Page 53 - Decoding Decisions ~ Making sense of the messy middle

53 CHAPTER 4 INFLUENCING THE MESSY MIDDLE

It’s a jungle out there

We argued at the start of this chapter that any purchase decision, from

choosing a mortgage to buying your favourite shampoo, can contain both
rational and emotional elements. In certain circumstances, rider and elephant
might eventually reach the same destination, but having made the journey via
very different routes.

To test whether the impact of brand preference and cognitive bias remains
stable across categories, we selected 31 products representing a broad
range of risk, complexity, and emotional and financial investment, covering
several major verticals and sectors, including travel, financial services,

consumer packaged goods, retail, and utilities (figure 1).

Figure 1 HIGH COMPLEXITY

SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle)
MORTGAGE MOUNTAIN FITTED KITCHEN
BIKE
SOFA BATHROOM SUITE
BROADBAND
LAPTOP PACKAGE HOLIDAY
MOBILE MAKE-UP
NETWORK POWER TV
ENERGY PROVIDER CREDIT CARD DRILL MOBILE CHILDREN’S TOYS
PHONE LONG HAUL FLIGHTS
LESS ENJOYABLE SHORT HAUL MORE ENJOYABLE
ISA
(Individual Savings CLOTHES FLIGHTS
Account) HOTEL
CAR INSURANCE
WHISKY
MOISTURISER
& SHAMPOO CAT FOOD
CAR HIRE
DETERGENT CEREAL
CINEMA TICKETS

LOW COMPLEXITY
Matrix of product categories, showing perceptions of enjoyability and complexity.

Given the online purchase format of our conjoint experiment, we established
some broad criteria to qualify our shopper sample.

Source: Google / The Behavioural Architects. n=31,000 category buyers, online shoppers, aged 18–65 (31 categories, 1,000 respondents in each). Participants answered the
following questions (1–7 scale). Results were then grouped by factor analysis (questions 1 and 5 for “enjoyment”, question 2–4 for “complexity”) and plotted accordingly. 1. How
enjoyable do you find looking for [relevant ‘product]? 2. How complex/difficult is it to find the right [relevant ‘product]? 3. How much effort does it take to find the [relevant ‘product]
you want? 4. How worried are you about making the wrong choice of [relevant ‘product]? 5. How experienced/knowledgeable do you feel about [relevant ‘product] in general?