The short answer
Behavioral science studies how people actually decide, rather than how they say they decide. Its best-known idea, from Daniel Kahneman, is that the mind works in two ways: System 1, fast, automatic and intuitive, and System 2, slow and deliberate. Most brand choices run on System 1. For marketing, that means the brand that comes to mind first and feels right usually wins, so the job is to build the right memories and associations, not to win an argument. Applied well, it changes what a team researches, measures, says and shows.
System 1 and System 2, in plain words
Psychologists describe two ways of thinking. Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002, called them System 1 and System 2 and made them famous in Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011).
| System 1 | System 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | Instant | Slow |
| Effort | None felt | Hard work |
| How it decides | By feel, memory and familiar cues | By weighing reasons |
| What reaches it | Images, cues and associations it already knows | Arguments, facts and claims |
| In the aisle | Reaches for the brand that feels right | Checks the label, sometimes, afterwards |
Leslie Zane built Triggers® on this idea. She founded the firm in 1995, seven years before Kahneman won the Nobel Prize for his System 1 thinking, and we have worked as practitioners of behavioral science, not just theorists, ever since.
Why persuasion is the slow route
Most marketing is still built for System 2: a claim, a reason to believe, a proof point. The conscious mind is good at resisting arguments, so persuasion works slowly, when it works at all.
“You can’t convince anybody of anything. But what you can do is build positive associations in the subconscious mind, and those just go in there without the conscious mind confronting them and putting up a blockade. And so persuasion takes a very long time to work, doesn’t work very well.”
Designing for System 1 means building memories and cues that make the brand the obvious choice before any argument starts. See cognitive shortcuts and brand choice.
What changes for a marketing team
| Built for System 2 | Built for System 1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Research | Asks people why they buy | Maps the memories and associations they can’t put into words |
| Segments | Looks for how buyers differ | Looks for what buyers share at the instinctive level |
| Messages | Claims and reasons to believe | Cues that carry a story the mind already knows |
| Loyalty | Rewards and points to keep buyers | Instinctive preference built in memory |
| Measurement | What people say: awareness, ratings, intent | The associations that move before sales do |
Two of these surprise teams most.
People are more alike than segments suggest
“Human beings are much more similar than they are different at the subconscious level, and that is not well understood.”
Segments still matter for media and channels. But the instinctive drivers of choice are often shared, so one strong set of associations can work across groups a team assumed needed different messages.
Loyalty is instinct, not devotion
“Consumers don’t choose their brands based on loyalty, they choose them based on instinct.”
We call it instinctive brand preference: a positive bias toward a brand, created by a network of memories connected to it over time. Points and rewards don’t build it. Memories do. For how to measure it, see which brand health metrics predict sales.
What to look for in a behavioral science consultancy
Firms apply behavioral science in different ways. Some run small experiments on one decision, such as a sign-up form or a price display. Some test single ads or packs with implicit measures. Some bring lists of biases to creative work. Some work at the level of the whole brand. Ask any of them:
- Do you work on one tactic, or on why buyers choose the brand at all?
- Do you measure what people can’t say, or only what they report?
- Do you map our competitors the same way?
- Do you give us a plan our agencies and teams can act on, not just a report?
- How will we check the work against our sales and business results?
For the wider choice between strategy firms, research firms, agencies and specialists, see how to choose a brand growth firm.
How we apply it
Our method has three steps: Map, Trigger, Grow.
- Map. We map the Brand Connectome®, the network of memories and associations tied to your brand, for your core buyers, the buyers you need to win, and your competitors.
- Trigger. We find the visual and verbal cues that will build the right associations, and set them out in a Growth Blueprint: what to keep, what to stop and what to add.
- Grow. Your teams and agencies put the cues to work across the brand. We don’t run your marketing. We show everyone where to act.
