Episode #14. Behavioural Science is the topic discussed in this episode; a skill that relatively still less known within in its use in marketing, but there are clear benefits, as discussed in this podcast. Abby is joined by Kate Socker, founder of Twigged Innovation who uses behavioural science to uncover the ‘why’ of consumer behaviour and not just the ‘what’. Listen to hear where behavioural science has evolved from, what it means for marketers and 4 reasons to incorporate it early into your strategic and innovation process.
Resources/brands mentioned in this podcast:
Daniel Kahneman
Amos Tversky
Byron Sharp
Thinking fast and slow – by Daniel Kahneman
The Choice Factory – by Richard Shodan
Decoded – by Phil Barden
Ogilvy and Rory Sutherland
Sponsored by Labyrinth Marketing
FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)
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This podcast is brought to you by Labyrinth Marketing. Hello and welcome to the Whole Marketer podcast.
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I’m your host, Abby Dixon, and today’s Technical Skill, it’s behavioural science, I’ll shortly introduce you to today’s guest, Kate Socker. But before I do, let me just tell you why I think this is so important. As marketers, our role is to be the voice of the customer. And in order to do this, we have to understand our consumers on a deep-rooted level, not only what they do, but why they do it. We have for the last decade used insight to understand our consumers’ behaviours in both stated behaviour and their actual behaviour, to get an understanding as to why they do what they do.
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I was writing the insight chapter of the book and that following night I bolted upright. I thought I have to include behavioural science. It’s uses in marketing have started to be appreciated and it aids us to understand purchase behaviours, habits, decision making, but also understand why and predict future behaviours so we can build propositions that not only meet their needs of today, but also their future needs. Today’s guest is Kate Socker from Twigged Innovation.
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For the last two decades, Kate has worked for some of the largest global consumer companies with some of their best loved brands, including PepsiCo and Britvic. Kate has led innovation work streams for many organizations, and it was her curiosity about behaviour that led her to study a Masters in Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics. Since completing this Kate has set up Twigged Innovation, whose clients include a large global social media company, one of the largest global FMGC companies, and she provides upstream inputs to other strategy and innovation consultancies.
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She’s passionate about using behavioural science and this deep consumer knowledge to improve innovation and developing propositions.
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Kate, welcome to the Whole Marketer podcast. Thank you. A pleasure to have you on. Thank you for the invite. So as I always start with a big, juicy question up front, what’s in your words
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Is behavioural science? a very big, juicy question to kind of get your teeth into. So behavioural science is the evolution of something that people might have heard of called behavioural economics, which was really economists recognizing that their view of the world and how people make decisions, how people make choices as to how they’re going to spend money or what decisions they’re going to make wasn’t quite as rational and as predictable, perhaps as they thought. So really taking kind of social psychology and applying it to economics and really has sprung up in the last two decades, particularly since the awarding to Daniel Kahneman of a Nobel Prize back in the early 2000s for his work and really sort of focuses on the idea of a kind of cognitive ways of processing information are maybe not as thoughtful or deliberative or is considered as we like to think and certainly marketeers that sometimes a pitfall that we fall into in thinking that consumers are weighing up and evaluating all the potential options and choices they have in the same way that we might be in our work.
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So it really focuses as a field on a couple of things. It focuses around things called cognitive shortcuts or heuristics and biases, which are the very systematic ways that our brains process or remember information and how that might show up. There is no one single heuristics or bias is collection of things. So people might have obviously heard of, you know, at the moment, a very contemporary one that’s in the news is implicit bias and the way that we make judgments about other people.
00:03:45:25 – 00:04:25:15
So that’s kind of the first kind of area focuses on, which is kind of cognitive shortcuts. And the second one is really about the importance of context. So we often, as marketers like to think that we have a fixed decision or a fixed opinion about something and that that then drives the output of the behaviour. Actually, there’s a lot of work that shows we tend to form our opinions in response to our behaviours and therefore sort of understanding that interaction between the external and internal and how choices are framed for consumers and how they are able to process that information is another area.
