ABOUT US

FOUR THINGS WE BELIEVE

These principles inform our thinking:

System 1 and Shopping on Autopilot

In Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explains how we withdraw attention from familiar situations. Few environments are more familiar than the local supermarket. Such stores are precisely where brands need to be visible, however they are also environments where individuals withdraw active attention and retreat into passive, System-1 thinking.

It is impossible to research or activate shopper behaviour without understanding the crucial importance of Kahneman’s insights into attentional psychology.

Distinctiveness

We can’t say it better than Byron Sharp in How Brands Grow:

“Rather than striving for meaningful, perceived differentiation, marketers should seek meaningless distinctiveness. Branding lasts, differentiation doesn’t.”

Path To Purchase

The shopper’s path to purchase will often be longer and more complex than we first suspect, however its study can identify multiple opportunities to connect with the shopper and influence the crucial buy / don’t buy decision.

The path to purchase unites the consumer with the shopper and online with traditional retail channels. Understanding this journey is a pre-requisite for the development of all marketing strategy.

Context

Attitudes, behaviour and even memory are all influenced by context.

This is why we always try to conduct research in context. Observing shopping behaviour at first hand will always provide clearer insights than interrogating the rational part of the brain later about buying decisions in which it took no part.