behavioural patterns

Breaking patterns of behaviour

Diversity serves as a trigger as it makes people dig deeper, work harder and question themselves. There’s more conflict in these diverse groups – conflict of opinions and perspectives – and that leads to better outcomes. Don’t trust me, you can read the McKinsey & Co. reports.

i have been advised to be a little more active on LinkedIn to establish myself as a thought leader. This is my challenge for September as I have conditioned to believe that self-praise is no recommendation. I will give it a try…

““The moment you realise not everybody is going to like you is the moment you take back your power.””
— Burrellism

Deeper motivations

Behaviour change is complex and often requires more than just presenting information, it's not just about addressing what people know. I think behavioural change may require new habits, offering incentives, or employing behavioural psychology techniques that go beyond simply presenting information. To truly impact behaviour, it's often necessary to consider the underlying motivations, beliefs, and environmental factors influencing individuals, and then create targeted interventions or messages that resonates with those underlying drivers. What do you think?

It's a long game

Research has shown that by simply providing information doesn't necessarily lead to behavioural change. I think while knowledge is valuable, changing behaviour often requires more than just information as human behaviour is complex, influenced by various factors beyond mere awareness. Effective behaviour change often involves a combination of factors for example, motivation, context, emotional connections, support systems, and practical tools or strategies.

“A large part of economic success is based on trust, in other words, do people trust you to fulfil your promises. ”
— Burrellism

Preparing for change

Our brain has to use shortcuts to make sense of the world, and any form of behavioural change whether positive or negative requires communication. In many real-life situations, we lack complete knowledge, face an uncertain future, and must depend on instinctive heuristics. A heuristic is a simple rule of thumb which is not perfect but offers quick and dependable results for most intents and purposes. I think that many of our beliefs are formed to prevent cognitive dissonance; we seek to maintain a positive self-image and often engage in constructing narratives to support those beliefs.


Behavioural data is valuable

Do you know your customer?
I think that there is a huge value in understanding behavioural data and the importance of understanding the “why” behind people’s actions. Behavioural data has more value when it proves that people bought your goods or services, rather than when it tells you what people intend to do. Data provides the “what,” but doesn’t provide the “why”. Data will tell you a story and the story it tells depends on the interpretation and the interpretation probably depends on something psychological. You can create value in the mind as value is only meaningful to the extent that it’s perceived, because if people don’t want what you have made then you haven’t created any value at all.

,

Patterns of behaviour

,
human patterns.jpg

Demographics are the statistical data of a population, e.g. age, income, education, ethnicity, gender, employment status, etc. I think that this is old school, and it can be seen as a very useful insight into the culture of the people or a certain population that exists in a certain region. Back in the “pre-internet” days you could buy all this information from a mail order company to create marketing strategy as well as a marketing plan for your business. Psychographics focuses on collecting and analyzing the characteristics of an audience that are slightly more intangible, for example, values, habits, attitudes, interests, emotions, personality, lifestyle, opinions and preferences.



When data collection is being done properly, people are happy to have it done, for example, Netflix, Spotify and YouTube recommendations. This is because it is being done for them, not to them. With Facebook algorithms and Google analytics we can say: “This is for people who like that and this is for people who believe this.” It doesn’t matter about your skin colour or income, it’s all about what is your inner narrative. In every postal area there are people from almost every psycho-graphical perception and what we have to do as a brand marketer is say: “This is for you and it’s not for you.” Contact me via e-mail for an evaluation of your brand marketing strategy.