Marketers Unleashed

The Psychology of Why People Buy: Insights from Dr. Simon Moore

• Kathryn • Season 1 • Episode 18

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Episode Summary:

What’s really happening in the mind of your customer?

In this eye-opening episode of Marketers Unleashed, host Kathryn Strachan welcomes Dr. Simon Moore, a leading chartered psychologist and behavioral science expert, for a deep dive into the real psychology behind buying decisions. Whether you market to businesses or consumers, understanding how people think is your edge.

Simon reveals how three core brain systems—emotional, logical, and social—work together (and often against each other) to shape every choice. Learn why trust and risk are inseparable, how to decode your audience’s non-conscious needs, and why B2B buyers are just as emotionally driven as anyone shopping on Amazon.

This episode will change how you think about your audience—and how you market to them.

What You’ll Learn:

  • The hidden decision-making systems shaping every purchase
  • Why emotions beat logic (even in B2B)
  • How risk tolerance, social belonging, and control drive behavior
  • The truth about trust in marketing—and why friction isn’t always bad
  • How to re-segment your audience based on psychological drivers
  • Why most focus groups fail and what questions actually reveal buyer behavior

Who It’s For:
Marketers, strategists, and brand builders who want to go deeper than data and craft campaigns that connect on a human level.


Resources & Mentions:

Host: Kathryn Strachan

Guest: Dr. Simon Moore

Welcome to Marketers Unleashed, the podcast where marketers break free from the noise and dive deep into the raw truths of the marketing world. We're here to go beyond best practices and uncover the bold ideas, untold stories, and hard lessons that shape real marketing success. From dissecting daring campaigns, to confronting the challenges keeping us awake at night. We're unleashing honest, unfiltered conversations to inspire, educate, and challenge you to think differently. Get ready to conquer the untamed side of marketing. I'm your host, Kathryn Strachan, and this is Marketers Unleashed. Where we're not just talking marketing, we're redefining it. For anyone who doesn't know me yet, I'm Kathryn Strachan, author of Scaling Success Building Brands that Break Barriers, international keynote speaker and fractional CMO for cutting edge brands. I have spent years navigating the ever-changing world of marketing and have seen it all. As your podcast host, I bring my expertise and curiosity to the table. Diving deep into honest conversations with industry leaders to uncover the insights, challenges, and bold ideas shaping our industry. Let's get started.

Kathryn:

Hello and welcome to Marketers Unleashed. Today I'm here with my good friend Simon. And we're going to be talking about psychology and some of the psychology behind why people buy, what motivates us, how we make decisions. All of these insights that are so important when you're thinking about how you might market, how you might reach your target audience. Thank you Simon for joining me today. It's really great to have you here.

Simon:

Thank you for inviting me.

Kathryn:

For anybody who doesn't know you, could you tell them a little bit about yourself and what you do and who you are?

Simon:

Yes, I'm a charter psychologist. I actually started off with animals. I was doing conservation psychology with dolphins and primates. And now, I've switched over to work with humans, And then I apply that to audiences. Co-founded an agency about fifteen years ago that used behavioral science psychology, neuro psychology. to try and work out why do people make decisions, do the things they do, often not do the things they say they're going to do and why they're not doing the things you want them to do. And that can work within, the consumer space or within the employee space.

Kathryn:

Awesome. I'm super excited to get into the meat of this. Can you maybe start by telling us why and how we make decisions? I know it's not an easy answer, but talk us through some of that decision making process that all marketers really should know when it comes to understanding their audience.

Simon:

