The Marketing Viking

I saw this video on youtube and it reminded me of when I used to look after my sister’s cat:

I hope you enjoy it:

 
Steve
 

If you’re a direct response marketer, you soon learn that what someone says in a survey or focus group and what they’d actually do with their money are two different things.

Why is this?

There are a few main factors:

Social Status: they want to say they’d make the intelligent, cool or sophisticaed choice because that’s how they want others to see themselves.

Social Pressure/Conformity: if everyone else is choosing the same option, there’s a reward (acceptance) for joining the majority and a punishment (rejection, sometimes hostility) if you don’t.

Delusion: people often have a view of themseves that bears no real relation to how they act in the real world.

I was reminded of this when I saw the cartoon below:

So, how do you deal with this as a marketer?

It’s still worth getting people’s opinions, but you need to take those opinions with a pinch of salt and test them out in the real world.

Remember, in business, people don’t vote with their opinions, they vote with their money.

Steve