How to Influence Buying Decisions Without Manipulation | Chelsea Burns

Most founders think customers buy based on logic.

They don’t.

In this episode, we break down what actually drives buying decisions - and why up to 95% of them happen below conscious awareness.

I’m joined by Chelsea Burns, also known as The Marketing Psychologist™, who combines nearly two decades of marketing experience with a Master’s in Applied Psychology to help brands grow through ethical, human-centered strategy.

We dive into the real psychology behind consumer behavior - not surface-level tactics, but the deeper drivers of identity, emotion, and belonging that influence whether someone says yes to your product… or ignores it completely.

You’ll learn:

• Why customers aren’t buying your product - they’re buying the transformation it offers
• The difference between ethical influence and manipulative marketing (and why it matters)
• How subconscious identity actually drives purchasing decisions
• What makes someone feel safe enough to say yes to your brand

Connect with Chelsea:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelseaburns26/
Website: https://www.the-marketing-psychologist.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Today we're diving into subconscious buying decisions because in wellness people aren't just buying a product, they're buying how they want to feel and who they want to become. I'm joined by Chelsea Burns, founder of The Marketing Psychologist. She combines nearly two decades of marketing experience with a master's in applied psychology from USC to help brands grow through ethical, human-centered strategy. Chelsea, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for the time. I'm excited. Me too. So before we go deep into the subconscious, can you let me know a little more about your background?

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so you covered kind of my expertise and my education. There's always one more like I throw in there, which is my lived experience. And so marketing and psychology, these are not new things, right? They've been around for a while. But what has made my approach different is about 11 years ago, we hit adulthood, and then we go, oof, I might need to like get some therapy for some things. And so, you know, went into a therapist office and spent really an active 10 years just exploring all sorts of different modalities. And it was fascinating. And we like to live these separate lives. We're like, oh, here's my professional life and I'm doing this, and here's my personal life, and I'm I'm doing this. And it all just comes together, right? It's not two separate things. And that's what led me to get my degree in applied psychology because I kept going, hello, there's so much more we're not doing with the science and the things that we know about the brain in this industry of branding and marketing. And so I always like to add that context because it's like I do have a degree in it and I loved my degree. And we're going to get into some very like research-based nerdy things that are derived from that. Um, but at the same time, like a decade of lived experience of watching these things take shape, um, I think adds a lot of depth and context.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize that marketing is all psychology. 100%. You have to know what is going to trigger someone's brain to be interested in what you're offering. So that's how I love how everything intersects, especially on my podcast too. Just like so much psychology in everything.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

Well, I mean, okay, stepping up on small soapbox, just like real quick, but like we love to dehumanize things in business, right? Like the first thing we do is strip people of their identity and we call them leads and NQLs. And like business is just people working with people, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:41

That's so true.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

We love language, language is great. Language helps us shortcut things and understand each other. But like when you're like, it's it's all psychology, you're like, well, yeah, because psychology is like the study of like our brains work, how how we work. We're just people working with people.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

That's a great point because that's what makes sales so cold. It's like leads, okay, again, dehumanizing what it really is. What about making relationships?

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Getting to know someone. Absolutely. And the fact that you can do that at scale. I like to tell people, and we'll get into this as we talk and go through, you know, all the things we want to get to today, but like a brand is a relationship, it's two-way, and marketing is just amplification of that relationship. 100%. Right. Like, and if you're missing the first part, of course it doesn't work and it feels disingenuous because there's nothing there.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Yeah. I feel like in marketing, it's understanding what the relationship is. Like you said, and amplifying that, okay, this is who's going to get value from my product. These are the type of people we need to speak to more of those people. That's right. And that's right. Yes. The first question I have for you is this relationship we want to build with the brand. People, when they buy wellness products, they're buying something because they want to become someone else, maybe when they use it. How do you help founders figure out what transformation their brand is really selling?

