Proof: top marketers are early birds

When a speaker like Philip Graves is lined up for a breakfast talk at the Marketing Society Middle East - a select community of marketing leaders in the Middle East - you can expect people to be eager and excited - and that’s exactly what happened. For something that starts at 8:00am, we had people walking in at 7:30am.

Philip is no stranger to people who are passionate about consumer behavior. He is considered a leading expert and is a consultant on the subject of behavioral economics and behavioral psychology. He is the author of the book, Consumer.ology, which was named as one of Amazon’s top ten best business books of 2010 and has been translated into seven languages.

In addition to his consultancy work, Philip is a frequent commentator on consumer topics in the media; is an associate at Frontier Economics; regularly speaks at events; and is on the global advisory board of the intelligent virtual assistant company, Next IT.

His talk was crisp, full of insights and packed with examples of how the unconscious mind shapes consumer behavior the most, and how the traditional method of consumer research completely disregards this aspect.

Here are my three key insights from the talk:

1. In the battle of attracting and keeping attention, the unconscious mind wins. Or, as he puts it, “Attention is Unconsciously Rationed”. Hence, the most effective element of a brand’s work is work that impacts the unconscious mind. He gave examples of how Red Bull created the image of “energy drink” when they launched, despite not having a substantial differentiator in the product. Great work went into how they used social influencers to give the product the right image, as well as boost the “energy” attribute.
2. Traditional Market Research disregards the unconscious mind. And not just that. By asking and framing “survey questions” in certain ways, it exerts its own influence on the unconscious mind, leading to bias and subsequently, insights that are not real. According to Philip, “Marketers should disregard 95% of the surveys and focus groups.”
3. Instead, what marketers should do is get some help from the consumer “Psychologists”. Questions like “How Consumers Think?,” “What Influences the Unconscious Mind?” are questions that dramatically enhance the decision of “How to influence consumer behavior.”

It was a refreshing talk, as it challenged conventions and more importantly, pulled people away from their day to day work, giving them time to listen, mingle, absorb and reflect.

I can’t wait to tell you more about our future events. We have a great lineup coming up.

Asad Rehman is Director of Media at Unilever MENA and Chairman of the Marketing Society Middle East.

To find out more and to apply for membership of The Marketing Society Middle East, please visit this page: https://www.marketingsociety.com/the-clubroom/marketing-society-middle-east

This piece first appeared on LinkedIn's Pulse here https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/proof-top-marketers-early-birds-asad-ur-rehman