Touch - the future is Kinesthetic

In his last book, SISOMO (stands for SIght, SOund and MOtion) Kevin Roberts explores the importance of sensorial information in marketing. In the field of consumer technology, I personally think that Touch is the critical sense. Creating an emotional bond with Consumers goes through Touch. Kinesthetic & Kinesthesia are the fields of science that cover body & touch senses.

With the recent explosion of touch screen phones this takes a whole new meaning. We crave those little devices because they are a much better extension of ourselves, and help us take control of our lives.

Time to market is everything. One can invest millions trying

 to build a brand. That curve gets steeper if the timing isn't right. But the ROI when the moment has come is multiplied effortlessly by the momentum you are gaining in the market.

Building communities of fans and followers, gauging the market, building awareness, acceptance ; these are all "uphill" efforts. But when the curve tips and your product is suddenly becoming the Grail, when the technology is Crossing the Chasm (check the book by Geoffrey A. MOORE) then your efforts are all "downhill" and you are gaining velocity.

What better to create an emotional bond than a touch device - it vibrates as if it had a life, it blinks as if it had a pulse... it is my portable connection to the world.... and I am committed to it.

Anyway, I can't resist showing you the current battle at the top. HTC vs SAMSUNG ? read CNET on the HTC Touch HD and then CNET on the OMNIA. I can't wait for those devices to offer more user control... dual boot between Android and Windows Mobile 6.1 ... ? Geek heaven.

By the way - is now the right moment ? Not quite - but I think we're pretty close. Location based services (GPS) in my mind is the one innovation that is going to tip the market. Why? because it will free us from geographical constraints and simplify the way we find places and friends... Google has that bit right with Google Maps...

Feels true, sounds true, looks true, and heard it was true? Must be true!

Our world is crowded with information. How do we actually come to believe?

So much information that our brain could not process everything that is around us unless it applied some filters. I recently came across research showing how our brain decides what to believe and how it processes information. There is a clear pattern that emerges, one I am sure is consistent with our individual experiences.

We are more likely to believe when we are able to double check the information across different sources.

Cristiano Castelfranchi from the Institute for Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, in Roma, Italy gives us some key elements that corroborate my intuition on this in a essay titled “Reasons to Believe: Cognitive Models of Beliefs Change” - 2004.

We only believe if we have reasons to believe.

In doing so, our brain reassures itself with the logic of comparing sources and information. Compare this to the phenomena of false beliefs and rumours getting started. If two or three unrelated people give you the same information, suddenly a doubt is born that the information may actually be true. Why so? Simply because you were told so by a small number of people that seemed to believe in it...

Important steps in believing are:

• Source Reliability (perception of independence, trustworthiness)
  
• Belief Credibility (importance and plausibility = how much it matters to you and how you feel about it from the inside)
  
• Existence of a convergent source confirming.
  

Castelfranchi also talks about what the belief brings to you in terms of achieving your goals. Does it make you feel good, satisfied, does it solve a problem etc... Naturally the brain has a tendency to take the shortest path to satisfaction and if believing is “simpler” than doubting, one may be inclined to avoid challenging the belief further.

The absence of internal contradiction is a key success

 factor to believing

If the information contradicts other existing beliefs it will either be purely and simply rejected, or submitted to a much more intense scrutinizing process.

Morality ? in trying to convince someone, going with the flow is easier than contradicting them. Leading them to analyse and realize their own belief is false is key in getting them to change their mind.

Give them reasons to believe. Get the same information to come to them from various sources they will deem reliable. Deliver the message in a way credible to them.

And remember convergent sources of information contribute to making the information credible.

Pics Credit: Truth and Falsehood by Dulhunk and Megaphone drawing by PSD

Advert recall even in fast forward !

Interesting research is showing that TV viewers that are using PVR/DVR functions and are fast forwarding adverts are actually still paying attention to what they are forwarding through. Ad recalls are still high even if they are lower. Subjects are so anxious not to miss the beginning of their show that they are still registering images. Read the full article

Seeing is believing ?

I came across an interesting article about a paradigm in the way we choose to believe information.
According to researchers M.B. Welsh & D.J. Navarro from the University of Adelaide in Australia, we are subject to a phenomenon called "Base Rate Neglect" which means we tend to give a stronger weight to information gathered depending on whether it is recent or not (age), geographically relevant (location), and depending on the source and the sample size.
Beyond the very technical content of the article, I found enlightening the way that we discount information and what we choose to believe.

One particular example is a research about Swans, where 999 swans observed around the world are white and one found in Australia is black. Although the probability that the next swan encountered will be white is very high (as per the base rate), research shows that the subject after observing a regional variation is suddenly more prone in believing that the next swan encountered in the same region could actually be black. 

This phenomenon can explain, for example, how negative consumer experiences can ruin brand image quickly. 

But it also opens an interesting door on how to reverse negative brand image. And how one can manage information and marketing activities to reverse consumer beliefs. 

Showing a radical change (something as different as finding a black swan), concentrating on creating positive consumer experiences in stores as well as using word of mouth and PR tactics to spread the word can help reverse previous perceptions. 

Brands: Show them love and get loved back !

Great post, I have just read today on:

http://tinyurl.com/3tetdy

Looks like the human brain may have neurons called the "mirror neurons".

Mirror neurons play a great role in imitation behaviours.

Watch someone experiencing strong emotions (excitement, laugh, love, tears, etc...) and suddenly our innerself seems to resonate along? 

Mirror  neurons are playing an important role in the learning process for example.

Read more about mirror neurons on : http://tinyurl.com/5hm6dy

Shall we derive from this that a good way for a brand to be loved is to show love ?

I feel smarter now.

Marketing Metaphoria

A very interesting reading from G.Zaltman.

Zaltman he is a leading thinker around what influences consumer behaviors. He puts into light what he thinks are key drivers of consumer behaviors regardless of cultures and borders.

These drivers are the perception of balance (justice, equilibrium), the feelings of transformation (changes in substance and circumstances), the impressions of embarking on a Journey (Meeting of past, present and future), the perceptions of Containment (inclusiong, exclusion and other perceptions of boundaries), the perceptions of being Connected (to oneself and to others), the available Resources (acquisitions and their consequences), as well the sense of control (Mastery, Vulnerability and Well-Being).
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is marketing innovation and technology. Zaltman is certainly touching something interesting here, even though he is not giving us direct keys into practical marketing actions.

It is a good insight and its learnings can for example be used in ad testing and in any experiential marketing brief to drive key perceptions.