SPEAKER_03 4:18

So I love this question because it became one of the first questions I got all the time. And so I actually sat down and was like, how can I develop a framework or an exercise to help people? Because what I think is interesting in this space is a lot of what I talk about feels really nice, but it's kind of ethereal. It's a little ambiguous. And it's like, okay, cool, it sounds great. I don't get a lot of people who go, I don't believe that. I get more people like, but how in my business do I do this? So I have a process that I call value aspiration. And it's called that because you nailed it. We are all aspiring to be higher versions of ourselves. And when we speak specifically to wellness, I mean, we're starting at the core, like our bodies, right? It doesn't get more personal than that. And so value aspiration holds space for the relationship, the two-way relationship side of what we've traditionally called value proposition. People know value proposition, but it's one-sided, right? It's like the company going, here's the thing that I do or the thing that I sell, and here's why it's great. Don't you love it? Right? Of course you do. We didn't ask you anything. We just know you love it. Value aspiration brings the consumer into it. And so what this typically looks like is a Venn diagram. I mean, it's literally just like the groundworth nitty-gritty. Um, and on one side is the value that you offer, and then on the other side is the value sucked. The key here is that I'm not talking about features, ingredients, um, anything like that, how fast your wrinkles disappear, or how your appetite changes. I'm talking about that higher achieving version of yourself that you're after. So there's a study conducted. I told you we're gonna, we're gonna get nerdy. Um, there was a study conducted where they asked people why they bought a pair of jeans. And of course, they gave in the survey, they gave all these the cut, the color, uh, the cost, all those things. There's a process of interviewing people where you can start to get more into the actual, like real subconscious motivators of things. It's called laddering. And it's just what it sounds like, right? You ask these questions that kind of go up and get deeper, and then you ask them in reverse and up and down and up and down. It requires people to really think about it, to offer consistency. Um, but what they found was those things may have contributed, but they weren't the core reason. The core reason was because when those people put on the jeans and they looked in the mirror, they felt like the higher version of themselves. Who they were aspiring to become. So when I say what value is on that side of value sought, that's what I mean. What version of them are they aspiring to become? And then you reverse engineer it on your side and you can, okay, well, outside of all of these attributes and characteristics of my product or service, how do I offer that? And you end up with this middle value aspiration that's oftentimes quite high level. And I like to tell people there's a difference between this deep brand work. To me, it's like the fertile soil of where you plant the tree, right? That feeds into the roots, which is your brand position, before it turns into strategy and deliverables above the surface. And so these things start to look like I give people hope. I give people relief, I guide people to feeling accomplished. Um, so that's how I go about helping founders start. The second piece of that is go ask people. You got to back it up, right? Go ask your top 10 favorite customers or your longest-term buyers and simply ask them what was happening in your world when you found this product or service? What do you think of it? And how do you think that it's changed?

SPEAKER_02 8:13

That's a beautiful explanation. We are definitely buying products to become the next version of ourselves. Honestly, anything, even in real estate, you choose. I was a real estate agent. You want to choose a realtor, you want to buy a house, you know, you're getting to that next level of your life. Exactly. It applies to everything. And I think it's very interesting in the wellness space because it's all internal and it's deeper than a lot of you know material items. Yeah, so it's deeper work.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

It is, it is, it's very deep work. And I mean, know that we'll get into this where we talk about what marketing is pressing on. But if we're gonna talk wellness and we're gonna make the assumption just statistically, that a lot of this has is with women, there's a lot of shame there. There's a lot of there's a lot of things happening that we have to hold space for beyond this acute moment in time. And that's one of the things that I like to look at is this holistic human experience. I think marketing does a traditionally and in the past has done a lot of like looking at things in a vacuum. When you woke up feeling this way, look, here's this product. Okay, well, I have two kids, I homeschool them, I run a business. Like, sure, maybe I would love to see your product, but when am I gonna see your product or your service?

SPEAKER_02 9:39

You know, yeah, definitely. It is, I believe, more catered towards women in general, because just like makeup, and we're always thinking about doing a little better, looking a little better, feeling a little better.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

When I bring in research studies or I talk about some of this, academic research is also like historically fairly biased. Like if you look at the the samples and the the pools of people. So everything we talk about today, to anyone who's listening, like, yes, there's some generalization happening here, but there's so much nuance. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

So how much of a purchase decision is really about reinforcing identity versus solving a problem? I love this question.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

So let's go back to the fact that 95% of decision making occurs in the subconscious brain. Okay. So I think I've seen these a lot, like it's like an iceberg picture, right? It's like the 5% of the iceberg that's above the water you see, and then there's always like this huge thing underneath the surface. Traditional marketing looks at the top of that iceberg, which is the 5% that's happening up here in the you know prefrontal cortex, and it goes, oh, you have a you have a ping, you have a pressure point. Look, I put that hurts, doesn't it? That's uncomfy. Oh, we don't like that. Oh, look, I got something to take it away. What we're looking at, especially in wellness, is everything that's happening underneath. Because even like I'll tell you, I have been awake in the middle of the night, and I have added two cart off my Instagram feed, plenty of wellness products. But here's what happens when they get you in a place of leveraging your shame and your insecurity and those things that are keeping you up at night, and you receive the product, you get a whole nother wave of shame when you receive them. And if they don't fix your problems, with just be honest, there's some great products out there that really do do some cool things. When it's an identity issue that's triggering it, a product is not going to solve that for you. Guess where the resentment in those things subconsciously gets placed on the product, on the brand, giving you the added to AM. Like, and most of this is in the subconscious, we're not cognitively thinking about it, right? So I would argue that to your question, at least 95% of it is about your identity reinforcement versus your problem solving.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Wow. Yeah, because in order for us to choose a brand, we have to align with it. Correct. We have to feel a need for it. Even if we know we have a problem, we're probably not gonna buy something if we don't feel like it's meant for us. Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

And at the same time, though, because here's what I'll say, because there's this a disclaimer, because and I get this a lot from people where it's like people are making buckoos of dollars with what I call manipulative marketing. I'm like, yeah, they are, because it works.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Can you dive dive into that more? What is manipulative marketing?

