What your customers can't say - consumer behavior

American Demographics, Feb, 1998 by David B. Wolfe

Root motivations--the key to knowing how to press consumers' hot buttons--are innate behavioral dispositions, or personality at its most basic level. They give little direct evidence of their presence, even as they cue our behavior like offstage prompters. It is not the job of the conscious mind to originate motivations. Its job is more executive in nature. Brain scientists sometimes refer to the conscious mind as an "executive officer" who makes decisions based on information brought to it from the subliminal regions of the mind/brain complex. In this subliminal world are the origins of values, needs, and motivations.

The new insights we are gaining about the human brain and mind are astonishing. They are setting the stage for major changes in the way consumer research is conducted. Now that we are finding out why people cannot tell the whole truth about themselves, we have good reasons to start making these changes.

TAKING IT FURTHER

Overviews of recent advances in brain research can be found in Richard Restak's most recent book, Brainscapes: An Introduction to What Neuroscience Has Learned About the Structure, Function, and Abilities of the Brain (1996), published by Hyperion; Bernard J. Baar's In the Theater of Consciousness (1997), published by Oxford University Press; and Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (]994), published by Avon Books. The crisis in marketing is described in Marketing Revolution: A Radical Manifesto for Dominating the Marketplace by Kevin J. Clancy and Robert S. Shulman (1993), published by Harperbusiness. To contact David Wolfe, telephone (703) 758-0759 or e-mail dbwolfe1@ix.netcom.com.

David B. Wolfe heads Wolfe Resources Group, a consumer behavior consulting firm in Reston, Virginia.