Page 55 - Decoding Decisions ~ Making sense of the messy middle
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55 CHAPTER 4 INFLUENCING THE MESSY MIDDLE
The simulation
The objective of these purchase simulations is to understand how marketing
effectiveness can be improved in the messy middle, using behavioural
science principles to either avoid or create disrupted brand preferences.
This translates into a threefold research objective:
1. Quantify and measure the importance of brand preference in
the messy middle
2. Quantify and measure the susceptibility of those preferences to
disruption through the application of cognitive biases
3. Understand how the above varies across different product
categories and verticals
Before the simulation began, each of our 31,000 shoppers were asked
for their first-choice and second-choice brands. These preferences then
appeared on screen as in the example on the previous page (figure 2).
Figure 2
PREFER A PREFER B PREFER A PREFER B
Examples of the simulation interface, taken from the laptops and package holidays categories.
The navigational conventions and layout of the site were modelled on
familiar retailers, but without any specific branding in the user interface.
The only brand signals the shopper received were those exposed within the
experimental frame itself.