SPEAKER_03 12:55

Yeah, absolutely. Would love to. Um, so to me, the line between manipulative and non-manipulative is agency. And this is somebody's genuine ability to choose. So I have like four pillars of what I call ethical branding. They're consent, reciprocity, trust, and belonging. Those things combined, like if you're using those to really provide transparency, mutually beneficial give and take of value, you're consistent over time, and you do align with someone in a way that they feel like they kind of belong in that community that you're building via your brand, you're in the non-manipulative space. If you're influencing their agency and pressuring them or misleading them into a decision, if you're telling them that this product is on sale for the next three days, but it's gonna go on sale every two weeks. If you're telling them there's only three left, but you're gonna restock immediately before they run out. You know, if you're asking for so much from people, if you're like, oh, we've got this like five-step guide to whatever, and you want all of their personal information, and then the five-step guide is three, you know, three to five bullets that you generate in an AI, you're in that manipulative marketing space.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Yeah, unfortunately, manipulative marketing does work very well. And we don't even notice that's what it is, because most people aren't educated on that. Or, for example, this is not even to do with products, but think about all the get rich quick gurus I it's constantly selling you your insecurity, showing you what you don't have so that you can buy into their course. And same with wellness products, some really just do too much. They're like, Oh, do you hate how you look in the mirror? Yes, or uh your hair is not growing well enough, or they just really dig too deep into the actual pain, and it becomes a way of reflecting on yourself, and then you think you have more of a problem than you actually have. Yeah. Oh, I need this, that this is gonna solve everything. And once you realize, oh, I just got scammed, then of course it has a very bad look on the product.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

Yeah, it's all very predatory. And when we look at it through the lens of a relationship and compare it to how we show up in relationship in person with each other, it becomes very clear. Like if this brand was a person, would you continue to hang out with them? Probably not. Like, let's let's get out of the toxic relationships in all the places.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah, 100%. Uh, going on this topic, you know, you mentioned that brands need to create a sense of psychological safety before someone buys. So, what does that actually mean? How can you make someone feel safe enough to say yes?

SPEAKER_03 16:06

But let's go back to those four pillars, right? Because the psychological safety really gets layered on top of everything. And this is why consent is the first one. And what consent means to me is clarity and transparency. Like, are you really being honest? Are you going out of your way to educate people? Um, I'm gonna leave brand names out when I critique. But I'm 37, I hit that 35 year mildly, my skin changed, right? So I'm like looking for different moisturizers and things like that. And there is a very large celebrity who creates a list of products that this person likes, and they get a seal, right? Like this is this person approved, and I get an ad for it. I'm like, oh, that actually looks really great. That's awesome. So I go check it out. Priced, you know, the price, pricing psychology is a thing, you know, it's not super cheap. So I'm like, oh, it must be pretty good, you know, like it's kind of expensive, it's a well-known brand. And then I go to the Yuka app. And yeah, I know what that is. Yeah. Um, Y-U-K-A, for anyone listening who wants to give it a go. Um, my cousin actually introduced it to me when we were trying to put healthier processed food options in our home for our children. But you can also scan a ton of health and beauty products. For I think it was like 15, it might have gone up. For a very nominal amount of money for the year, you can actually go in and type in what you want to look for. So I typed this product in, and lo and behold, it had like a red score, and it is chock full of chemicals that are proven to cause a variety of issues, including thyroid issues, um, which I was recently diagnosed with about a year ago. Horrible. So I have other products from this brand that actually do score decent. So also note just because you're looking at one particular product does not mean they're all that. Um, but now I don't want to buy any of them.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

I don't blame you.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

And I'm like, how could you possibly intentionally mislead people? People will not do the research that I did, and they will go buy it. And I believe that once a brand has enough equity, it also carries social responsibility. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

I think I think every brand could uh carries that because especially what we put on our bodies, what absorbs into our skin, we are putting all of our trust into that brand. The it just infuriates me so much that any brands out there that are creating products that they don't do enough research on, that they don't do tests on. Like we don't understand where we're getting sick from. These things are invisible, and then we go absolutely insane trying to figure out what is causing our problems. And it just it's the opposite of wellness. You put us into a depression. Okay. It is. It is.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

That's uh that's a whole that's a second episode where we talk about the systemic issues that come from this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

That that that's way deeper. But yeah, you know, yeah, definitely make sure put the extra money into testing your products and figuring out if this is safe for human consumption. And you know, hopefully it doesn't cause other issues.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

