision. As the length of isolation increases, things once seen as indulgent shifted to be perceived by consumers as essential. For example, in the third week of isolation, according to Neuro-Insight, people saw alcohol as more of an essential product than they did before isolation. However, that attitude also shifted even as consumers were drinking less, with 73% drinking more in the first week compared to 64% in the third week.
Similar trends happened for apparel in the third week. While Americans prioritized essential supplies in the first few weeks, they began moving on from buying gloves and masks to items that were more self-expressive. Restaurants, meanwhile, also have become essential as quarantine has continued. In the first week, only 13% were ordering takeout, but in the third week, that percentage jumped to 38%. Meanwhile, the subconscious data show people saw restaurants as essential more than as an indulgence in later weeks.
So what are the next categories to potentially pop? Data from Neuro-Insight’s next wave of research show gaming and travel are key as people entertain themselves now and also try and plan for a future trip far away from home.
“Our entire mind is a network of associations that is built over time through our experiences, culture and society,” said Neuro-Insight CEO Pranav Yadav. “As we go through this intense one- or two-month period, a lot of these associations (like how we react to an empty or full fridge) are going to change. And brands need to bring that understanding to the center of their decision making process.”
Neuro-Insight looked at alcohol consumption and its relation to isolation.
CMOs are taking note of the findings and looking at ways to follow the trends. For example, as the virus forced the obstacle-course race company Spartan to cancel 70 races around the world, the Boston-based company has spent the past few weeks pivoting to virtual engagement.
And with so many races cancelled, the need for community has become essential, according to Spartan CMO Carola Jain. At first, the company started off with a 24/7 Zoom chat channel with workouts every 30 minutes for the global audience, but when that was too much, it switched to six times a day featuring a variety of industry leaders. The company has also pivoted its emails—often used for race instructions—to daily newsletters featuring info about mind, body and nutrition.
According to Jain, Neuro-Insight’s findings have been validating when it comes to understanding what Spartan’s fan base wants in terms of community, information, and identity. The content has also provided scale for potential advertisers. Rather than a sponsor reaching 10,000 people on race day, Spartan is thinking about how brands can sponsor content to reach the 1 million people on its Unbreakable newsletter. (It’s also talking with a few platforms for how to improve video conferencing to create community.)
Also among the first to review the research was Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard’s chief marketing and communications officer for Mastercard and president of Mastercard’s healthcare business. He said the research is helpful for connecting the dots with Mastercard’s own analysis of anonymized data from credit-card purchases to track trends.
“Please, please, please stay tuned to consumers and their real feelings and emotions at this time,” Rajamannar urges all brand leaders. “Do not be tone deaf; even the best intentions can be flat and you’ll have mud in your face.”
Neuro-Insight looked at brand perception during isolation.
As the crisis began to spread around the world, Neuro-Insight’s clients began asking what brands could do, asking first about whether ads were effective as well as if positive or negative stories affected their impact. However, as they looked at all the communication in the market, it seemed like brands were struggling to know what the right message even was. So instead of measuring the impact of the ads themselves, Neuro-Insight decided to ask consumers about the impact of self-isolation and what they were doing to deal with it.
Neuro-Insight also looked at conscious answers to topics such as panic, and the results also showed that panic has not decreased as the “new normal has set in.” Rather, the percentage of people concerned about the crisis has gone up over the first three weeks of isolation: 52% before isolating, 59% after the first week, 71% after the second week, and 77% after the third.
When consumers’ basic needs like sustenance, community, identity, autonomy and creative expression aren’t being met, panic sets it, according to Yadav. And as panic increased, certain buying behaviors have played out. In the first week, news consumption went up as people grappled with how to understand the virus and how it might impact them. In the second week, consumers focused on getting basic needs met such as groceries and alcohol along with video calls to catch up with friends who were also alone. However, in the third week, researchers noticed a consumers looked to fill the need for identity and creative expression—and turned to buying apparel they didn’t need as a way of expressing themselves.
Neuro-Insight’s process to measure subconcious feelings included having 600 people at home in various parts of the country look at a category word such as alcohol, food, and clothing and then having them indicate with a swipe whether they thought it was an essential item or an indulgence. Based on the speed of their response, the company was able to determine how strong a consumer’s association was with each category. In order to make sure subjects truly weren’t thinking about their answers, the team discarded responses slower than 500 milliseconds but also rejected anything faster than 100 milliseconds. (In other words, Yadav said the finding are focused on feelings that are “faster than thought.”) This helps compare what people said they think they feel to how they actually feel.
Yadav and his team see the possibility for brands to engage in ways that are more relevant than usual. (Something that marketers should especially take note of given that every COVID-19 ad has been quite similar.) According to Samrat Saran, head of client solutions at Neuro-Insight, marketers need “to be a part of people’s lives,” but to “stop thinking about this as cause marketing. Start thinking about this as your one big bet of the year that will fundamentally change how people think about your brand.”
“You have to go above and beyond to make sure you’re communicating it the right way and doing things that are meaningful, innovative, and the first of its kind,” Saran said. “Otherwise you’re following someone else’s path and then it becomes expected.”
The findings also have relevance for media planners, which might be wondering when to target different audiences with various ads. In order to do that in a crisis, it’s important to know their current needs. “When you take away all of the paraphernalia around where you live and your surroundings and what’s available to you, then you realize all of our actions are going to be fairly similar because of how humans are structured,” Yadav said.
