3 Great Marketing Lessons From Dan Ariely — Understanding The Irrational Customer

Some excerpts from this great interview with Dan Ariely: What is one of the most surprising findings from your research? One of them is something we called “coherent arbitrariness.” … If you get somebody to behave in a certain way one time, you’re not just influencing them that once, but you can actually go on to influence a long sequence of decisions. What insights would you share with a marketer who’s trying to change a customer’s mind? One is something called a “default,” and it is the path of least resistance. We’ve shown in many experiments that this is an incredibly appealing decision. It’s actually a decision of not making any decision… All of those decisions are vastly influenced by the path of least resistance. Another of the things we find is that in terms of motivation, sometimes things that you could buy with a fixed amount of money are more motivating than the money itself. For example, let’s assume you like lattes, and lattes are $3. We find that, if that’s the case, I can get you to do things for me more easily for a latte than I can get you to do it for $3. Which of your findings do you think is the most important for a marketer to know? The most important one is a finding on relativity. It’s the idea that people don’t know how much something is valued, and we try to assess the value by comparing it to things that are just in the environment next to it. For more, read the full interview at https://www.google.com/think/articles/understanding-irrational-customer-dan-ariely.html You can easily gain insights into your audience and see what content speaks to them with Keyhole!