That's well, and the thing is, is like again with the nuance, I get a lot of people who like DN me and are like, I saw this, is this good or bad? And it's like, okay, but being ethical is not about being right or wrong. There's different degrees of it, and different people have different tolerances and expectations for things. I've had people come out in my comments and literally say, like, look, that's part of the game. I'm fully aware that I'm being manipulated. And to me, it's just table stakes of being a consumer. And that's their that's their opinion. They're validated in how they feel, right? My thing is too, is like, especially when we talk about wellness um and beauty, there are plenty of things. Like, I mean, let's look at sunscreen. You can't find a sunscreen. I mean, maybe you can, and if somebody's got one out there, please share it. But many sunscreens that I have found, you know, they have certain chemicals in them. They have to in order to really like walk the sun. Right. But at the same time, unchecked exposure to the sun, also not great. So some of it becomes a what do I, what I am I willing and not willing? And that is your choice as the consumer. But on the brand, I'm with you. Due diligence and what's in there and what actually causes it. And then, like, how are you transparent with it? How are you making sure that people know? Like, where's your ethics statement on your website or your ingredients policy and you know, uh, transparency policy? Like, please know we do use these in some of our products, and here's why. We totally understand if you don't want to use them, but if you do, great. We we still think it's like a great product, you know. So I think that there's nuance in it too.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

I completely agree with that. And transparency creates a lot of trust. Because even if I see a cool brand and I, oh, this irritates my skin, but they're super transparent about what's in it. Maybe I'm going to recommend it to my friend who could benefit from it, right? Who is not as sensitive. Yep. Um, and just in everything, you know, we sometimes aren't set with expectations of how to use something. And when brands are super transparent of maybe you need to mix this more or whatever, you have to like design the customer experience. Yeah. And that makes people way more likely to stick around.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

Mm-hmm. Well, and there's there is when we talk about bringing this to life in real ways, like I have a whole process of how you actually, when you talk about the customer experience, like I'll get with Clients and we will literally map their journey. We'll find the gaps in the human in how we layer the human decision-making model on top of that. Very cool. What are you missing here? Because in every little decision is different. It's a different decision to go follow someone than it is to go book a call with them, than it is to buy their product. Those are all different decisions that you're making. They're not part of one like really pretty linear process. I wish they were.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Yeah, exactly. So what are some other ways that brands like break trust with their consumers?

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Yeah. So the first thing I like to tell people is you are either building or breaking trust at every touch point. There's really not a lot of neutrals. Cognitively, there may be neutral moments in time, but all the information that we receive goes through our limbic system before it hits our prefrontal cortex. Our limbic system is our feeling system. And so the body is registering and it will actually assign and tag these responses in the subconscious brain. So I say all of that because I believe that this consistency is really important. It takes a lot of time to build that trust, takes very little time to break that trust. And because of our natural instinct to survive in the way our brain is hardwired, we will add way more weight to the negative than we will to the positives. So what does this look like? We already talked about a couple, the countdown timers, um the shame language. Right. So um in Brene Brown's, I think it might be her first book, one of her first, um, it's not just me, like where she talks about her shame research and just the prevalence of shame in women and what her research shows. It's important for anyone who has an ICP to understand as holistically as they can the complications of the psyche. Right. And if you don't, to me, you're starting off breaking trust. If your ICP, your ideal client profile doesn't include the psychological motivators, the psychological obstacles, value aspiration. I'm not talking about just demographics and and um even like sociographics, like this depth. We're starting off breaking trust. Um again, the ingredients, right? If you're not transparent, that can break trust. Um one of the things, and this is this is a little bit more personal because I like to think about like, okay, what about for me? If your price, if your product is extraordinarily expensive, and then you send me like this huge bottle that has nothing in it. Oh, real quick, let's time out and talk about men's versus women's deodorant. That's a whole crazy category. I wear men's deodorant because I refuse to play this game. Me too. And I was buying, again, I won't mention the brand, but I really liked it. Worked really well. Unscented option. I don't need to smell like a flower. I would just like not to smell at all. Like, smell neutral, please. And I showed my husband. I said, okay, you buy it, and it's already like got this much empty space in the bottom. And then you have to twist it to get it to come out the top, and it's literally half gone. And it costs 30% more than your double pack.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Yeah, I don't know. The deodorant deodorant's face really annoys me because I feel like there's still more room to create more products, but they're just dominated by the big players, and something is always not right. I don't know. Like you, I just end up settling for what I think works, but I don't even I don't remember the last time I've touched the women's deodorant section. Yeah, I just I believe every time I've tried one of them, it just didn't work, or the leaving the stains on your shirts and everything. No.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

Yep. Yep. I mean, I'm gonna be honest. If one of the like, I'm not gonna name the brand, but if one of the big name men's brands literally just came out with a generic unisex deodorant, boom.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Explosion.

SPEAKER_03 26:29

I mean, until then I'll smell like swag or whatever it is, I guess. But no, because I completely get that.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Yeah, you just go along with what they have, but yes, yeah. Wow, that's so funny. So you develop the belong framework from your research on belonging and decision making. What is the framework and how does it help brands ethically influence those subconscious decisions?

