and values.
Even with all the data and research over the years that show that people are molded by environments, psychology theories hold true that many people’s attitudes and choices are part of their DNA. Psychologists maintain that humans are born with one of two affective systems that drives the emotional reactions to many of their life’s experiences and the stimuli presented to them on a daily basis. One system is driven by the human need to survive and maintain security; the other by the thrill of the chase, or a desire to take risks and live off the adrenalin of excitement. The “born this way” theory explains why kids from the same family have such different approaches to risk taking and security, yet their environment and parenting is the same.
Knowing how each of these affective systems affects people’s attraction to brands and their promotions is essential to succeed, as these drivers are some of the strongest influences over the choices we make.
Understanding the basics of human psychology
To be an effective marketer in any industry, you need to understand some basics about human psychology and how the mind triggers behavior. Many agencies have popped up in recent years claiming to be experts in behavior marketing; however, most focus on projecting behavior based on past behavior. Although this is important for your database, CRM, DMP, and direct marketing efforts, it’s not enough.
To be successful, you also need to focus on behavior that results from psychological triggers, such as the neurotransmitters mentioned earlier and other psychological processes. From psychologists and their proven theories, old and new, you can learn a great deal about how people think and act.
Following are some insights from two of the most well‐known contributors to psychology theories, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.
Freud’s personality theory
One of the key marketing lessons from Freud is his personality theory, which suggests that people each have three personalities, or voices, in their heads that compete with each other when making basic and complex decisions. These personalities are the id, ego, and superego:
❯❯ The id acts like a compulsive toddler that has to have what it wants when it wants it and doesn’t care about future consequences to self or others.
❯❯ The ego wants to please the id but after thinking through a plan to get it in an appropriate manner.
❯❯ The superego is the voice of reason, deciding appropriate actions to take based on social norms and life experiences to date, what is right, what is wrong, and so on.
Whichever voice wins out the most dictates people’s individual personalities and, for marketers, predicts their behavior when it comes to shopping and assigning loyalty.
If, however, you’re marketing fitness and nutrition products, apps, or the like, you may want to first appeal to the ego with information about responsible diet and exercise habits and then mention low‐calorie cookies that satisfy the id without throwing out the plans made to stay on track for reaching healthy goals.
Jung’s archetypal theories
Carl Jung, known for his archetypal theories, believed that the human psyche is nothing more than mass confusion because so much of all people do and think is unconscious. What marketers can learn from him is that people cycle through four main archetypes:
❯❯ Shelf: The dark side of human nature or the unbridled carnal self
❯❯ Self: The place where the conscious mind connects with the unconscious mind
❯❯ Animus: The true person individuals are in terms of their values and personalities
❯❯ Persona: The person people project to others to cover up their true self, their animus
And when you know where the core of your customers lies in terms of these stereotypes, you can again be more relevant. If you’re marketing to young Generation X adults who are a few years into their career, you may be safe to assume that they’re trying to project a sense of success, achievement, potential, and distinction in their business world to attract career opportunities. If your product can help them do this, reflect it in your messaging and creative.
Another perspective Jung gives in his book Modern Man in Search of a Soul provides great direction for a brand’s positioning and messaging strategies:
Faith, hope, love, and insight are the highest achievements of human effort. They are given by experience.
If this is truly what people seek in life, how does your product support the journey to attaining these emotional outcomes? For example:
❯❯ If you’re in education, does going back to school give people the insight to reach their highest achievements?
❯❯ If you sell luxury goods, does buying your apparel, cars, or other items help individuals achieve the love they seek in life?
Ask yourself key questions about the psychological fulfillment your brand helps support. Doing so will help you see your product’s value in a much different light – the light from the way your customers’ unconscious minds see it.
Along with psychological triggers, social influencers that are rooted in some of the psychology described in the previous section drive people’s thoughts, choices, and actions. The following sections explore some of these social influencers.
Authority
Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram did a study to see how the role of authority influences people to do things that go against their values and conscious. He set up an experiment with one volunteer playing the role of a student and another playing the role of a teacher. The student volunteer was fitted with electrodes that would deliver shocks each time the teacher pushed a button, which he/she was instructed to do each time the student got a question wrong. As the experiment went on, the student missed more questions, and the shock got stronger. The teacher volunteers started to get upset, even physically ill, hearing the pain and agony of the student who was sitting on the other side of a screen. But when the leader, someone in a white coat, told the teachers to increase the volume and push the button to deliver the shock, the majority kept doing it against their own conscious.
Remarkably, 65 percent of the volunteers kept following the instructions from the person in authority. According to the study’s report, subjects were anxious and stressed about inflicting pain, and some so much so that they were “sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, digging their fingernails into their skin, and some were even having nervous laughing fits or seizures.”
This shows how powerful authorities are in influencing behavior. From childhood, many are taught to respect authorities of various types – police
