Here at the CMA Customer Experience conference #cmacx, the first presenter Dr. A.K.Pradeep is talking about what we know about the brain. And it is clear to me that we are violating a lot of these rules in many (most?) categories.
His initial statement is a grabber -- we need to consider a sequence like this: attention -- emotion -- memory retention.
He says that 95% of our thinking/decisions are non-conscious. Music is a driver -- emotion is an effect.
[I wish you could see his jacket, with sequin collar and cuffs.]
7 dimensions that are important to the brain
1 Do I have enough information to decide? A category-busting metric -- e.g. in cameras it is megapixels. In computers it is gigahertz. In colas, it is zero calories. Ask yourself what is the category-busting metric -- if you don't have one, the consumer will default to price. For the consumer, this gives emotional relief that you are doing the right thing
2 Interaction -- different than transaction. Ask yourself, for every product category, what kind of interaction will you enable your consumer to have at the point of purchase? More critical for female shoppers. Women shop, men buy.
3 As much as we want information, we want entertainment. Ask yourself, am I entertaining the consumer at the point of purchase, online? Don't get wrapped up in your brand, with the glorious things you are doing. Instead. show people a good time. You are not saving the planet.
4 Education -- brains crave one new fact. We can give people this every time they touch our product. A little squirt of dopamine, it's very powerful.
5 Simplicity -- making things simple through all aspects of the shopping experience. Rule of threes - use three image groups no more. The things that work well are aligned with rules of three, used to simplify.
Other simple neurological rules are often violated. For example, images on the left, words on the right. Around the world this is true. Anything in your left visual field is processed by the right brain. And vice versa. If there are words and numbers on the right, this is good. (Uh, oh -- I've been doing my presentations backwards! Yikes! However I see that Pradeep's slide do indeed follow this rule!) Brains do not want to work.
Brains like to look at faces, from the time we are babies. Faces looking directly at us are easier to process than faces looking into the distance.
To create a superior experience, obliterate these neuro-experience violations every step of the way.
When there is a human and an animal, the brain wants contact. Touch the animal, don't look at the animal. e.g. a puppy.
Women read more of the words than men do -- the female ability to process language is three times better than male ability to process language. If there is something to read, woman will read it. Men will tend to look at the pictures. Consider this when presenting to male and female executives. For men, use more pictures and a few words. For women, they will want to read all the words.
60% of the homunculus has representation of hands and lips. (Remember those exhibits at the science museum?). The homunculus is the brain's representation of the physical body. Ask yourself, why does Coke in a bottle taste better? It does, because there is better stimulation to the hands and lips. When looking at packages, we should be considering the feel of the box, the bottle.
Consider the experience of the plastic handle of a shopping cart -- unpleasant, not extraordinary.
We need to look at every experience through the lens of the brain. Painting a masterpiece.
6 Self-worth, self-esteem. How can you create this? Even when we know it isn't entirely true, we want it -- we want endorsement. ("That jacket looks amazing on you!") How have you made them feel better about themselves?
Some poor ways of doing it -- asking for a donation at the cashier. Instead -- offer to make a donation. Boost their self-esteem without causing them pain. All payment causes pain. If you can go even further using social currency (I helped save a child) this will create a superlative experience.
He now mentions the banking industry ... at the ATM you put in your bank card, they tell you there will be a charge. What if the bank had said, every time you pay an ATM charge, we will contribute 25 cents to a charity -- this would boost self-esteem.
A $1 trick that the consumer would enjoy -- in the retail aisle, put a mirror. We all like to look at ourselves. The love they feel for themselves spreads around to the products and services you arrange around the mirror. Surround the mirror with your new products and services!
If you have an argument with your significant other -- argue in front of the mirror. You can't be mad there, because you don't like the way your face looks when it is mad. Put mirrors in complaints/service areas, it will take the temperature down.
To improve perceptions of quality, increase the weight of the package, make it shiny. Premium wines are sold in a heavy bottle. Software looks more valuable when it is in a box than just sold as a disk
7 Community -- people have a desire to belong. If you can give them that sense of belonging, it is hugely powerful.
Pradeep says you need to do all of these things -- it is not an a la carte menu. You need to do well in all areas. This is true for real life experiences and for online experiences. "This is how the brain looks at stuff."
MUSIC
A discovery Pradeep made last year -- what are the precise emotions evoked by music in the brain? He created a company called Moodcast -- it is the non-conscious language of the brain.
Recovery rates from surgery are better when the patient hears music. Even when anaesthetized. There are neural mechanisms processing music even when we are unconsious. He found algorithms ... by geography/culture and can lay out what emotions are elicited by that music. What if you used the right music in your stores to elicit the emotions that the category wants to evoke?
"A fantastic voyage is about to begin, and I welcome you to be an amazing part of it."