I will try. As you alluded to, it is fairly complex. We all have the same systems, but we all vary in these systems. and that's what makes it complex. It would be a lot easier, obviously, for us to think that we could apply one method that would work for everybody. Unfortunately, the variations of how people use those systems or are in tune with them makes it quite difficult. So, there are three systems that generally influence how we make a decision or whether we even wanna think about making a decision really. So one is how our brain works and how it is developed and how it's organized. This area here at the front, just above your eyebrows and just where your eyebrows end. So it's not very deep. It's about that big, That's your central executive. That likes logic, it likes numbers, it likes statistics. So it's very fact driven and very pragmatic. The bigger part of your brain, which is the bit from your eyebrows to the back of your neck. That is an emotional part of the brain. It doesn't like to think about things carefully. It likes to feel, it likes to avoid things it doesn't like, and it likes to get rewarded. It's quite impulsive and it's quite hedonistic. So you've got that struggle between the two systems. The front part of the brain, it's probably a quarter, if not a fifth the size of the emotional brain. And so the emotional brain is a bit of a bully. And if you don't let it kind of in on the, deal, then it's not interested. So you could talk numbers and money, and often marketers do, but if it's not an emotional perceived piece of value, it's not gonna come along on that journey, so it will resist. The second part is we all have needs and motivations and drives. We are probably as humans not very aware of these. we think we know what drives us, but we probably don't. So these, are much more driven by non-conscious processes. And they fall into the categories of; Do you have a need for social connection? Do you want to get on with people? Do you want not be left out? Do you wanna be part of a group membership thing? Or do you have a higher need for individualism, for example. And then another is safety need. Some people are risk averse and some people are risk tolerant. And again, that's gonna really muddy the waters in terms of what you're gonna listen to. If that's not complex, those two systems, a third system that you add the layer to is. the perceived relevance and value of the proposition or the message. So in terms of the psychology persuasion, there are basically two routes. So if you and I are interested in something, this is called the central route to persuasion. I am gonna be interested in facts and figures 'cause I am gonna be paying attention.'Cause I am quite intrigued and I'm quite interested and I'm already engaged. So products that we're interested in, you're gonna do a better job if you are gonna use sort of pragmatics and numbers. I'm not saying that emotions are not important here. However, the vast majority of marketing messages are hitting a system that's what we call the peripheral system. We are not that interested. We probably are not even aware that there's this product or this service, for example. And that system is not bothered by facts and figures. It's how you look. How you sound. So you know, when you're talking to someone they will persuade you by, do they look like they know what they're talking about? Are they talking quickly? If they're talking quickly, I perceive they know a lot about this. So they must be really enthusiastic. I should be enthusiastic. So it's really peripheral cues there that work for the vast majority of what might interest us. So when you lay those three things together, that's why it's quite complex.

Kathryn:

Yeah, it is quite complicated and it sounds like it differs a little bit per person or per persona. When we look at B2B versus B2C, does how we make decisions differ when we're at work compared to when we're at home or all those three systems still in place?

Simon:

They're fixed. So it makes no difference if you are B2C, B2B with your friend, with your partner, with your other members of your family. The same systems will be at play. I'll give you an example. One of the biases of our brain, probably linked to evolutionary reasons, is the fact that we're quite alert to risk. We don't like it and we try and avoid it. And anything that kind of can suggest risk or threat it's gonna cause an avoidant response. Or it's gonna pop all the nice things that you might think about something. So, For example, if your partner or your business associate, colleague at work has done four nice things recently with you. They've only gotta do one irritating thing. That little reservoir of positivity completely bursts. It's not a one for one liking. We pay so much and give so much weight to negativity. In general, what we think from a psychology point of view is that one sort of negative thing is balanced by four positives. Which is really unfair, isn't it? But that's one of the biases that our brain works. And that works in business and that works at home and that works with people you might encounter. The system doesn't change.

Kathryn:

Yeah, and quite often B2B marketing is thought of as quite different than B2C. it gets the rep for not being emotionally driven. But I'm really passionate in B2B being emotionally driven. In fact, I think it often carries more weight when it comes to these decisions than in B2C.'Cause if you make the wrong decision in B2B, you know you could lose your job. If you make the wrong decision when you buy a pair of shoes, all you gotta do is return them. The weight of those decisions is much heavier often in B2B. So I think it's a massive mistake when B2B marketers don't think about the emotion or just go for the logical play because that doesn't always work. How can we start to build a better understanding of our specific audience? Like what might stand out to them when we're creating campaigns and thinking about how we're gonna cut through that noise.