00:04:25:21 – 00:04:50:10
Sort of the final point, I’d say, is that behavioural science is a science. So it’s very much looking at empirical evidence and proven principles and proof that can be replicated. So it’s not really looking just for interpretations or beliefs. It’s a difference really between a lab experiment and watching a focus group where we’ve all got a tendency to process the information to see what we want to see.
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Right. OK, so it’s more impartial is fact based, science based than kind of a consumer make an interpretation of a consumer? Exactly. Exactly.
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I can see why it’s rising in popularity it almost takes away that human error almost in a way, doesn’t it? Yeah.
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And it sort of recognizes that as marketers we’re humans also, so we have our own ways of. Processing information that are impacted by these heretics and biases and, you know, we also as well, there’s just an asymmetry, isn’t there? As marketers, we spend all our working lives thinking about a very narrow segment or category or product. And, you know, consumers are spending nanoseconds if that, you know, they really kind of want to avoid thinking about it. So our brains are incredibly efficient. We have tens of thousands of decisions that we face every day.
00:05:39:06 – 00:05:49:06
And if we had to deliberate about every single one of them, our brains would just fuse. We just wouldn’t be able to operate. So actually, you know, it’s very sensible. It’s very kind of clever of our brains that they operate like that.
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But, you know, as marketers, we have those biases as well. Is thinking fast and slow, I think I hope I’ve got the title of the book right, Is that is that based on behavioural science?
00:05:58:12 – 00:06:42:15
Absolutely. That’s one of the seminal works, though, that was published in 2011 by Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his work, and Amos Tversky’s work. And they were sort of like the founding fathers of behavioural science and behavioural economics. And they were both psychologists who just sort of recognize that actually you no sort of, economists talked about this Econ-man who made very rational decisions. So we know we’d go into a supermarket would be the idea, and we’d stand in front of a shelf and we did deliberate about what the best option for them were. And they just sort of recognized that there were these forces, the so called predictably irrational forces that are at play and impact us and things that might not seem that rational, like our perceptions of risk or certainty impact.
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Therefore, the decisions we make.
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If I recall correctly from reading that book, it was is it system one where actually you make decisions based on emotion. And then the second part is you use the facts to back up your emotional decision, is that correct?
00:06:57:04 – 00:07:30:08
Yes so system one and two absolutely. So system one is the shortcuts, let’s say, these cognitive shortcuts. So it might be that it’s emotion so you’re somatic markers, kind of your physical imprints that your body’s had of past experience which are called more quickly to your brain than your ability for your brain to process it. So you almost have an emotional response and then you post rationalize what has driven that emotional response. It can also be things like heuristics so heuristics are or rules of thumb that we kind of put in place of a really difficult decision.
00:07:30:17 – 00:08:02:21
So say you’ve got a very complex choice in front of you. Sometimes that choice is just easier to kind of say. Well, actually, a good rule of thumb is that if something comes to my mind quickly, that’s probably going to be the right answer. So, you know, we don’t necessarily kind of process the information properly. And then biases is kind of, if you like, systematic ways that are kind of brain does it misinterprets but kind of interprets information or memories to get us to a response. And then system, too, is about very deliberative thinking about sort of weighing up options.
00:08:03:04 – 00:08:25:21
But that accounts for a tiny percentage. I mean, they haven’t yet 100 percent managed to accurately record what percentage of our daily decisions fit into that group. But it’s between you five and one percent. And yet that’s probably as in business and marketing, where we’re naturally drawn to working out and trying to focus on why do you think there is this big buzz?
00:08:26:14 – 00:08:40:05
What are people starting to understand? Because it always takes a while, doesn’t it, in any any latest approach always takes a while for the marketer to hear of it, see it, understand it, potentially use it, apply it. Where do you think we are as a profession?
