07 Feb 2019

The main task for a marketing department is to increase the market share through attracting and retaining new customers. The most effective way to do it is via the observation, analysis, and management of consumers’ behavior. Contemporary marketing approaches perfectly cope with this task. Let’s take a closer look at how and why.

Don't want to read? Watch the video instead.

1. Never-ending advertising

Marketing campaigns held on a regular basis substantially influence the purchasing behavior of customers. They choose one brand over another just because they came across the advertising of the first one more often. Customers trust some companies more than others just because they have better blogs, more appealing visual content and use opinion leaders who create positive associations with the brand. Whether we like it or not, we are all subjected to this influence. Just think about the last time you came to a supermarket to buy some simple food and bought some unplanned stuff. Most probably you’ve done it because of the ad you recently saw online or on TV.

2. Emotional engagement

Contemporary marketing isn’t intended to inform, but to persuade and create emotional connections with brands and products. People may even not remember when and where they saw a particular advertising, but when looking at the product on the shelf in a supermarket they suddenly feel a certain emotion – happiness, comfort, confidence, etc. It happens because the advertising they saw provoked a certain emotion which their brain registered. When they saw the product, the brain instantly associated it with a particular emotion. This connection will perfectly work when customers choose between several similar products of different brands. Conduct a shelf testing exercise using our neuromarketing platform to see how it works.

3. Shaping of context

We think that we all live in a unique social, professional, and information environments. But actually, we all live in the context of marketing where everything is sold and bought. It’s not good or bad it’s just the new marketing reality which defines what you will wear tomorrow, how you will talk to your boss and which percent of your salary you will spend on eating out. With few exceptions, it’s more or less relevant for all, starting from a family in their late 30s to a young billionaire geek who is barely 20 years old. If you think about it a little bit more, you will see that the majority of information you come across the day tries to sell you something – a product, an emotion, a political agenda, a behavioral pattern, etc. This whole context is created by marketing tools and approaches in all its shapes and forms.

4. Trendsetting

For example, let’s consider blogs of contemporary companies. They look more like thematic media, rather than sales tools. Companies strive to share expertise they have in particular industries with consumers in order to establish themselves as a primary source of information on it. In such way, they create tons of content, including viral one which sets consumer trends and defines buying behavior. Public image and credibility today are even more valuable than the product itself. Today, even a simple chicken egg can become a trend and beat whatever Instagram records, if it has a valuable message to share and if it’s marketed properly.

Source: Instagram

5. Attention management

Due to enormous amounts of information that we consume every day, our ability to concentrate attention became very limited. We are addicted to smartphones, permanently switching between screens, and navigating through dozens of tabs society. Multitasking has become not only a valuable skill but a must for anyone. Thus, the only way to effectively catch and retain attention is to create a lasting emotional connection. And that’s exactly what contemporary brands do with the help of their marketing efforts. Marketing redistributes our attention from certain trends and products to other ones. It tells us what to be focused on and what to discuss today, making it irrelevant the next day and replacing it with the new stuff, so we have something to occupy our minds with.

Marketing has a more comprehensive impact on our mind and behavior than we think. The line between what we think we want and what marketing makes us want is as blurred as never before. Though, let’s not be dramatic about this. In the long run, we all benefit from it. Brands get more loyal customers while those get much more than just quality products from companies which fiercely compete for their attention.