Simon:

Yeah, and that's probably an ongoing question. I think a lot of companies struggle. Well, I can do the pragmatics really well. But this fuzzy thing around emotions. I'd like to think it's not that important and I'm not sure how I kind of get to grips with it, really. And that's a, fair kind of perception. It is quite difficult. But nonetheless, it's really important. If we don't get to grips with that big emotional brain system, then you've got at best, probably a one in five chance of actually engaging the audience. It doesn't even mean they're gonna do anything. It just means they're gonna pay you some attention. What I would advise people to do is whether it is B2B or B2C, they need to understand what the needs are of a target audience. So in a B2C situation, I don't mean things like, price, how many they get, or the quality of it. Those things are important. But it's do these people need to stand out? Do they need to fit in? Those are the things that are gonna drive them to your kind of message to see, is that relevant to me? Is it gonna help me? So people will assess your message and your products and your services based on how will it help me as an individual? Is it gonna make me stand out? Is it gonna make me fit in? Is it gonna make me feel more intelligent? Is it gonna make me feel that I've got higher status than everybody? These things are really important. You know, we are our own PR agents to some extent. It's our image, it's our impression. What I'd rather thinking of is how do I stand out? I wanna stand out? Do I want to fit in? So those are definitely really important questions to ask in terms of what is it that your audience needs? And they will be split. They will be divided. The secret is finding out the percentage split in your audience. To what extent is your audience individually driven or socially driven? To what extent is your audience risk averse or risk tolerant? When you do things like that, then you start moving the dial. And then you move like a one in five chance of conversion to probably more like a 50 50, maybe even a 60 40 split. So you know you're never gonna get a hundred percent, but obviously the game is to get more conversion than less.

Kathryn:

I mean, when we're talking about everybody's their own PR agency. I think some people like, obviously myself, I've got 18,000 followers. So like I know that I like to be in the limelight. Not everybody does. So my husband springs to mind. He's not even on social media. Does not want to be front and center. So like when we're talking about perception. There are people who are gonna say, Oh, I don't care how I'm perceived or what people think of me. Is that actually true? Does everybody you know, secretly care about what they look like or what they're perceived by? Or, you know, are there some people out there that concept of everybody being their own PR agency doesn't apply for?

Simon:

No, it applies. Yes, there are people who want it more than others. But the fact is that humans are social creatures. From a very early age our brains are designed to interact with others. That's it, fact. There are people who are really bothered about that social status. And there are those people who don't seek it, but they do know it's important. Like your husband, for example, will know that with friends and the smaller audience that he has, it's still important to how he comes across.

Kathryn:

Yeah. Yeah.

Simon:

There are very rare people who just do what they want to do.

Kathryn:

This differs culturally too, obviously. So how an American comes across is very different than how a British person comes across. So when we're thinking about our audience's needs. What consideration do we need to pay to cultural differences and how that applies to like an international marketing strategy?

Simon:

The nice thing about these needs is they are, they're universal. It makes no difference if you're male, female, your age, your culture. Everyone has a need for control. Everyone has a need for social integration. Everyone has a need for exploration and learning. These are things that are just part of being human. The great thing that you've mentioned is there'll be nuances of that. So obviously, the west is slightly more individualized and the east is slightly more collective. So you have to bear in mind those are drivers that from a cultural perspective will color what you need to do in respect to that. In other words, if you're marketing out in a lot of the eastern parts of the world, you have to bear in mind that obviously social connectivity is gonna be important. Whereas in the west, it's messaging that this is about status and ego and self-esteem, for example.

Kathryn:

Once you understand that need. What's the next step in really nailing this buying decision process?

Simon:

The trouble is that a lot of people don't really know what drives them. So you'll need methods and tools that surface that subconscious need around how they operate in the world. People won't really know if they like control or not. But there are clues. People who have post-it notes around their computers, who are constantly looking at the time. If they've got children that are in afterschool club, they're probably people who have a high needs for control.'Cause they like everything planned. They don't like unknowns. They like to know order. They like to know what's gonna happen next. So if I invite them to a party, the people with high need for control are gonna go, What time is it? What's the food? What should I wear? How do I get to you? Whereas, people that don't have high need for control are gonna be like, yeah, great, when? They'll role with the chaos. How that kind of manifests in marketing is you don't need to do both things separately to them. As long as you know how your audience is broken down by those needs. I suppose the best analogy I give is, if you and I read a newspaper article, the same one, we would both go away with different impressions based on our needs. If I've got high need for control and this article's all about independence. I'm like oh, I don't like the article, it makes me anxious. Whereas you might go, Oh, that's really good! It's, reinforcing what I think about the world. So it's your needs met, my needs not met. So I'm gonna not be happy, you are gonna be engaged and like, tell me more. The mistake often with marketing is that you've got four segments, so you need four different pieces of copy. You don't. You just need to know who those four segments are and make sure that in your copy you're addressing each of them.' Cause you'll ignore the things that are not relevant to you. All you do when you read stuff is think about how relevant is that to me?