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Behavioural science is itself still quite embryonic. And so I think, you know, as a profession, we’re probably in the same space at the moment. I think why it appeals to us as marketers is as marketers, we’ve always had a little bit of a foot in two camps between this kind of potentially sort of dichotomy between science and creativity or kind of what’s the data and creativity. And I think that this sort of brings some of these together. You know, marketers have used these principles without knowing that they’re using them for decades. So things like social norms, you know, alcohol adverts that show groups of people scarcity bias, where, you know, hotel rooms are sort of only two left.
00:09:18:21 – 00:09:54:01
Get in there quickly. Things like thinking about how you manage risk and decision making. So money back guarantees or, you know, messenger effect the importance of the right person and the attributes of that person. You know, sort of we’ve used brand ambassadors in grip and grin in adverts for decades, probably centuries, almost as long as marketing’s been around. But we just haven’t necessarily decoded it or done it in a conscious, considered way. And as marketing science has advanced, there’s been more opportunities for us as marketers to tap into that. I think there are other things as well, sort of the growth of things like the marketing science movement.
00:09:54:03 – 00:10:28:20
You know, Byron Sharp sort of challenged, I guess, some of the assumptions and sort of the folklore in inverted commas that certainly I grew up with as a marketer going through training and early stage career. And then I think there’s just sort of other things as well, that sort of on the periphery, which is things like we’ve got more access to more data, but we’ve also got more noise so, you know, how do you understand what’s truly a signal, what’s truly meaningful is becoming a more important question for marketers. It’s becoming more important for a lot of marketers to understand the policy environment that they’re in.
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And behavioural science is really kind of a key, I mean, sort of it’s obviously had a lot of a lot of mentions, both good and bad recently in terms of of covid. But policy and how behavioural science is used in policy is one of the big areas for behavioural science. So, for example, Sugar Tax came out of behavioural science work. And, you know, if you’re not understanding that, if you’re not sort of grasping with the challenges of, you know, obesity epidemic or the environmental resource impact, or you’re sourcing decisions and how you get your consumers to make better decisions without limiting their choices or without taking away their freedoms, you know, that’s kind of a key thing at the moment.
00:11:07:21 – 00:11:13:24
So if I’m a marketer listening to this going, this sounds really exciting. How do I learn more? How do I use it?
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What would you recommend that they do to either learn more or to start thinking about how they might use it in their organization with their brands and businesses?
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Well, you mentioned ‘Thinking fast and slow’. I mean, I have to be honest, that is quite heavy going.
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Yes, it’s a heavy read. It’s quite dense, yes.
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A lot of people start it and then sort of say, you know, well done for for managing to get through it.
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I definitely myself tried reading it in paperback, then went to Audible, found that I found that quite. And then I’ve actually read more of the reports about the book, which were much more easier to digest.
00:11:50:20 – 00:12:20:21
Yeah, no, I get that. I get that. There’s a couple of good books that are kind of deliberately aimed at marketers. So but could The Choice Factory by Richard Shodan where he takes I think it is 25 of these cognitive biases and sort of unpicks them and kind of very clearly shows kind of how advertisers over the years have used them. And there’s also a book called Decoded, which again is kind of looking at the sort of the sales environment and how that interacts with behavioural science and neurology.
00:12:20:29 – 00:12:56:21
So there’s a couple of books out there a list thats kind of growing ever more in terms of materials out there. The other thing I think is, as you said, it’s a very much a buzzword at the moment. And it’s almost like every agency you speak to now is a behavioural scientist or using behavioural insights. I think it’s kind of when you have those conversations, it’s great that people are recognizing it. But I think it’s as marketers to ask questions and understand what is the rigor that they bring to this and what is it based on? Because, you know, certainly I’ve had conversations with people where, you know, they’ve perhaps read ‘Thinking fast and slow’ and therefore it’s like, well, we’re going to apply it.
00:12:56:23 – 00:13:13:22
We’re going to kind of sell that. Great. But, yeah, this is science area. It’s still an embryonic area. It’s still sort of like it’s very teenaged. There’s a lot of uncertainty still in this space. So I think making sure that when you’re working with partners, you understand both the opportunities, but also the limitations of this.
