Brainsights

As shoppers and consumers, we all suffer from systematic errors in thinking that affect the purchasing decisions and brand judgments we make. These inbuilt flaws are known as cognitive biases. A cognitive bias is a bad mental habit. It’s a way of thinking that is very common and might even appear rational; but in fact gets in the way of reasonable decision making.

Although supermarkets bombard shoppers with offers, the fact is that they’re just giving money away – Pouring profit down the drain! Because in answer to the question: Which is the best offer? Surprisingly, it doesn’t really matter.

Want to know how to get more from your packaging? How to make it leap off the shelf into the hands, hearts and minds of passing shoppers?

The best defence against buying things you don't need is knowledge. This article will help you Recognise some of the sophisticated tactics used to persuade you to buy in-store

Whether a shopper comes into a store looking to get away from their everyday lives, looking for other humans to engage with, or looking for a quick buzz, retailers that can give them the emotional experience they’re looking for will be the more preferred destinations.

Shopper psychology is a speciality area that studies how thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and perceptions influence how and why people buy and relate to goods and services.

The denomination effect is a form of cognitive bias relating to currency, suggesting people may be less likely to spend larger currency denominations than their equivalent value in smaller denominations.

Zero-risk bias is a tendency to prefer the complete elimination of a risk even when alternative options produce a greater reduction in risk (overall).

In the spirit of 2019 goodwill, here are 5 straightforward insights that would definitely improve the fortunes of M&S. What’s more, each has already been proven elsewhere to make shopping better for shoppers, better for brands & better for retailers.

Is the in-store performance of your brand suffering because it isn’t aligned with the minds of shoppers? Would you like to make retailing better for shoppers, better for your brand and better for your business?

Have you ever stopped to think about how many sales and how much share you might be losing, simply because your brand isn’t as psychologically effective in-store as those of the competition?

If building a sustainable business was a fashionable trend five years ago, today it is a business imperative. Leading brands & retailers have figured out that focusing on environmental & social factors is a necessity in today’s marketplace. And if done well, it is a true competitive advantage. But what does sustainability really mean to shoppers, in-store, or online at the moment they make their purchasing decisions?

Ease. Simplicity. Convenience. In a world where the human population is becoming increasingly time-poor, speed and clarity are of the essence.

We’re all guilty of grabbing the odd bar of chocolate, sweet treat or sticky bun when we’re out shopping. In the industry, this type of activity is known as impulse purchasing. But why do almost all of us succumb to this temptation so often?

Why is there a distinct lack of imagery in-store that shows shoppers and consumers selecting and using the products available? Why are there never any images of people eating food or drinking in supermarkets? Why do we never see shots on pack of food and drink being consumed? Why do we just have a bland ‘serving suggestion’ with nobody serving or being served with it?

Are you part of a £100 billion crime? If you run promotions as part of your trade marketing activity, then chances are you are.

Learn about the mind of the consumer. A shiny NEW guide to discovering what consumers really want. Download your FREE copy now!

Currently, businesses are being drowned by data: From who bought what, to from where they bought, how often they bought and even what else they bought. But there is a vital data set being for the large part ignored...

Do you spend money on in-store communications? Are you aiming to communicate with shoppers? Have you ever wondered whether there is a formula to creating effective in-store communications? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this article is for you

Imagine that you are in your local supermarket and want to buy a box of chocolates. Which would be more appealing? A horizontal block of products or a vertical one?

When it comes to how we feel, although time of day isn't everything, it's much more important that you might think.

The secret of making shopping better for shoppers is in engaging with them in-store, not just bombarding them with special offers. In this article I explain how you can improve shopper perceptions without solely resorting to more and more in-store promotions

What Brands and Retailers Can Learn From British Olympians. Are you like a rabbit in the headlights? Staring at your brand performance figures, realising there is an imminent threat, but feeling powerless to do anything about it.

Every day, shoppers make choices, lots of them. In this article I’ll reveal how you can actively help shoppers to make better purchase decisions. Learn how to make it mentally easier for shoppers to buy your brand

Can just the way in which a product is visually depicted affect the extent to which shoppers imagine using the product? The answer is an unequivocal YES!

