Page 83 - Decoding Decisions ~ Making sense of the messy middle

83 CHAPTER 4 INFLUENCING THE MESSY MIDDLE

After all, marketing history is littered with stories of start-up challenger
brands that came out of nowhere to seize substantial market share. Many of
those brands will have made extensive use of behavioural science to boost
the impact of their market entry. If you want a recent example, you only need
to look at the growth of direct-to-consumer mattress brands, which all make
use of powerful cues like free delivery, free returns, extensive user reviews,
and expert endorsements.

Our simulations have revealed some biases so powerful that every brand

should be aware of their influence, if only to be able to defend against
competitors leveraging biases such as social proof and the power of free. But
for the most part, brands would not want to approach this area piecemeal.
Each of the biases we explored addresses a cognitive need, and as our
supercharging results show, brands that know how to help consumers
navigate and simplify decision-making are often richly rewarded.

Many shoppers remained loyal to their

favourite brand even when the alternative

offered a vastly superior proposition.

2. The overdog effect – brands (still) matter

Despite our best efforts to swing things in favour of the fictional brands, in
every category, many shoppers remained loyal to their favourite brand even
when the alternative offered a vastly superior proposition. In several cases,
more than half of all category participants were uninterested in shifting
away from their favourite, and in the majority of categories more than a third
ignored the challenger and stuck with their first choice.

Everyone loves an underdog story – unfavoured brands shifting preferences
just by showing up and out-marketing their rival with some clever tactics. It’s
certainly an appealing tale, but as our data shows it isn’t the whole story.