SPEAKER_03 26:58

Yeah, absolutely. So a little bit on the research that got me there. So in grad school, I did some empirical research on the construct of belonging. And back then it was specifically with female entrepreneurs and like corporate women. Um, and as I was doing this, though, it was like the most difficult literature review I've ever done in my life because there was very little real research in the space. Now, this was a few years ago. Belonging is really it's and it's interesting because like it's starting to become a little bit of a corporate buzzword. Um, so when I talk about belonging, I'm talking about it like as a psychological construct, as the belonging that showed up in Maslow's hierarchy of needs in the 1960s, like the actual thing. Um and when I started as an entrepreneur, like I just couldn't find anything. And I was like, you know, we're all seeking like belonging is as essential as a human need as food and water. It will mess up your cognitive processing, your physical wellness, all of these things. I like to tell people, like, it'll kill you to not have it, just much slower than not having food and water. And we know we have the loneliness epidemic, and we have these things that are coming from our removal from each other. All of that to be said, the belong framework is really, it's just kind of like a checklist. It's some guardrails that I initially um put together that said, like, okay, here's how you can start to get closer to building a sense of belonging in your brand. They include making sure you're looking at behavioral science, understanding that 95% of the decision making happens in the subconscious brain, empathy-driven engagement. Are we meeting people where they are? Right? Are we actually paying attention to what's going on in their world, the world as a whole, the world for them day to day? Um, leveraging neuroscience. Right? So, how are we putting it? So, this is different than behavioral science. Behavior, the behavioral science to me is like, are we using real data? The leveraging the neuroscience is are we putting it into place in a way that's good for people? Organic growth strategies. I was in marketing for 17 years. I was a VP. We worked with a lot of different contractors and agencies. And my God, do people want to just tell you to just go spend some money on some paid ads? I don't believe in that. So, this is a little bit of my personal ethos with how to approach marketing, and that I believe that paid is simply amplifying what you've already proven works. So for me, the belong framework is because I do think it's also different between getting traction on an organic level, even at a small volume, versus just blasting people over and over and over again until you've hardwired their brain to go to your product. Um, narrative connections storytelling. Right? When we just give people facts, only a couple parts of the brain light up. When we tell them a story about it, it's looks like an arcade in there. Like everything's firing. We understand at a deeper level, we have higher competence, and we retain that information longer. Um, and then guided transformation is the end. So there's a cool quote that I like by Jay Abraham that says if you can define the problem better than the person with the problem, they'll assume you have the solution. That's paraphrased. Guide people, take them on a journey, show them, like mirror to them using the 95, not the pain point five percent, that you understand who they are and where they're at, right? And that you know where they want to go. And if you can do that really well, and you can even maybe do it better than they do, then we will automatically think, oh, you know how to get me to where I want to go. And as long as we're doing this on this non-manipulative ethical side, I truly believe we can improve holistic human health by building brands this way.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Yes. Exactly. Yeah, that was a great ending right there. Um I feel that completely because there are many wellness brands out there that have amazing ingredients and can actually replace people's bad habits, but the way they present themselves is not attractive enough to someone. They don't know what they're buying into. I've just seen ads that just spit facts out. Oh, this has this and this and that in it. And but it's like, what is in it for me? You know, kind of thing. Like, where am I going to fit here? It just seems like some random product. You haven't showed me where this belongs in my life, kind of thing. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 31:47

Yeah. No, it absolutely absolutely makes sense. I think there's a couple of different answers to that for those groups, right? Like because I I'm with you. Um, going back to the whole, like, what's actually causing health issues. So I'm on, I'm wrapping week seven of the whole 30 diet per my functional medicine doctor, although I guess it's just whole 90 because it's doing it for 90 days. Um, but that means no alcohol. Now I can't have alcohol alternatives right now because that's pretty stringent, like restrictions to see how it affects my body. Um, but then afterwards, it's like, okay, I can see like there is a lot of social pressure to drink. But then again, is the higher version of myself to feel so peer pressured that I have to consume something that appears like an alcoholic beverage in order to be accepted by my friends? That was deep. Okay. And I do, but I think you're on to something. There's these industries, like, it's not that it's a bad thing. And I get ads for some of them, and some of them pique my interest because I am a crazy, busy, working mom of two kids, and I'm not gonna lie and say that my glass of wine at the end of the day or my little cocktail at the end of the day, isn't just a form of like me going, okay, this is my few minutes. This thing and do the thing. Like, but what is motivating that for me? To those brands, I would say, do you know what higher version you're trying to get somebody to?

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Yeah. At least for me, of course, it does help you fit in more when you have a drink in your hand. I didn't really think of that because for me, I'm thinking, I just want the feeling of being relaxed, knowing that I'm not hurting myself internally. Um, and I'm actually six months in, so it's been amazing, like life-changing. Yes. And to just separate yourself from that world and see everything from the outside uh and how it's everywhere. And there's so many reasons to drink. Um, but for me, the main driver is I've become this new person. This is like my new identity now that I'm not caving into this stuff. And now that I've created this new identity, I have to keep it going. And having alcohol alternatives makes me feel like I found a cheat code and I can still relax and um not, you know, participate.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