Kathryn:

You mentioned there a little bit, but what are some of the mistakes that marketers make when it comes to understanding the psychology behind who they're trying to target?

Simon:

Yeah, so it is the methods generally, I would say. They ask people questions, they do focus groups with them, interviews. Now, I'm not saying they're not useful, but you don't take those things at face value. Neuroscience and Behavioral Science in the last 15 years have demonstrated that there's very little relationship between what you say you're gonna do and what you do next. So if I asked you in a questionnaire, in a survey, in a focus group and say, are you gonna buy this product? Most people will say, yeah, probably. Yet, maybe 10% might, if you're lucky. So we need to understand what is it they need, rather than will you do stuff? Which is a completely different set of questions. There are other methods you can do to flush out what is it that drives you? So I can listen to what you say. So Catherine, if you start using the word I and me a lot, then I know the world is probably around what it means to you. Whereas if you use we and us, I know probably that you have more social connectivity drivers, for example. So I've got to reposition my marketing to go, how do I make you feel included? How do I make you feel that you're part of the group? How do I make you feel that you're not left behind? If you're an individualist, you don't care.' Cause you wanna stand out and be different, you'll take more risk.

Kathryn:

You're quite perceptive and can pick up on these things when you have a conversation with somebody or when you interact with somebody. But I don't know that it's super easy for all marketers to pick up on all these cues. You're obviously a trained professional. You have lots of degrees and lots of experience. For marketers listening who aren't as brilliant as you or don't have the experience you have. How can they start to understand their audience? Is it working with an agency like yours? Are there any specific tips or tricks that they could use to, try to suss some of this out?

Simon:

Yeah, if they have the luxury of hiring people in to do it. If you don't have that luxury, it's asking questions about what people like, enjoy, what they find risky? What they find that makes them anxious? Rather than, do you like the product? Do you like us as a brand? Would you buy this? If it was this price, would you buy it? If it was that price, would you buy it? If I put it this color, what would you do? Those things for me are irrelevant, really. Is the product gonna help me stand out? So we need to know is the person About standing out, fitting in. Those are the questions and focus you can use. you can ask questions like that'cause it will give you clues. You're better off doing that than asking purely about the product itself or the service itself or the brand, for example. Yeah, nobody really cares about the product. you need to make that fit afterwards when you know what drives your audience You've done this, haven't you? Because you've had some very senior roles in marketing and you will know that you're still dealing with people when you do B2B. And it's more difficult because they're the gatekeepers to get into that company. So if you don't actually meet their needs, they are not gonna let you go anywhere near the company itself.

Kathryn:

I do this with my clients. It's one of the first things to do when I'm building a marketing strategy, is defining the audience. We don't talk about the brand or like the product, but it's about them. It's who are they? What do they care about? What's our worldview? How do they see things? What are they awake thinking about at 2:00 AM? What is their like ideal situation? And it's moving away from the product because the product is almost irrelevant in this conversation. I think of it often as like building a relationship. If you want to court somebody or date them. You have to know who they are, what do they like, what do they don't like? And then you need to meet them where they are. They're not gonna just do what you want right out the gate. You've got to go to them, build the relationship on their terms, on their ground, at their level, and then get them to come to you.

Simon:

Yeah, no, I completely agree and I think that's a great example. If you think about that analogy of relationships and courting, if you went and met on a first date and someone just talked at you about how good they are and what they've achieved. Would you go on a second date? I probably wouldn't myself. But isn't that what most marketing brands do? They just bombard people with how great they are, how great their products are, how great their service, how long they've been around for. They don't listen. And to your point, if you wanna build a relationship, it has to be a two-way thing. You have to listen as well as talk.

Kathryn:

I think that all marketing is relationship building. When you're doing it through content and via social, you're doing it at scale rather than on a one-on-one level. But it's really no different than when you're building a relationship with one individual. So it's thinking about some of those foundational elements for relationship building. Listening, asking questions, showing interest. We wouldn't go into a conversation, only talk about ourselves, not ask any questions, not care who they are whatsoever, and expect that we're then gonna be best friends or they're gonna get a second date. Like none of that's gonna happen. I don't often get or understand why brands forget about relationship building when it comes to marketing.