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So what are those opportunities and limitations? I mean, what can you use it for and when do you need to be mindful?
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Well, as you might expect, as somebody who is very passionate about it, I think it’s almost for me, like you can use it in most situations and certainly behavioural insights, which, if you like, are informed by the science. You can you can bring a lot of spaces. So the first one would be as marketers and thinking about decision making. So, thinking for me, focusing on the innovation process, how do you de-bias that innovation process to make it as streamlined and as effective as possible? How do you depersonalize some of the potentially uncomfortable or discomfort around insights or opportunities that there might be? A second one would be in insight work.
00:14:00:09 – 00:14:37:26
So understanding really, what is some of the drivers, these cognitive drivers behind behaviours that you’re seeing is kind of really insightful. And again, that’s kind of a space that I focus on in terms of things like doing trends work, where it’s not just about understanding what’s happening, but also potentially some of the whys and certainly in the environment that we’re in now and that we’re likely to be in for a while. Sort of the the importance of understanding, uncertainty, risk, mindset of consumers is going to be really key because the world has changed a lot in terms of psychological safety and really understanding.
00:14:37:28 – 00:15:10:25
That’s going to be very important. Third one would be for anybody who’s sort of doing advertising, communications or product development, thinking quite early on about how you build behavioural learnings into your approach. Quite often I’ll have conversations with people who’ve got to a stage of developing something and it’s like, well, let’s not think about behavioural science and how we just get people to adopt it. You’ve sort of missed a lot of opportunities by that stage to really build into the thinking in the design that these principles, in these learnings and in that space.
00:15:11:17 – 00:15:57:08
One of the sort of the big leaders in the field is, you know, Ogilvy and Rory Sutherland and, you know, there’s a lot of material that they’ve put online and they run events and things like that. So they’re sort of in terms of the advertising space leaders, in terms of behavioural insight, use and adoption. And I guess the final way that kind of immediately comes to mind, as I say, they’re sort of there are lots of opportunities is in terms of thinking about your research methodologies, some of the research methodologies that have been developed in labs. So things like IAT implicit association testing, which is looking at the fluency of our brain and making connections between things, and is used in a lot of kind of the racial bias work that we’re hearing about at the moment can also be applied to brands and can be applied to testing and things like that.
00:15:57:10 – 00:16:15:26
So thinking about, you know, some of the methodologies and thinking about when you’re having conversations with your agent says what is effect interpretation and what is really kind of very empirical. And, you know, there’s a role for both. I don’t want to kind of downplay the importance of interpretation as well, but just being very clear about what is what.
00:16:16:02 – 00:16:26:14
Which leads me to my next question, because I’m sitting here listening to you talk about those four applications and I’m thinking, you know, how do we currently gain insight into those areas to form those decisions?
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So, you know, a mix of qual and quant focus groups, as you were saying, for the brand development at various other as a methodology. How does this differ?
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Or is it a lot used alongside if someones sat here thinking, OK, I’m now satellite insight budget for next year and I want to include behavioural science, what are you subbing or what are you adding? What does that look like?
00:16:46:21 – 00:17:19:15
It’s not like an either or maybe it is the best way of explaining it. So if you take kind of the qual quant divide often and, you know, I’ve done this in the past in terms of marketing roles, you do qual to kind of get an idea of things and get a sense of opportunities with consumers. And then quant becomes often about validation or kind of risk removal. I think seeing that, you know, there’s definitely a role of qual to kind of like form your hypothesis, but then sort of testing in a quant way in a much more rigorous way.
00:17:19:17 – 00:17:51:13
So rather than sort of looking for confirmation, we’ve got the right thing. How do you test some of those assumptions? How do you get in there earlier to maybe do smaller tests? And, you know, there’s so many, particularly in the world that we’re in now in terms of the tech that’s available to us. So many quick ways of looking at doing massive testing or concept testing or and then I think, you know, it’s about finding the right partners for you or working with your partners to bring in this thinking at the right stage. So I think behavioural science works least well when it’s kind of viewed as a bolt on.