Discover how to generate more stand out in-store, on shelf and online.

21st century supermarkets have become dull! Giant faceless warehouses lacking in any emotion. The majority of supermarkets are no longer retail outlets offering shoppers temptation in every aisle. As a result they've lost some of their ability to appeal and engage.

Recognise that emotion is massively important, when it comes to generating positive shopper and consumer engagement. 1, Emotional reactions are 3,000 times quicker than rational thought. 2, Emotional parts of the brain process sensory input 5X faster than rational thought. 3, The persuasiveness ratio of emotion to reason is 24:1

For many years now, leading supermarket chains have invested serious advertising spend to convince us shoppers that each of them is cheaper than the rest.

Given the enormous opportunity to create improved bricks and mortar retail and to offer a definitive alternative to the threat of online, brands and retailers should pursue emotional connections as a science based major strategy. But for most, building these connections is more haphazard guesswork than science

Here’s a radical suggestion based on solid science. It isn’t so much about the amount you charge shoppers for your product, but how you communicate the price that determines its appeal.

If you run promotions as part of your trade marketing activity, then chances are you are giving away much more than you need to

For more than 100 years, shoppers have hunted and gathered for all manner of stuff from bricks & mortar stores. Then all of a sudden along came the internet: And on-line shopping! Is on-line shopping actually shopping as we know it? There are no goods to touch, sniff, shake rattle or purloin.

Here’s a challenge for anyone serious about growing their share of market: Instead of only analysing the details of those who buy your brand and those already buying from the category it resides within, focus on those that don’t buy; those that aren't even in the aisle!

Here are 5 well-established 'facts' about shoppers and shopping. Unfortunately, they are more fiction than fact based. Fact 6 is that shoppers and consumers provide responses during different types of market research surveys that are not entirely truthful. Not due to any evil plan to mislead, but more to do with the make up of the human brain.

Brand growth opportunities from in-depth analysis of more than 100,000 grocery shoppers

It would appear that in grocery retailing, the word ‘Value’ has come to mean price, cheap price, low price, special price, etc. But, what about another form of value? What about the ‘Benefits’ of shopping at a particular chain of supermarket?

Britain’s supermarkets have axed deals on hundreds of products because customers say they waste food and drink after being encouraged to buy more than they need. But...

Retail is missing a major opportunity: Between distribution and consumption comes acquiring, or as some call it ‘Shopping’. If a product hasn't been shopped for or bought, it’s pretty hard to consume.

When it comes to trading successfully with today’s supermarkets, you have to really understand them. And to do that, you need to understand what their customers want and expect from them: The pressures shoppers like you and I put them under.

Understanding how shoppers buy offers an opportunity to influence what shoppers buy

Emotion Sells, Reason Justifies: How to reconnect with shoppers and improve sales, brand perceptions and customer satisfaction, instantly.

We're all missing a trick here! Healthy negotiations between retailers and their suppliers are all well and good, but they shouldn't be at the expense of meeting the needs of the millions of shoppers that visit supermarket aisles every day of the week.

In the 'old days' capturing attention was much easier than it is today. Shoppers and consumers had less choice and so decision making was easier. But if you look at how attention works from an evolutionary perspective, there are some really good opportunities out there.

When you use traditional market research methods, such as focus groups and in-depth interviews, and ask shoppers to tell you whether their purchase behaviour, they describe themselves as totally rational, objective shoppers and claim that their decisions are not affected by these influences.The problem with the shoppers’ self-perception of rationality is that their view is skewed by systematic bias.

Despite overwhelming evidence that shopping behaviour is driven toward positive emotions evoked by satisfying motivations, brands continue to focus advertising and promoting product features. They would be more successful if they shifted their perspective and looked at their products through the emotional mind of the shopper.