Simon:

It impacts that trust, doesn't it? If you want trust for something, you have to build a relationship. It annoys me so much that brands just think that trust is a product. It's something that we just tick. It's a switch that we just flick on. No, doesn't work that way.

Kathryn:

What's some of the psychology behind building trust? What does it come down to from a psychological perspective?

Simon:

So this is gonna sound strange, but you have to have risk involved in trust. If there's no risk, you don't have to trust, do you? if I give you something for free and you know you're gonna get it, I don't have to trust you. If there's a risk that you might not give me what I want, then if it does actually happen, then I'm like, oh, my trust in you has increased. So I think that's an interesting area of kind of trust in marketing that a lot of them forget. They think they have to guarantee things all the time. Guarantees are important. They add reassurance, but do not remove the risk element. If I know a hundred percent I'm gonna get something, I don't have to trust you. It is just a transaction. Did some research on this for the last three years, for lots of different brands in lawford and sectors. The key predictor of whether someone as a consumer will trust you is are you offering that's commercially different? So in other words, is your product sort of leading edge different? It might not be, but it's the perception. If your audience thinks you offer something different from anyone else, they start to trust you more, which is really weird, isn't it? They value that difference. So they're gonna actually make more effort to trust you, that you are giving them something that they value more than all the other things that are out there. So that's one predictor. The other predictor is definitely risk. Obviously that's an elastic band. No risk, I don't need to trust you. Too much risk, it's not worth the effort. So it's gotta be somewhere in the middle. And the other factor was, social reassurance. So things like recommendations, videos of other consumers. What we found wasn't that important was the perception of brand itself. How nice were they or how good did they behave. In general, that's not a useful concept for us to think whether I trust you or not. So for example, people say they don't trust Amazon. Yet, they carry an ordering from them. They go, Oh, they're not a nice brand. But you carry an ordering from it. However, what we do know is that if your boxes don't turn up and they're damaged, then the trust starts to wobble because it actually means something to you as an individual. Going back to the say and do. We might say, Oh, I don't like Amazon because they're awful. You'll still order from it because you're still getting your boxes on time. They're still getting it to you quicker. And there's still a whole range of things I can get on Amazon in one go that I have to go to seven other shops to get. So actually ease, out plays everything for me. So actually I do trust you that you can do what you're saying you're doing.

Kathryn:

It's the same with Ryanair. Everybody hates Ryanair, but they have the cheapest prices and they fly you there, so you continue to buy from them. We all know that they're bastards, but nobody has stopped buying from Ryanair because they're so cheap, they're so easy. Like you just go.

Simon:

I think this is where a lot of marketeers get confused. It's not the monetary thing. It's they're doing something different that actually impacts me positively as an individual. So they might be doing something horrible to the planet or whatever it might be but as long as I get to where I need to get to fairly cheaply. I trust them.'cause that's what they say they do. They didn't tell me they do anything different.

Kathryn:

It's counterintuitive for a lot of marketers to think about introducing a level of risk to what they do. I mean, obviously one way that they can do that is by being different in some way, or doing something different than other people in the market. But is that the only way or what's the best way to increase? So that you can create that trust.

Simon:

One of my bug bear terms in marketing is frictionless. It's used often and I think you use outta context. From a psychology point of view, nothing should be frictionless,'cause there's no value. If you don't put effort into something, you don't value it. You have to make some effort for you to value your time. So don't just say it should be frictionless. It shouldn't be. There should be some effort in there. That's why there's that element of risk involved.'Cause if you make some effort, you hope your effort is gonna actually have a nice outcome. So that's something that, I think marketers should know and they should put into their strategy. The other thing is, going back to our original conversation, is if you understand what makes your audience tick in terms of their needs. So that your products might make them different. Your products might make them fit in, it might make them feel safe. It might make them learn new things. Those are the things that you probably need to increase your kind of copy around, because they're gonna be psychological lures that immediately play into people's intuitive way that they look at the world. So that's another technique that you can use, is, that emotional brain more.

Kathryn:

Does like inspiration feed into this? Like when we're talking about needs, do we wanna paint like an inspirational lifestyle? Should we make them want to inspire to be something?

Simon:

That will work with people who have a very individualistic drive. That will not work with people who have a very social connectivity. Because, when you inspire people, it usually means inspire you to do something different. Which then means change and change means a lot of effort. When people think about it and people go, I don't wanna make any effort, i'm happy as I am. I don't wanna be inspired. So there's gonna be a large chunk of the audience you just go, oh my God, that sounds like too much effort, not interested. There are gonna be others who go, great, I like inspiration.'Cause it means I can go somewhere different and learn something and I can stand out more and I can keep ahead of the pack.

