By Lachezar Ivanov and Eaon Pritchard
To target or not to target? If yes, then to whom? Or what? And by how much?
The notion of reaching the right people at the right time with the right message has been one of the most established strategic goals in advertising and marketing since day one.
And rightly so.
The use of data-driven targeting aided by technology has now become an important tactic in marketing. In theory, this kind of targeting of individuals or groups seems to make sense. It should allow an advertiser to identify with higher accuracy the customers who are likely to be interested in a product, which would surely lead to the more efficient allocation of marketing resources.
Digital channels offer ‘better’ targeting than traditional mass media. Search targets users with keywords, locations, or other cues based on browsing history. Social channels offer advertisers targeted audiences according to things like location, demographics, claimed interests, and look-a-like audiences.
Sadly, most of these digital data signals are not great predictors of actual customer behavior.
Moreover, we propose here that the problem with so much targeting (and its close cousin, segmentation) is not that they are not valid marketing practices, but that the common understanding of how they work is both thin and narrow – lacking depth and breadth. Targeting can end up being ineffective and sometimes even harmful to brands. Too much ‘precision’ targeting can make a high-quality brand appear low-quality.
Going deeper into human psychology, an evolutionary approach suggests that targeting based on customer needs (the small group of fundamental motives that drive customer behavior) can be both more efficient and more effective. The simple truth is that most products and services are bought by customers of all types. Segmenting these audiences to the nth degree might be interesting for data wonks and look impressive in PowerPoint decks but even the best only manage to segment on a very thin and proximate basis.
Proximate influences are typically very specific to a particular product category, often even to a brand. Identifying the specific proximate needs to target for one brand, or even category, typically has little or no use for other categories. Although, this does keep a big chunk of the market research industry in business.
However, using an evolutionary framework of ultimate needs can provide a solution to these problems. Whilst every one of us is a unique individual, we are all the same species; we all come out of the box with the same hardware, mental software, and the same universal set of evolutionary motives, the same fundamental drivers of customer behavior.
The Mercedes or BMW Conundrum
The decision to choose one of these two luxury car options might sometimes have little to do with the products themselves but might depend on a customer’s currently active motive and on whether the option represents the choice of a majority vs. a minority of other customers. A much-cited study demonstrated that customers primed with a self-protection motive choose the option presented as the choice of the majority of other customers (i.e., a ´strength in numbers´ response that supports self-protection), irrespective of which this car brand option is. When primed with a mating motive, male customers choose the option presented as the choice of a minority of other customers (a ‘desire to stand out’ response that supports mating success).
This example underpins the notion that motive and need states can shape our preferences, decision-making processes, and behaviors. These effects can sometimes take place behind the curtain of consciousness. The example also suggests many opportunities for targeting customers under the influence of specific motives, particularly on social media, where these deep-seated desires often surface and are nurtured.
When to Use Narrow Targeting and When to Reach a Broad Audience
Research by Les Binet and Peter Field suggests that marketers need to balance the goals of long-term brand-building and short-term sales activation to achieve optimal effectiveness and efficiency. The seminal work by the duo implies that brand-building benefits from emotional messaging and broad audience targeting. For short-term conversions, Binet and Field suggest narrow targeting to meet the needs and preferences of distinct customer groups with greater precision. What might be the underlying behavioral biology of these effects?
The limbic system is not only central to emotion but also to learning and memory formation. Hence, when your goal is to instill brand codes in the mind of the customer, it might pay off to activate this part of the brain through emotional messaging.
The neocortex carries out an executive function and is involved in decision-making. Customers often don’t want more choices but to be more confident in the choices they have already subconsciously made. Rational and narrowly targeted messaging close to purchase might give cognition the confidence to “rubber stamp” the emotional decision. It is vital to note that the connection between the limbic system and the neocortex is bidirectional. Emotions and rationality are strongly interlinked.