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It’s kind of an integral way of processing or interpreting information.
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So having that throughout the process is kind of probably in an ideal world that the approach. So it’s adding richness into the process through out by the sounds of it, not just kind of added on? Yes, yes. Right.
00:18:09:20 – 00:18:44:01
From the words of from when you’re framing your problem or your challenge and understanding that in behavioural terms is more likely to get you to a behavioural answer rather than. Yeah. And as a marketeers, you know, we naturally want to try and frame things around the customer or the consumer. It’s just taking that that stage further. And actually, what is the behaviour that we’re concerned with and how do we therefore then think about the principles as to how you work with behavioural movement or you change behaviours to do that? Because as marketers, we’re naturally very good at sort of dipping in and out of the space.
00:18:44:09 – 00:18:50:01
I think it’s just about sometimes just having the kind of the confidence to stay in this space for a bit longer.
00:18:50:10 – 00:19:17:10
I like that become more curious. I know you and I were discussing this the other day. You’re setting out kind of your assumptions around, you know, think they’ll do, what they’re currently doing and assuming or your desired state where you want to take them to. It’s about really digging deep, isn’t it? And, you know, not just what they’re doing or what where you want to take them or what behaviour them to do. But how are they currently doing that and why are they currently doing that? So you get that deep rooted level.
00:19:17:15 – 00:19:52:16
Exactly. And I think marketers tend to be very positive, can do people, we want to sort of focus on the positives and, you know, sort of insights, you know, framing insights as, you know, like I wish there was kind of a product that allowed me to do this. Well, that’s great in terms of galvanizing us as an organisation and giving us a focus point to feel good about. But that’s not necessarily the truth of the insight. So negatives are often much more motivating for people than positives. Just, you know, from an evolutionary point of view, it’s much more important to be able to quickly react to a danger than it is to kind of embrace good things.
00:19:52:18 – 00:19:58:15
So, again, sort of sometimes just sort of being a little bit uncomfortable potentially with things can kind of get you to a richer space.
00:19:58:17 – 00:20:19:03
So as far as skills are concerned for marketers, you know, adopting this process, we’ve talked about to be more curious and feeling and uncomfortable for a bit longer, you know, not just jumping into the solution. What other skills do you think they need to have to be able to understand and apply this this thinking and approach, I think sort of part of it is recognizing that this is a complex area.
00:20:19:05 – 00:20:52:21
It would be great if there was a very simple single model that we could apply to human behaviour. But it’s a combination of these different biases. And the combination of the environment and the importance of contacts means that it is kind of a space where I think it’s about finding the right partners who can help you really apply knowledge and who are kind of connected in with academia because the field is advancing so quickly. That kind of making sure that you’re connected into that is kind of really key.
00:20:53:03 – 00:21:22:16
The other thing as well is about sort of being curious and also being bold enough to admit uncertainty. So, as all humans, as marketers, we love an action plan. You’ve got an action bias, of simplicity, things that enable us to crack on and get things done is great. But sometimes, you know, there’s a real power in just kind of taking a step back and just allowing yourself to be uncertain about things and checking in on some of the perhaps kind of the base assumptions you might have about things.
00:21:22:18 – 00:21:35:14
So, Kate, in our introduction I mentioned, obviously, you had this marketing career before you just got so curious about behavioural science that you went and did a masters at it. Was there any significant moment within that where you thought, oh, my God, I have to learn more?
00:21:36:00 – 00:22:14:08
Yes. So, there was and I remember it very clearly. I was working at a large drinks and snacks manufacturer and was in charge of doing concept screening for the new ideas. And I spent a lot of time focusing on the better for you space. So had this kind of niggling feeling that as manufacturers, we were desperate to tell everyone, you know, that we were creating these better for you products and they were the right choice for people. And if we could only give them more information, that they’d buy more. At the same time, you know, when you looked at kind of what was important to people coming through, it was things like taste and enjoyment, which, you know, we were sort of giving them a reassurance at the end.