Kathryn:

So the needs don't always need to inspire.

Simon:

No, but they need to fit back to the needs of your audience. Who wants to be inspired and who would think that's the worst thing possible, 'cause it's just too much effort and I haven't got time to do that.

Kathryn:

So talk me through like what some of these needs are. We know that it's individualistic versus like community focused. We know that there's risk adverse versus, being acceptable of risk. What are some of the needs that we need to be thinking about so that we can kind of almost go through a checklist of okay, where do they fall on the scale?

Simon:

Yeah, so there are those two things. So there's sociability And then there's the individualism, to what extent they are or not. You've got planning as well. So that falls within the control. Some people have a high need for control and planning, knowing what happens next. And some people are quite comfortable with, let's just go with the flow and see what happens next. And you can see, even with your friends, that can cause a lot of grating between people.'Cause if you've got a high need for control and your friends are like, whatever, let's just go with the flow. You're like no, I need to know what happens next. That can happen watching television as well, that people binge watch, don't they?'Cause they can't wait, I need to know now. So they'll say up to two o'clock in the morning. So that's a third category. And the fourth category is the need for Inspiration, exploration and learning. Some people want to keep pushing themselves to learn new experiences and have new encounters and things like that. Some people are not so bothered by that. They're just happy and just chugging away at that level. So those are the four categories, and underneath those things are different drivers that feed into that. It's a bit like going on holiday. I see this a lot with people who go on holiday. They arrive and within the first few days of arrival on the holiday that they've planned, they're already thinking about their next holiday. Yeah. So

Kathryn:

I live in that mode.

Simon:

And some people are like, thank God I'm on holiday. I'm gonna enjoy this now. I'm gonna enjoy every moment and think where I am. I'm gonna be conscious where I am. And it's just, we're different the way we perceive the world and it comes out differently from what drives us.

Kathryn:

Am I right to think of it as like a sliding scale between the two?

Simon:

Yeah. Yeah. So when you start thinking about how these slide between those four categories, that's what makes you an individual. This is gonna sound really odd, but as a psychologist, for me, there's no such thing as personality. All we are are manifestations of how are we trying to meet these needs or what drives us. So you know, they talk about extroversion and introversion. And you're like, I don't know what an extrovert does 'cause I haven't followed them around enough. Psychology hasn't really demonstrated what extroverts do, and they change a lot. Extroverts are extroverts sometimes, and they can be introverted other times. So it's not helpful having these traits because not only do we have a lot of them, there are hundreds of traits. How's that gonna be helpful for marketeer to know what their audience is? I would say rethink it and go a deeper level, and these are the drivers. So you know, link into traits. They're a higher source. You could go at personality level, I think it'd be a headache for you because you are thinking, oh, I've got 200 personality traits. Which ones are relevant to my audience? Whereas drivers are more fundamental and then there are fewer of them.

Kathryn:

Those are the four needs or are there are the.

Simon:

Yeah, four knee categories. I would, I seriously, I would think about how you might resegment your audience on those things 'cause it's actually quite impactful. And that's with subscriptions and loyalty, whether that's retention, where whatever it might be, we've seen it be so impactful across the markets in terms of if you know what your audience needs, you can then pivot on that in terms of your marketing.

Kathryn:

Tell me a little bit about like a case study or an example of one of the clients that you've worked with, that this has totally changed how they market and how they talk to their audience.

Simon:

Okay. One example Worked for a big global bank and if I say to you that people don't trust banks, you're probably just nod along. Most people do. And they go, yeah, I've heard that before. Yet most people don't change their bank accounts. They say they don't trust their bank, but they don't do anything with it. And this bank in general did a lot of research and the research said that people don't trust you. So they then spent probably nearly a million pounds in a new campaign around why you can trust us as a bank. We've been around forever we've got all these experts, we've got all these products, we've run all these awards. And as a consequence of that, they lost about 7, 8% of their market. And they were like, "What? What? Hang on a minute. We are responding to what our audience is telling us. We're telling, we're giving them the reassurance that you can trust us." When they couldn't work out what was happening, they'd asked us to go in and have a second opinion about what was happening here. And we found very quickly that it was a trust issue. But what they'd forgotten to do was actually ask the audience, do they trust themselves in their own financial planning? Do they trust themselves with their own money? And what we found out is actually they don't. It's quite embarrassing is it, to admit you don't really know what, your interest rate? Where's your money invested? What's your bank doing with that money? I dunno those things. I don't even know what my overdraft is. But you know what, that's embarrassing because it's my money. I should know these questions. So I'd rather say, I just don't trust my bank. And yet when we told them that, they were like, oh my goodness. That makes so much sense now, and you're like, yeah, because we didn't ask the right questions, we didn't allow people to admit that they didn't know how to manage their money because you assumed they did and you assumed it was about you. But actually most people are fairly financially anxious and underconfident. So actually what we then did is the marketing section worked with the commercial section to go, how can we improve the confidence of our customers rather than say how good we are? What can we do as a consequence to help improve the ability of our customers to manage their money? That was probably one of the most successful marketing campaigns that they'd ever undertaken. But to the point we were talking about, if we don't ask the right questions, we are gonna get very forced data back,

Kathryn:

Also, if you take everything at face value. So most of the time what people say is not actually what they mean. Just like how you said earlier, yeah, they'll say that they'll buy it, but they won't. We know this from relationships. A lot of times people say things and it's not what they mean, or they didn't mean in that way, or don't actually deliver on their hopes or dreams or ambitions. It's often about reading between the lines and reading underneath the surface to figure out what it is that they actually meant.

Simon:

Yeah. I remember working with a big pharma company who had quite innovative product. They went out to research the market and in about 16 markets the patients and the consultants who would recommend this product all said, oh my God, this is amazing. Of course we would buy it. And then I think about a year after release, they were nowhere near the numbers that they were expecting, and they were like, whoa, hang on. This doesn't make any sense. And it's because, again, they were so focused on what the product does, but they weren't focused on the kind of drivers and the needs of the target audience beyond the delivery of the product itself. And once we worked out what that was, then it worked. Going back to the original part of the conversation, too much focus on product and pragmatics.

Kathryn:

I think that's a really nice final note. But before we wrap up, what final advice would you have for marketers who want to better understand their audience, want to better understand how they make decisions?

Simon:

I think, look, what you're doing with the pragmatics is great, and I'm not saying they're not important, so I think carry on doing that. But you need to fuse together and understand the back part of the brain. So the emotional part, what the needs are. So I would feed into AI system. What are human needs in terms of consumer decisions, you'll get quite a lot of useful information. Probably some reading, but maybe some useful tips that you can use straight away in your marketing. And if in doubt, then probably reach out to people on LinkedIn, psychologists who might be able to give you some advice and help you. Hopefully allow you to learn and then they walk away and you move on. They don't wanna be there with you all the time. They want to help you and then probably take the stabilizers off and hope you can run on your own. But it's important to ask people who know what they're doing start with. I think you can do more damage if you read a book. This is what annoys me about behavioral science. Everyone thinks they know nudge and they can do like behavioral interventions. And I've seen this go wrong so many times. There are so many comms people who've reinvented themselves as behavioral kind of experts. And I've had to go in and unpick a lot of the work that they've done, unfortunately. Don't read a book and just apply it. Learn from someone who's actually done and got their hands dirty.

Kathryn:

And don't pretend that you're the expert on something that you're not.

Simon:

And I have had to do that in life as well. I think I could do that, and I think, no, I probably can't. So...

Kathryn:

Thank you so much for being on the show. I love speaking to you 'cause it's so fascinating how we make decisions, the role that emotion plays and these sorts of things, and I absolutely love that psychologically B2B and B2C are not different at all. I love that. So thank you so much for joining us today and sharing all your amazing insights and wisdom. I really appreciate it.

Simon:

Thanks for inviting me, Catherine.

Kathryn:

That's a wrap for this episode of Marketers Unleashed. Thank you for tuning in and diving deep with us into the unleashed world of marketing. We hope you're leaving with fresh insights, new ideas, and maybe even a few aha moments to fuel your next big move. If you've enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a new episode. And hey, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a review, or connect with us on LinkedIn to share your thoughts and join in the conversation. Until next time, keep thinking bold, challenging the norms, and unleashing your inner marketer. After all, what's the worst that'll happen? I'm your host, Kathryn Strachan, over n' out.