A hidden rule in Marketing goes like this ;
“In Marketing always prioritize what the consumers want
not what they say they want”
~ Komrade Montell
This might sound confusing because we’re more obsessed with the idea of taking survey before releasing a product.
Today let’s talk about the idea of Preference Falsification especially in Marketing and Consumerism behaviour since we had earlier on applied the phenomenon in other fields.
And our question for the moment is ?
Do what consumers claim to want and actually want match or is there a disconnect?
Do what they claim to desire and what they actually choose match?
Is there a disconnect between there intentions and behaviours?
Is there a disconnect between what they say and do?
Key Experimental Research Case.
We shall take a case experimental research conducted by Decision Technology (DecTech) , which is an insights firm specializing in behavioral economics and consumer forecasting, to find out the relationship between stated survey data against real-world supermarket purchases.
The research team from the firm tracked real-world purchasing behavior over consecutive weeks within active commercial supermarkets by juxtapositioning traditional consumer surveys (stated data) against actual transaction data from the registers (revealed data).
A thousands of supermarket shoppers were surveyed about their future purchasing intentions and their priorities such as product origin, health benefits, organic ingredients, and brand loyalty.
A separate mathematical forecasting model was built by the team using either the survey responses (Stated) or past transaction volumes (Revealed). The teams also tracked weeks of real-world sales data across multiple product categories to see which model accurately predicted what consumers actually put in their shopping carts.
The findings?
The experiment proved that relying on what consumers say they want was a terrible way to predict what they will buy.
The Models built entirely on consumers’ stated preferences and survey intentions performed poorly. They could only explain 32% of the variance in actual supermarket sales.
On the other hand, the Models tracking revealed preferences (what people actually bought when faced with real prices and real shelf-space limitations) significantly outperformed the surveys, explaining 49% of the variance.
From the experimental case above, we find out that Consumers engage in preference Falsification during surveys and researches.
Why is this possible?
Causes to Preferences Falsification in Consumerism Behaviours.
There are various causes to this but this depends on whether the disconnect arises Consciously or Unconsciously.
•If consciously, ie; intentionally lying then Social desirability is the main factor. They want to put on a certain image to the research or survey team. For instance; In our society we find people claiming to desire what’s considered eco-friendly,noble, healthy and morally of higher standing but looking deep down this isn’t the case. Eg; Organic food vs the Junk food. Clean content online vs dirty content.
The same case applies to artists. For instance people might have a moralizing tendencies of what’s moral but we find the dirty content, songs and even porn sites getting millions and billions of views. For writers, we find am example of the Book , The 48 laws of power by Robert Greene which is termed by many as evil but has sold millions and is infact one of the best books in his catalogues.
Let’s call this the, Social Desirability Bias or Virtue Signaling;
That the consumer wanted to look like conscious, healthy, and responsible citizen while concealing factors that would otherwise taint this image eg; Well packaging, Color attractiveness or even cost of product.
• Unconscious factors can also lead to this disconnect. This occurs when Consumers actually mean what they state in surveys and the Marketing researches but find themselves making purchases that are odd to what they claimed without explanation.
The disconnect mostly arises from the conflict that occurs between our logical brain and emotional brain.
Sometimes the logical brain desires one thing but the emotional brain opts for another.
Surveys mostly take in when an individual is in his logical state. But sometimes purchase happen when one is tired or in a rush or is uncertainty or needs to save time. The purchaser in this case might default to hereuristics such as preferring familliar brands, going for the costly assuming it’s more valuable or cheaper to save cost etc.
Reference List.
Decision Technology. (2019, July 23). Stated versus revealed preference: How to ask why. Behavioural Science Insights. https://www.dectech.co.uk/news-insights/buzz/how-to-ask-why-stated-versus-revealed-preference-research/
Kuran, T. (1995). Private truths, public lies: The social consequences of preference falsification. Harvard University Press.