Firstly, what is a cognitive bias? A cognitive bias is a limitation in rational thinking caused by the tendency for the human brain to take short cuts to save energy

Cognitive biases are coping mechanisms that allow the brain to process vast amounts of input. While the mechanism is very effective, its limitations cause errors in decision-making.

Firstly, what is a cognitive bias? A cognitive bias is a limitation in rational thinking caused by the tendency for the human brain to take short cuts to save energy.

Attribute substitution, also known as Substitution bias, is a psychological process that is behind several cognitive biases.

Automation bias is the propensity for shoppers to favour suggestions from automated decision-making systems and to ignore contradictory information made without automation, even if it is correct.

Shoppers make decisions based on what they remember. They mistakenly assume their memories are a representative sample of reality.

The bandwagon effect is the tendency for the brain to conclude that something must be desirable because other people desire it. The tendency to follow trends and fads occurs because people gain information from others and desire to conform.

A phenomenon known as base rate fallacy illustrates how people can sometimes jump to inappropriate conclusions, with significant consequences.

There's a psychological phenomenon commonly known as the "Ben Franklin Effect" that explains why people like you more when they do you a favour.

Choice-supportive bias or post-purchase rationalisation is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected and/or to demote the forgone options.

Confirmation bias is the tendency for the brain to value new information more if it supports existing ideas and beliefs. Informally, confirmation bias is sometimes referred to as wishful thinking.

Congruence bias refers to the fact that as a species, we prefer to only research against specific, direct outcomes.

Courtesy bias is the tendency that some individuals have of not fully stating their unhappiness with a service or product because of a desire not to offend the person or organisation that they are responding to.

In marketing, the decoy effect is the phenomenon whereby shoppers and consumers will tend to have a specific change in preference between two options when also presented with a third option.

Distinction bias, is the tendency to view two options as more different when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.

In a choice context, a default refers to that option which shoppers end up with if they do not make an active choice. For example, when online shoppers select an item, they’re offered a default delivery option;

The endowment effect is an emotional bias that says that once we own something (or have a feeling of ownership) we irrationally overvalue it, regardless of any objective value.

The focusing effect is the tendency for the brain to rely too much on the first piece of information it received in relation to decisions made later on.

The framing effect is a cognitive bias where people decide on options based on whether the options are presented with positive or negative connotations; e.g. as a loss or as a gain.

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people (think focus group) in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome.

Hyperbolic discounting is a cognitive bias, where people choose smaller, immediate rewards rather than larger, later rewards

The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created.

The illusory truth effect is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure. Or to put it another way, we are more likely to believe that something is true if it is repeated to us enough times.

The sunk cost fallacy is a human behaviour pattern in which a shopper facing increasingly negative outcomes from a decision, nevertheless, continues the behaviour instead of altering course.

The less-is-better effect is a type of preference reversal that occurs when the lesser or smaller alternative of a proposition is preferred when evaluated separately, but not evaluated together.

Loss aversion refers to shoppers' tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains: it is better to not lose £5 than to find £5

The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.

The negativity bias, is the notion that, even when of equal intensity, things of a more negative nature (e.g. unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or social interactions; harmful/traumatic events) have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things.

Post purchase rationalisation or choice-supportive bias is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected and/or to demote the forgone options.

Present bias is the tendency to rather settle for a smaller present reward than to wait for a larger future reward, in a trade-off situation.

In prospect theory, the pseudocertainty effect is the tendency for people to perceive an outcome as certain while it is actually uncertain.

Restraint bias is the tendency for shoppers to overestimate their ability to control impulsive behaviour. An inflated self-control belief may lead to greater exposure to temptation, and increased impulsiveness.

Salience bias is the cognitive bias that predisposes shoppers to focus on items that are more prominent or emotionally striking and ignore those that are unremarkable, even though the objective difference is often irrelevant.

The third-person effect predicts that people tend to perceive that mass media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves.

Grocery shopping has become boring! If the only thing I can compare is price, then guess what: I'll compare price! Nowadays supermarkets are less like retail emporia and more like faceless distribution warehouses with special offers. As a result they've lost some of their ability to persuade and sell.