00:22:14:10 – 00:22:47:20
We’d say, this is amazing, better for you product. Oh, and it tastes great as well. And it was just, you know, I was really lucky. I had two amazing bosses who allowed me to put into a concept screen in the seemingly identical idea, but express changing the order of things. So in one speaking first about the way that we traditionally did it, which is talking about it being better for you and then giving a reassurance about the taste at the end and in the other one just changing the order of the words so that you started with the kind of the the fact that it tasted great and then gave the kind of the reassurance about it being a better value product at the end.
00:22:48:01 – 00:23:39:16
And, you know, rationally you’d say it’s exactly the same words. All we’ve done is change your order four paragraphs that you know, the sentences, they should make no difference. And actually, one of those concepts came back as being a strong concept and one came back as just being very average. And that was sort of even though I didn’t know it at the time, I’d kind of stumbled across this idea about anchoring and the fact that, you know, the framework and the starting point and how we present things to consumer makes a real difference. And that then during my Masters, I kind of focused on took that further and did some more work about trying to understand the challenges of getting people to eat better for you products and why often as manufacturers and marketers, our approach is very rational and very understandable because we want to communicate not only to consumers, but also to the government and public bodies that we are responsible citizens and that we’re offering people better for you choice.
00:23:39:18 – 00:23:53:05
But somehow that can sometimes get in the way of actually helping people choose better for you products. So that was kind of like my journey into it and sort of this idea that actually sort of thinking rationally, there should be no difference. But there is.
00:23:53:22 – 00:24:02:20
And it was almost that that one concept that probably I am assuming the concept screener that you used came back as a five-star idea, did it?
00:24:04:06 – 00:24:06:29
You know, every every concept was always the best ever. Yeah, yeah.
00:24:08:00 – 00:24:17:02
That’s a great insight as to kind of where this passion point comes from. And and obviously, you’re doing this now, you know, for a variety of different businesses and brands.
00:24:17:23 – 00:24:22:17
What is like the number one thing that they knock on your door for or say when they first arrive?
00:24:22:19 – 00:24:55:24
There is sort of tend to be two things. One of which is we’ve heard about behavioural science and we’ve got a problem that we haven’t really been able to solve with traditional means. Can you help us? And, you know, there’s things you can do. And certainly, in terms of helping people understand and frame it and sort of understand why things might not be working, really useful conversations to have there. And then the other one is probably a little bit by stealth, I’d say more where I’m kind of applying behavioural insights to things that they might be doing anyway. So, for example, trends work where, you know, trends are driven by people and their behaviours at the end of the day.
00:24:55:26 – 00:25:14:13
So sort of understanding where that’s coming from and what might be some of the levers behind it can then give you a different way of leveraging those trends. It’s one of those spaces where it’s still very much in an adoption stage. And sometimes you sort of you give the benefits without talking about it.
00:25:14:26 – 00:25:45:16
It makes sense and actually it’s quite reassuring to hear that it’s both in the long term and the short term. It’s the we’ve come to you we’re developing this product and we’ve got the last point. What do we do? And also right at the beginning of trends as well. Yes. Yes. So thank you so much for your time on today’s podcast. I always finish every podcast with one question, and it is what one piece of advice would you give to the marketers today? And this can be from any point in your career.
00:25:46:17 – 00:26:17:04
Oh, that’s a very good question. I would say. I think we’re living in such a rich moment of opportunity about curiosity and the opportunities that that unlocks is I think there is so much space for people by thinking about different questions to get to different answers. So I think my kind of advice would be, instead of focusing away on answers, spend more time focusing on questions.
00:26:17:18 – 00:26:23:23
And certainly if I think back on my career, I think I’ve got the most interesting results when I framed the question differently.
00:26:24:11 – 00:26:26:24
That’s great. Thank you so much for your time today, Kate.
00:26:27:03 – 00:26:29:06
No, thank you. It’s been really enjoyable.
00:26:30:08 – 00:26:39:06
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