How Customers Think

Book Description

How to unlock the hidden 95 per cent of the customer's mind that traditional marketing methods have never reached. This title provides practical synthesis of the cognitive sciences. Drawing heavily on psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and linguistics, Zaltman combines academic rigor with real-world results to offer highly accessible insights, based on his years of research and consulting work with large clients like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. An all-new tool kit: Zaltman provides research tools - metaphor elicitation, response latency, and implicit association techniques, to name a few - that will be all-new to marketers and demonstrates how innovators can use these tools to get clues from the subconscious when developing new products and finding new solutions, long before competitors do.

From Publishers Weekly

Harvard Business School professor Zaltman notes that despite enormous amounts of time and money dedicated to customer surveys and marketing, approximately 80% of all new products fail within six months or fall significantly short of their profit forecast. This shouldn't be surprising, he convincingly argues, since "a great mismatch exists between the way consumers experience and think about their world and the methods marketers use to collect this information." He calls for creative questioning that probes the unconscious values underlying consumers' reactions to products and marketing campaigns. Drawing on an impressive array of recent multidisciplinary research, Zaltman is especially provocative on the importance of memory, metaphor and storytelling in customers' decision making and the ways marketers might use these findings. Marketers worried about the scale and complexity of the surveys Zaltman advocates will breathe a sigh of relief as he outlines efficient methods to develop a set of shared values in a target market by creatively interviewing a small sample of customers. In fact, large vision and practical application go hand-in-hand for Zaltman. He may caution, rather abstractly, that successfully gauging the mind of the market depends on developing creative surveys and quality thinking about information gathered, but he also reminds readers to frame campaigns for a product in terms that vividly communicate its function and its emotional appeal for consumers. Zaltman's smart, practical analysis and many success stories will hold special appeal for those facing competitive markets, as well as for those rethinking more limited marketing approaches.

Book Description

How to unlock the hidden 95% of the customer’s mind that traditional marketing methods have never reached.

Selling Points

Practical synthesis of the cognitive sciences: Drawing heavily on psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and linguistics, Zaltman combines academic rigor with real-world results to offer highly accessible insights, based on his years of research and consulting work with large clients like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble.

An all-new tool kit: Zaltman provides research tools—metaphor elicitation, response latency, and implicit association techniques, to name a few—that will be all-new to marketers and demonstrates how innovators can use these tools to get clues from the subconscious when developing new products and finding new solutions, long before competitors do.

Book Dimension
Height (mm) 254 Width (mm) 165

Book Description

How to unlock the hidden 95 per cent of the customer's mind that traditional marketing methods have never reached. This title provides practical synthesis of the cognitive sciences. Drawing heavily on psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and linguistics, Zaltman combines academic rigor with real-world results to offer highly accessible insights, based on his years of research and consulting work with large clients like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. An all-new tool kit: Zaltman provides research tools - metaphor elicitation, response latency, and implicit association techniques, to name a few - that will be all-new to marketers and demonstrates how innovators can use these tools to get clues from the subconscious when developing new products and finding new solutions, long before competitors do.

From Publishers Weekly

Harvard Business School professor Zaltman notes that despite enormous amounts of time and money dedicated to customer surveys and marketing, approximately 80% of all new products fail within six months or fall significantly short of their profit forecast. This shouldn't be surprising, he convincingly argues, since "a great mismatch exists between the way consumers experience and think about their world and the methods marketers use to collect this information." He calls for creative questioning that probes the unconscious values underlying consumers' reactions to products and marketing campaigns. Drawing on an impressive array of recent multidisciplinary research, Zaltman is especially provocative on the importance of memory, metaphor and storytelling in customers' decision making and the ways marketers might use these findings. Marketers worried about the scale and complexity of the surveys Zaltman advocates will breathe a sigh of relief as he outlines efficient methods to develop a set of shared values in a target market by creatively interviewing a small sample of customers. In fact, large vision and practical application go hand-in-hand for Zaltman. He may caution, rather abstractly, that successfully gauging the mind of the market depends on developing creative surveys and quality thinking about information gathered, but he also reminds readers to frame campaigns for a product in terms that vividly communicate its function and its emotional appeal for consumers. Zaltman's smart, practical analysis and many success stories will hold special appeal for those facing competitive markets, as well as for those rethinking more limited marketing approaches.

Book Description

How to unlock the hidden 95% of the customer’s mind that traditional marketing methods have never reached.

Selling Points

Practical synthesis of the cognitive sciences: Drawing heavily on psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and linguistics, Zaltman combines academic rigor with real-world results to offer highly accessible insights, based on his years of research and consulting work with large clients like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble.

An all-new tool kit: Zaltman provides research tools—metaphor elicitation, response latency, and implicit association techniques, to name a few—that will be all-new to marketers and demonstrates how innovators can use these tools to get clues from the subconscious when developing new products and finding new solutions, long before competitors do.

Book Dimension
Height (mm) 254 Width (mm) 165

Preface
Pt. I Preparing for an Expedition
1 A Voyage from the Familiar
3
2 A Voyage to New Frontiers
27
Pt. II Understanding the Mind of the Market
3 Illuminating the Mind: Consumers' Cognitive Unconscious
47
4 Interviewing the Mind/Brain: Metaphor Elicitation
73
5 Interviewing the Mind/Brain: Response Latency and Neuroimaging
111
6 Come to Think of It
129
7 Reading the Mind of the Market: Using Consensus Maps
149
8 Memory's Fragile Power
165
9 Memory, Metaphor, and Stories
189
10 Stories and Brands
211
Pt. III Thinking Differently and Deeply
11 Crowbars for Creative Thinking
237
12 Quality Questions Beget Quality Answers
263
13 Launching a New Mind-Set
285
Notes
291
Index
311
Acknowledgments
319
About the Author
323