Yep. Yep. It's like the atomic habits. I don't know if you've read that book where it's like instead of saying, like, oh, I'm I'm trying to quit this, or I'm trying not to, you're like, I am a non-drinker, or I am a runner, or I am, I am those things. And that language is powerful. But it's also powerful in brand because if you can give people the power to say, I am a non-drinker, that's powerful, right? There's a there's an art and a science, though, to taking that as your brand position and your value aspiration and turning it into email campaigns and website copy and ads, and doing it in a way where people are subconsciously perceiving this that feeling of what you're giving them versus just that surface level articulation of what it is. I wonder what that looks like.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

I feel like a lot of these brands struggle with that because they don't want to force, you know, their ideas where it comes off not good. But then I also see the opposite of these ads popping up on Pinterest or other social medias, and it's just a pretty drink. But it in reality, it's a drink that's led me to not drink alcohol for six months. Yeah. So there's so much missed opportunity with the way they're marketing. What do you think? Is it easier to just make, oh, this is a pretty drink and look at this cup. This has adaptogens and herbs in it, or marketing content that's more like, these are my friends that quit alcohol. Look at all this stuff we can do, or you know, like something that brings more belonging into it.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

So to me, there's multiple layers of this. So when it comes to life, so let's talk about like social content, social ads, like things like that. So one of the things that we do is we look at, okay, how do this becomes this value aspiration becomes your North Star? And so we look at all of our messaging strategy through that lens. So the first thing I typically do is tell people when you're going out and you've got your social campaigns, you need to educate people. You need to demonstrate your expertise, and then you need to show them your ethos. What is the perspective of the way this organization moves through the world? What is what are you trying to do? Right. Because you could be solving, it's absolutely true for both these things to be true. We're solving you not feeling awkward with your friends. We're solving you being healthier, we're solving all these things. But at the same time, we're helping people be healthier. We're potentially decreasing chronic disease issues over time. Where these are the things, you know, we're reducing maybe maybe the number of drunk drivers. Like maybe we're helping young people not ruin their lives by doing stupid crap drunk on the internet because everything's documented. Like there's so many things. Then as you look at that through these different lenses, and then you start to brainstorm, okay, well, how what am I going to educate people on? What do they need to learn or unlearn? Right? Because at the same time, you can be like, hey, this drink is beautiful and tastes great. And you can have a cocktail night with your girlfriends. And at the same time, you can have that story of like, and by the way, I venture to guess that if you were to just sip a glass of water, your friends would still love you just the way you are. You know, like combine that messaging together in different places. Also, the combination of imagery and language is powerful. You don't have to tell someone the drink is beautiful. If you have a photo of a beautiful drink, you don't have to tell someone that it helps them fit in socially and they can still have their weekly wine night. If you have a picture or video of people doing that, so you can combine the imagery when we talk about like the brass tacks of creating the content with the language. But it's like I'm six months sober and I haven't missed a wine night, and I don't like you know, I have all the same fun and all the great laughs and the inside jokes. I just don't have the headache the next step. Yeah, those stories are definitely powerful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Love that. So let's talk about packaging.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

When someone picks up a product for the first time, what subconscious signals instantly create trust, credibility, or hesitation?

SPEAKER_03 38:56

Yes. So packaging, we love packaging, like so good. Um, so for some of the first things, right? Like color, color is a huge one, color psychology, um, the quality of the product, um, the sustainability of the product. So there's a couple of products like personally that I have found that I really like, but they come in like exorbitant packaging. It's beautiful, don't get me wrong. And when I got the first one, like it made this crazy great impression. But part of me wishes that I could then just go order a refill and a like biodegradable plastic container and like just refill my beautiful one without having to buy this because it's multiple materials. It's like wood, it's glass, it's metal. Like there's a lot of materials to it. Um, so yeah, so we have color, we have um the types of materials that you're using, the language. I mean, you want to talk about some copywriting, you have very limited space. And on some of these products, there's limited space. So, like, what are you saying? What are you getting across? Um the transparency in those products. I am not a huge fan. Like, first of all, if you have to list a paragraph like this, odds are it's probably not the best for me. So if you can't fit your ingredients on the the packaging, if there's like an insert or something for me personally, that that can break trust.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Um trying to think of other because it's too many ingredients.

SPEAKER_03 40:33

What I have found, and as someone who's now gone deeper, so I was using Yuka app, and now that I am like reading specifically with food, really, but I'm looking at at beauty wellness products too. Um the longer that list, and the more you can't pronounce the things in it, you know, the bigger problem I think you end up having.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

Yeah, I think on Amazon, for example, again with the alcohol alternatives, but I've just been in a deep dive of them lately. And some I come across, and the packaging is like someone sprayed graffiti on a wall or something. Like this is not appealing. You could have a really nice uh formula, but the packaging is weird. I don't know what is in it, and it really has to be more elegant, I believe, or clearer to read, because if it's look like someone's notebook that they're drawing in, I have no idea what I'm playing.

