Humans aren’t rational – and here’s why your marketing shouldn’t be either
Good marketing starts with a clear brief, a healthy dose of insight and a sharp strategy. But great marketing starts with taking a step back to understand the messy, irrational and emotional thing that shapes every buying decision: the human brain.
You’ve probably seen it plastered on our homepage, but at Leopard Co, behavioural science is our thing. We believe every marketing decision should be shaped by a deep understanding of your target audience – understanding what makes them tick, then applying the science that makes them act.
You may ask: why is behavioural science so important in marketing? And how do you actually apply it? This blog from our Brand Director, Zoe, will tell you all you need to know.
Why behavioural science and marketing are a match made in heaven
Let’s kick off with a scenario. You’re doomscrolling, see an Instagram ad for a new phone case – you don’t need one, but it does remind you that you need a new laptop bag.
So, you head to Google and search for ‘pretty laptop bags’. You peruse a few websites, but none are hitting the spot, so you quickly shut down the tab and return to doomscrolling.
Two days later, you’re on your lunch break and served up an ad for the PERFECT laptop bag. But you don’t buy it just yet. Instead, you wait until you’re home and then make the purchase while you’re settled on the sofa with a cup of tea. Hurray!
That was a long winding journey. But it’s probably a rather oversimplified version of the steps a consumer takes before a purchasing decision is made.
The point is that humans don’t neatly move from awareness to consideration to purchase (even if our marketing plans say otherwise). We get distracted, we change our minds, we seek reassurance, or we simply just act on impulse.
That’s why behavioural science is so critical to marketing. By focusing on those nuances in the customer buying journey and understanding the behaviours built into us all, you can build a marketing strategy designed around how humans actually behave.
Uncovering the ‘B’ in BxROAR
But that’s easier said than done, right? Not if you have a proprietary methodology with behavioural science at the heart of it (a humble brag, sorry).
Our unique approach is called BxROAR, and you guessed it – B stands for behavioural science. The rest stands for Research, Opportunity, Activation and Results – and it’s our building blocks for creating a strategy that delivers our clients’ goals.
When we respond to a brief, we always start with robust research into the target audience – taking the time to understand not just their demographics, but what’s happening in their world, culture and everyday lives.
It’s this deep insight that paints a more detailed picture about what really drives people’s behaviour – their triggers, motivations and barriers. Are they busy? Are they influenced by their peers? Are they creatures of habit? Are they making decisions alone or with others?
Answering these questions helps us understand how we can influence behaviour – and that’s where nudge theory comes in. As specialists in marketing powered by behavioural science, we’ve mapped out more than 38 ‘nudges’ that we can harness in marketing campaigns, helping us identify the small triggers that can make a big difference to how people think, choose and act.
Bringing this together with our wider research into industry, competitors and culture, we can create a powerful marketing strategy that truly drives action.
Debunking behavioural science myths
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B2B audiences are still human - there are undoubtedly differences between B2B and consumer marketing, but we must remember it’s all just people. You don’t automatically switch on your logical brain just because you’re at work (granted, you might use it a little bit more). The same biases and emotional influences are still at play, even when there’s a business email address involved.
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We’re more similar than you think - certain audiences and demographics might share common traits or behaviours, but at the end of the day, our brains are all hardwired the same way. We’re not as rational as we’d like to think, and emotion plays a much bigger role in our decisions than we might realise.
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What people say isn’t what they do - ask someone why they chose a particular brand and you’ll probably get a rational answer. But our behaviour can be influenced by things we’re not consciously aware of. They say actions speak louder than words, so always remember to look beyond what people say – and understand what they actually do.
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Context matters - the same person can behave completely differently depending on the situation. Where they are, what they’re doing and who they’re with can all influence a decision, so it’s important to always consider the context.
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Small things can have a big impact - a tiny change in how information is presented or how many choices someone is given can have a big influence on what they do next. A simple example of this is an online retailer highlighting one product as its ‘most popular’. It hasn’t changed the product itself, but that small piece of information can make the choice feel easier and more reassuring.
How we apply behavioural science to marketing campaign
If you want to find out more about how behavioural science could work for your brand, you’ll have to drop us a line. But before you do, we thought we’d give you a little taste of what it can look like in practice, with a snippet of a recent campaign we created for Battersea, where behavioural science was at the heart of the strategy…
Making pet welfare the latest Gen Z trend for Battersea
‘Cost of Cute’ was a behaviour-change campaign tackling the rise of extreme breeding in dogs and cats. Our audience was Gen Z and Millennials – a generation heavily influenced by social media and cultural trends, where unhealthy but ‘Instagrammable’ pets had become increasingly desirable. Our research identified social proof as a key behavioural driver: people were seeing others celebrate and share these pets, making extreme characteristics feel desirable and normal.
Rather than trying to fight that influence, we flipped it. Our strategy used the same power of social proof to make healthy pets the desirable choice – creating a cultural movement around pet welfare, with celebrity influence, social media and a limited-edition fashion collection at its heart. By getting influential voices to champion healthy pets and turning the message into something people wanted to be part of, we gave the audience a new social cue to follow.
The campaign generated more than 150 million media and influencer reach, 14 million social reach through celebrity amplification and helped increase Battersea’s share of voice on extreme breeding by 18%.
If you’ve made it this far, perhaps we’ve already given you the nudge you need! Find out more about our behavioural science offer here, or get in touch with us at hello@leopardco.com.