Ogilvy's famous Mindspace framework: Part II
Based on solid behavioral science principles, this essay decodes the Mindspace framework empolyed by ad giants Ogilvy.
Welcome to Issue #13 of Market Curve - a weekly newsletter exploring the intersection of marketing with consumer psychology and behavioral economics. Through Market Curve, I hope to offer marketers and founders a different perspective on how to better understand their customers - one that is rooted in science.
Last week, we discussed the first two elements of the Mindspace framework: The Messenger and incentives. In today’s issue, we will continue where we left off.
Norms
Norms are linked to social proof and credibility on the part of the business. In a quest to conserve cognitive energy, consumers will often levitate towards businesses that appear credible.
As such, there is an onus on the part of the business to understand the customer and his specific pain points. These pain points can then be addressed in the messaging. Once you understand the customer, it automatically triggers a sense of trust in the minds of the consumer. It causes them to lower their guards.
Default
As a rule of thumb, consumers will often resort to heuristics to simplify their decision-making. As such, it’s imperative to enable customers to operate on the default mode most of the time. However, there are 2 important points to note here:
The default mode for B2B consumers and B2C consumers is different. It’s different across industry verticals too. A business buying a chat-bot software has a different default mode than a business that is buying a payment software. This variance is due to the degree of urgency and the exposure he gets to that particular product on a daily basis.
The other important point to note here is while it’s important to reduce cognitive load as much as possible on the consumer, it is also important for him to stand up and take notice. This is where powerful copywriting comes in. Good copywriters are students of markets and of consumer behaviors and know how to merge the two elements together.
Salience
Our attention is drawn to things that are novel and seems relevant to us. If I'm a marketer, then anything business-related and marketing-related will interest me. The novel element for me is to read user psychology and i'm drawn to it. This is probably the same reason why you're reading this essay now too.
A powerful marketing campaign makes the product stand out. Peep Laja of CXL shares this sentiment. A vast majority of today’s product are merely original but not novel. However, consumers are drawn to things that are novel. Therefore, the question then becomes how do you present your product in such a way that it increases the novelty quotient of your product?
I’ll leave you with a quote (fittingly said by David Ogilvy):
Every campaign has to have a big idea. If you don’t have a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.
Companies are in the business of selling big ideas. The product is merely a medium.
Priming
Our acts are often controlled by sub-conscious cues. Our default mode of thoughts and actions have familiar patterns and we resort to them uncosnciously. People belonging to a similar demographic, or culture or profession have more in common than people outside the demographic
As such, they are more likely to think in similar ways and follow predictable patterns. Although such patterns are by essence non-linear, their behavior can be analysed and often-times predicted. Good marketers make their money on predicting behaviour.
For example, a jail being painted pink led to a 50% drop in violence. Here all prisoners belonged to a single demographic and shared similar traits. A change in priming would have a similar result across the whole demographic.
Affect
Our emotional associations can shape our action. It is famously said in marketing - "People buy with emotions then justify with logic".
If we smell cakes or watch someone eat a cake, our emotions kick in reminding us how mich we enjoyed eating the cake.
The ease of recall is also higher for humans. The brain associates smells with events, memories. In Cialdini terminology, it is what is known as a fixed action patterns.
A fixed action pattern invokes a particular behavior each time a particular trigger is activated. For example, the Westin uses a cool and relaxing white tea fragrance, while the St. Regis uses an elegant blend of rose, sweet pea and pipe tobacco to relax customers in the lobby. Disney pumps popcorn aroma into the streets of their theme parks using nebulizers.
Commitment
Commitment has 2 parts: consistency and reciprocity.
We tend to be consistent with what we say, speak or do otherwise we run the risk of being perceived as an impostor.
Which is why when you try to quit smoking - you do it in public. That way, your'e more likely to quit smoking. The same principle is applicable to all rehab centres and support groups.
Reciprocity is also an example of a fixed action pattern. Professor Dennis Regan conducted an interesting experiment where he found that the rule of reciprocity was so profound that it overwhelmed another key factor that usually decided whether to do someone a favour or not - aka the act of liking someone.
Even if Person B does not like Person A but Person B feels indebted to Person A for a favour, then he will go out of his way to help Person A because he feels indebted to him irrespective of whether or not he likes him.
Ego
Humans act in ways that make us feel better about ourselves. In a previous essay, I wrote about how changes in the actual state and desired state trigger the customer problem reognition process.
The actual and desired state are ego-driven behaviour. A hike in salary subsconciously translates to more consumption. A company that is recently funded is more likely to splash money on R&D, marketing and PR as opposed to a bootstrapped one.
Your product must help them bridge the gap between the actual and desired state. Or at the very least lure them in with the prize of the promised land.