SPEAKER_03 41:36

I did a reel not too long ago. We drove past a tire store, and the font that they had chosen looked like it was shaking, it was like big and blocky and all misaligned. Oh god. And I was like, why would that be the font that you pick for a tire place? And it was a supposed to be like really affordable tire place. And so the very first thing that my brain did was like, oh, I'm gonna get cheap tires that are gonna fall off. Crappy work and my car is gonna shake as I drive down the road, which had just recently happened to me. I'm like, take it back in. But same thing here, and you're absolutely right. And I've seen this, um, especially with established brands that didn't try to let's go back to deodorant, right? Let's say you are establishing like men's deodorant, and then you're gonna do a like a women's line or vice versa. And they believe that there's like they need to just like reinvent the wheel, and it's so vastly different, and then it's so stereotyped. Like, especially if we get into products designed for women, like it doesn't have to be pink, you guys. It doesn't have to be pink, and as a matter of fact, pink does not fire the same um synapses as bold colors. The the question is not who's your demographic, the question is how do you want them to feel? What do you want to trigger? What do you want to associate with? Right? Because if you change that font to script and you add pink, you completely change the kind of person that you're attracting, not based off of gender, but based off of what they're looking for.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Yeah, I instantly get repelled from pink products.

SPEAKER_03 43:23

It makes me feel like, oh, are you projecting something on to me? Because, like, yeah, I can get all dolled up all day long, but I also like I grew up on a farm. We own land, I like to fish, um, we're outside, we chop our own wood. Like, I don't need your dainty product. And as a matter of fact, on my deodorant, I'm gonna need it to not be dainty.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

Yeah, and you already know those pink products are more pricey. Yep. That's how they get you. So don't make your products pink because we're gonna run away, or it's going to attract maybe younger girls. No, more of the like older women. That's a whole nother conversation. I have a 10-year-old daughter. Yeah. So it really matters the colors that you choose. Uh, what would you say from your experience that you've seen are some colors that maybe would attract more um, you know, mature women?

SPEAKER_03 44:22

So again, really interesting question. So there's like there's color psychology wheels everywhere. Like you can go find them on the internet. They're fascinating. Um, but again, to me, there's not one color. I got asked this question a while ago, and someone's messaged me, what color would you use on a Shopify page for a beauty product um to increase conversion? And I was like, okay, one, that's not how that works. Um, two, I have 10 follow-up questions. So I would say to you, like, if we're looking at um, how did you phrase it? What kind of women?

SPEAKER_02 44:58

More mature women, like not growing.

SPEAKER_03 44:59

More mature women. Okay, so my question would be like, what is mature? Is mature age? Is mature mindset? That is a good question. My point is, I think what you're trying to say is like, okay, well, let's say 35 and older, right? Let's say you've been in the workforce for a while, maybe you have kids, maybe you don't, because that is not an indication of being mature. Um, maybe you have more emotional regulation because you've been through some stuff. But, you know, again, age is not really the big determining factor. But then I'd come back to you and say, uh, what is your product or service? Because it's different. There is no one color, just like there is no right answer. And here's the thing with marketing that is exhausting but true. It may work today, and the world will shift and culture will change, and people and society will change, and then it will not work anymore. And so before you jump to a lot, not just you, I'm using like a proverbial you, by the way. Um, there's these questions you gotta ask, and you need good answers to. And yes, your gut intuition is great, especially if you've been in an industry for a while. But like we have AI. You can research at depth. Now you have to spot check it, and you gotta know how to use it. We can research things like that now, and there's data out the nose. Um, and so what I would say is go back and figure out what those words mean to you in relativity to what you're trying to offer people. And then you gotta go look at that color psychology wheel and go, okay, what colors evoke that emotion? What colors align with that headspace? And there's your answer. And then you're probably gonna have to test them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

That's great. Um, because yeah, also, like what are you looking to achieve? Identify with, I think your wellness brand should have that color that would associate with that.

SPEAKER_03 46:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Yeah, that's a good one. Didn't think about that. Great. So, what about customer feedback? Can analyzing it actually reveal the subconscious drivers, or is that not articulated enough?

