How Personal Experiences can Overcome Biases

As y’all know, my jam is finding the intersections between consumer perceptions, behavior and brand strategy.

But seasoned brand marketers know it’s harder than it sounds to uncover a meaningful insight and use it to change perceptions, and even harder to change a behavior and impact business results.

In that vein, I wanted to share an impactful client experience that has (IMHO) universal application. This is what fuels my fire to keep digging for insights, connecting dots, doing my think for clients.

I recently worked on a project that set out to solve a problem that seems unsolvable. It’s indeed a branding problem– a HUGE one. Yet, it’s not a product or service challenge that impacts annual sales, profits or shareholder value, it’s a societal problem that impacts lives, communities, and countries.

Here’s the good news: there are solutions. Not easy, not cheap, but they exist. Hooray, we get to keep our jobs!

Below are 5 learnings I’ve taken from this experience and some implications for marketers.

1. People/consumers mean well, and most try to be open minded. Yet, through our experiences, we take on negative, even harmful beliefs, perceptions and biases that can be sticky and hard to overturn.
2. Telling people their beliefs are wrong won’t change them, especially if they’ve been there a while. Saying a face scrub with peanut butter clarifies your skin, or that canned meat is a clean source of protein may spark initial interest, but probably won’t drive a purchase.
3. Discrediting negative beliefs starts with positive personal experiences, because they’re memorable, and easy to share. This explains why personal recommendations and reviews tend to trump brand-created ads and claims in driving purchase.
4. In addition to this organic stuff, broad brand messaging is still important, because it’s hard to create meaningful personal experiences at scale. Successful brands today use brand purpose, values and storytelling as a proxy for personal experiences.
5. The stickiest perceptions likely demand a multi-pronged approach: a mix of offense and defense, communication channels, tones, and tactics. 360 degree marketing isn’t new, but it’s effective!

How have you successfully changed perceptions for your business or your life?

Comment below to share your thoughts on this edition or this new format. I’d love to hear from you! And, if you’re so inclined, please share this newsletter with friends or colleagues that might enjoy my musings.