Page 7 - Decoding Decisions ~ Making sense of the messy middle

7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING THE MESSY MIDDLE

Charting undiscovered territory

So, over the course of the past two years, our team has embarked

on a multi-pronged project with the goal of trying to understand
how consumers on internet street interpret and manage increased information
and choice while buying online and offline. This research has led us to
identify a specific territory within the labyrinth of searches, ads, links, and
clicks involved in making a purchase. We call it the “messy middle”, a space
of abundant information and unlimited choice that shoppers have learned to
manage using a range of cognitive shortcuts. Successfully learning how to
2
navigate its switchbacks, hairpin bends, and dead ends is going to be as crucial
to future marketing success as any investment in technology or platforms.

The ‘messy middle’, a space of abundant

information and unlimited choice that

shoppers have learned to manage using a

range of cognitive shortcuts.

Once we discovered this territory, we set out to map it. In doing so, we
devised an updated model for how we believe people behave in this sphere of
abundance and uncertainty.

With the help of behavioural science expert The Behavioural Architects, we
recruited people to complete shopping tasks, captured their behaviour, and
listened in real time as they told us what they were thinking and doing, and
why they were doing it. As we watched, we began to notice how seamlessly

consumers switch between complementary states of “exploration” and
“evaluation”. We then applied behavioural science to help us cut through
the participants’ explanations and post-rationalisation to understand the
underlying cognitive processes at work.

2 We shared an early draft of the project with the well-known advertising strategist Vicki Holgate, and she played it back to us as “a kind of messy-middle”.
We tried various titles and names for presentations, but this was the phrase that stuck.