SPEAKER_03 47:13

So I alluded to this a little bit earlier when we talked about value aspiration. Um, but yes, you can get to some of this like subconscious motivator obstacle stuff. Now, because we know that most of this is in the subconscious, it takes a very self-aware consumer to come to you at first blush. So most of the time, your consumer data is still powerful, it's still important. Um, but if you're doing qualitative research, if you're doing surveys, satisfaction scores, reviews, things like that, um, you're gonna get a lot of those more attribute type feedbacks. You're gonna get more than 5%. Um, there are different scales that are combinations by scales. I mean like in the research method space, they're statistically proven significant, they're combinations of what they call questions items in this case. Um, and you can use those. So for instance, when I was measuring belonging, I would use the positive, and there's two different scales. There's one that's worded positively and one that's worded negatively. And I would use those both in order to then hopefully see if there was like this correlation between the answers. Um, there are consumer insight companies. There's one in particular, I'm just gonna name drop them because I think they're amazing, called Share More Stories. And they are actually using storytelling as a means to get qualitative consumer insights and turn them into qualitative reports and to show you, like get into the context to the nuance and the richness of people's lived experiences research. So they would go out, like they have their own methodology, um, and they actually gather these stories from people, um, different formats. They offer like different ways of going about it. Um, but yeah, they're actually talking to people. Um, now when you're in like a research space, you know, there's focus groups, right? Everyone knows kind of like what focus group is. You can do one-on-one interviews, um, things like that. And when you do that, that laddering technique, um, different ways of asking questions. And then you can actually, they'll, if you're in the research space, they teach you how to add um numerical values to different words or things like that. And then you can run an analysis on it to actually see quantitatively and visually in those reports how things are showing up. Now, that sounds really complex and like something a larger brand would have the means and the funds to do. I will say you can, if you just add a little bit of your own kind of thought to it, right? I did a post the other day. I got an email from this list that I've been trying to unsubscribe from forever. And it was like, thank you so much for engaging. As one of our top engagers, you know, we're sending you this exclusive deal announcement. And I'm like, Yeah, but did you go check on what I was clicking on? Because I keep clicking unsubscribe.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:15

I'm trying to get you out of my inbox and you won't unsubscribe me when I click the button. Like, did anyone stop and go, here's this spreadsheet? We should probably take out the people who aren't clicking on like buy now. Um, so there's some simple stuff like that that we, I think a lot of us assume, like, of course they're doing that. People don't take the time to do. Not all engagement data is created equal. So, like, look at what you're actually measuring.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

Wow, that's some good insight right there. Great. And for what we've talked about overall, what's one wellness brand that you think has truly nailed all of this subconscious signaling uh in why?

SPEAKER_03 50:58

Um, okay, so you really got me on this one. You got me. Because of the nature of my work, I don't actually consider myself using a ton of like wellness type brands. Um, but so I went through was thinking about things that I've purchased, and I did an entire composite score in like true like nerd fashion. And I actually measured it against my four pillars. And what's interesting, and I'm just gonna share some of the results really briefly. So I had recently purchased some Paula's Choice products. Um, Tower 28 has a great yuca-approved moisturizer that my 10-year-old and I can both use. And they actually have some like really nice, simple, subtle makeup colors, like little eyeshadow sticks and stuff that are really appropriate for my 10-year-old to use on occasion, but are safe and healthy. California Naturals is the shampoo and conditioner that I have switched to for all the women listening who are over 35. Hair loss is like a real thing, especially as like your thyroid starts to mess up. So they have a regrow formula. Um, but then I also gotten hooked on Medicude and it scans really well, but I hadn't really done much research on the brand. And so I did this like um composite score, and Paula's choice was at the top, but its lowest ranking one um was trust and only because like they don't have the same kind of like give and take like consistency that's documented. The next one was Tower 28. Um, and its lowest score was in reciprocity, just because like they don't really do a whole lot. Like Paula's Choice has a 10 in reciprocity because they have um Beautypedia is like this entire like education type thing. California Natural scored really good. Um, but Meticube, Medicube scored lower than all of them in all of the categories except belonging, which it was still the lowest score. Um, and belonging because it has more of like a cult following, right? It's more of like a oh, I use I found this Medicine mask. And I've had people who've been like, oh, I've heard of this. I want to use this too, you know. Um, so those are the four. Um, I would say like ingredient-wise, I like all of them. Um I think Tower 28 might be my favorite one just because it is a brand, their colors are red. Oh. They have some stuff that's in like a light purple tube and stuff, but it's like like their moisturizer comes in a bright red. Their colors are very much so, like they change the colors because you know, skin products are different than makeup products. They're safe for the most part for my daughter. Now, please note they do have other products that have things in them. Um, so don't just go like buy whatever and think you don't need to check them out. Um, but anything where like it's straightforward. I like their branding, I like their packaging, um, their price point is fair. And they make products that, you know, I can feel okay about my daughter just kind of throwing on a little bit of like nude shimmer eyeshadow. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

Um thank god for Yucca also existing.

unknown 54:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 54:19

Oh shout out to them. Yeah, I love how you went on such a deep dive with this. I was just seeing if you just knew one brand or two, but I really appreciate you know your deep work on this. Yeah. And, you know, just overall educating all of us about the subconscious buying decisions and how brands can influence them in a more ethical way. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you. And where can people find you?

SPEAKER_03 54:47

Yeah, so LinkedIn is my main place. I spend a lot of time there. So it's just Chelsea Burns, comma n s. Um, follow me, send me a DM, let me know if you heard the episode. I love to just chat with people. So, like you can schedule a 30-minute call to just chat and ask questions on that, would be great. And then my website is themarketingpsychologist.co.

SPEAKER_02 55:08

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 55:09

Thank you so much again for coming on.

SPEAKER_02 55:11

Absolutely. Thanks for your time. Thank you. And for everyone listening, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to share this with someone who would benefit from learning more about branding and make sure to rate and follow for more.