Seemingly irrational choices, often regarded as biases, such as the shift in the choice between Mercedes and BMW, can make perfect sense when you consider the adaptive motives influencing customers and their context.
How to Use Social Media Targeting Options to Reach Customers With Different Motives
While it is unlikely that you can use traditional segmentation data collection techniques, such as surveys, to determine the currently active motive states of your customers, these motives often surface on social media. Facebook’s targeting options for life events (e.g., new job, new relationship) are particularly intriguing. There is a growing body of research revealing how fundamental motives are particularly evident in social media behavior. To be fair, almost all social media activity is attempted signaling by users (and often faking) of their desirable personality traits or status that they want to display to others.
Status
Gaining status in the groups to which we belong has been one of the enduring truths of our species. From our hunter-gatherer ancestors on the Savannah to the office workers and Twitter trolls of the present, the human need to compete for status is ancient, universal, and deeply ingrained in all of us.
In The Status Game, author Will Storr describes status competition in this way “…the higher we rise, the more likely we are to live, love, and procreate. It’s the essence of human thriving. It’s the status game.” While humans can belong to multiple hierarchies, individuals with higher socioeconomic status tend to have lower risks of cardiovascular, respiratory, rheumatoid, and psychiatric diseases; and mortality from all causes.
When active, status motives can drive customers to seek products that signal luxury and prestige. Status-seeking individuals may tend to want high-end technology products offering up-to-date features, and they are more than happy to pay a premium for conspicuous products such as luxury brand-labeled clothing or eco-friendly cars. The obvious cost of such products and/or green credentials is a signal of social status and wealth and leads to advantages in social interactions for the signaler.
The pursuit of status does not only make customers seek products that help them fulfill this goal but can have broader implications for brand preferences, depending on a brand’s positioning. The status motive could generally lower price sensitivity and lead customers to choose brands that are expensive (albeit not luxury) as opposed to cheap brands. For example, status-seeking customers might choose the Waitrose supermarket brand over Aldi (the cheapest supermarket brand in the UK). Or even engage in a bit of counter-signaling. Have a look at the cars in the Aldi car park. In Eaon’s local Aldi, it’s full of Teslas and BMWs. Being price savvy to commodities is also a way of signaling status by not appearing to be status motivated. It‘s complicated.
Finding a mate
Our ancestors could not become our ancestors without finding someone willing to help them transport their genes to the next generation. The pursuit of a romantic partner is hardwired in us. There are many products and services, such as dating apps and dating coaches, geared toward individuals seeking a mating partner.
Active mating motive can make men prefer brands associated with individualism, as opposed to affiliation, and choose brands that are linked to adventure (as opposed to safety) and confidence. When Old Spice ran the now classic “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign, they successfully turned around the brand’s outdated image to its advantage. The other genius of this campaign was that it also talked directly to the women who buy personal care products for their husbands, boyfriends, and sons.
For women, the mating motive can lead them to acquire products that are ornamental, as opposed to practical. However, women’s display of high-status products could act as a mate-screening device. A way to signal their mating standards and deter undesirable pursuers. “I don’t want no scrub; a scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from me”…
The Bottom Line
Motive states can shape our preferences, decision-making processes, and behaviors. Social media targeting options can allow you to reach customers driven by different motive states. These states can determine the rise in demand for products closely related to the fulfillment of different adaptive goals and can also influence the preferences for differentially positioned brands.
In this article, we have discussed only two fundamental motives and the related behavioral tendencies. But there are more motives and opportunities for brands to increase short-term conversions and position their brands, over the long term, to appeal to human nature.
Our brain functions, biology, and behaviors are hardwired into us as a result of millions of years of evolution and have been designed to assist the propagation of our genes. Not only that, these fundamental motives are at work hidden away from our conscious selves. Understanding this, learning which motives or states are the most relevant to individual brands and contexts or likely to be active and how to best harness these drives from deep in our shared human nature is the key to directly speaking to what customers really want. Because we’re all a lot more similar than we are different.
