Understand how to change consumer behavior/habits in three seconds?

[](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc4uKsAEDJjn8DQZ-DBbdYpkhwOfkKP3E2h5Gdy7S_8pRI WFyNz_hQkBrDDbgvVsXTk9dYI1NQNUNSa8lOznAoJ5ML0u5EN4lI1tZB7qMRq1VQ1OOvZ26En3Jd15V4Aeuh3z488vhJdaQ/s1600/top.gif)

“Our life is nothing but the sum of countless habits.” - William. james

The choices people make are almost always guided by habit.

Do you take the same route to work every day?

Do you buy a cup of coffee every morning to start your day?

There is a whole wardrobe of clothes, but which ones are the most commonly worn colors and styles?

You can think about how difficult it would be for you to change your usual clothes and your route to work. Generally speaking, you must have a strong enough motivation and need before you can change your habits. And usually if you change this time, you will return to your usual habits next time instead of continuing to live every day with new behaviors.

Habits are a very important thing for people. They allow us to continue to live normally in our busy lives. How can we say this?

Think about it, if you have to think about how to choose and act from the beginning for everything you do, you will be caught up in countless trivial matters and unable to live normally. Therefore, habits are a kind of reflex action in life, and are behaviors that have been confirmed repeatedly over a long period of time. Only with daily habits can you have time to deal with work, emotions and other tasks that require more thinking.

Therefore, it is very difficult for a new service or product to break into the daily habits of consumers. How do you make an office worker who comes to a city café buy a cup of white coffee instead? How do you change consumer behavior?

To answer this question, we must first understand that habitual behavior is divided into three stages, namely:

1. Prompt: A person will induce his desire to obtain a certain reward because of a certain prompt.

2. Behavior: An action caused by wanting to obtain some kind of reward.

3. Reward: Some kind of satisfaction (psychological/physical) due to a certain behavior

As shown in the picture:

[](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuUZ5wJ0PXqRIzGY4GOLeR3eih-XhfkNOeQLFpalw4FZPC fKhn5mDGbOKo2WoxDzhFwjENHACRgcsfoPdCiozx_Qrfmi5zc6MBmBjQcwJX7dlKVp83ARYfHOSKxugKp6pfzQ6Y9EUCLnE/s1600/69.gif)

To change consumer behavior we must first find out what is a cue? What is a reward?

We must first confirm the prompt factors and reward factors, fix these two factors without changing them, and then we use marketing tools to change consumer behavior.

For example: How can we change an office worker’s cup of city café in the morning to a cup of white coffee in the morning?

First of all, we must first confirm what prompts the target customer to think of drinking coffee in the morning? What is the reward he gets for drinking city café?

Suppose our target customer passes by a 7-11 convenience store on the way to work, which induces him to want to buy a cup of city café. The purpose is to obtain a refreshing effect and start an efficient day.

Therefore, we fixed 7-11 and the refreshing effect, and tried to change the behavior of buying city café to buying white coffee. In terms of the use of marketing tools, I will purchase sufficient radio and TV advertisements, and design the white coffee to strongly connect with the “ding dong” sound of the 7-11 convenience store opening. Ding dong, drink white coffee.

Is it that simple? No…

If only marketing were that simple

In addition to habitual behavior, consumers also have rational analysis (price, taste), emotional factors (brand factors), situational factors (for example, everyone in the company drinks city café), etc. Another decisive factor is “trust.” You must use marketing tools to convince consumers that drinking white coffee can have the same refreshing effect as drinking city café. Consumers must “trust” you enough to be able to promote change.

A marketing method that effectively breaks inertia is to force consumers to put rational thinking into a series of behaviors that are automated (habitually without thinking) to break inertia. For example, a white coffee is advertised at the counter with a 50% discount today. An ultra-low discount message may be strong enough to impact the consumer’s mind, forcing consumers to calculate how much money they can save by switching to white coffee today?

Of course, breaking inertial behavior is not just caused by discounts. What I want to say is that on the cycle path of consumer inertia, you have to use an unexpected, surprising, impactful, destructive, and emotional way to force consumers to think rationally. As long as consumers are caught out of their unreflective habits and think about their current behavior, evaluate and compare, you will have the opportunity to make business in consumers’ daily habits.

The formation of a habit will not be caused by a one-time change. It must last for a long time. Until consumers automate this behavior into a routine, they will buy your products without thinking. At this time, you have to beware that other manufacturers will also start to destroy the habit cycle you have finally created.

When consumers buy your brand every day without even thinking about it, you are successful.

On the other hand, when you want consumers to buy your brand, you have to force them to think.

That is to say, you must be different from your competitors, whether it is packaging, service, price or other IMC strategies.

[ ](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji3GyinTbmyvgkxW9wl5B_Iek-Z9qptVWZkrNrLlMWQWWsguahh 0irRf5XrX_eQBgs3yuCvowasQO6Pd3hazCchRr4SC2WMsrC8xIffB0jDnuCD1HJ501MeFE14MGaZCraKGq96ak_itY/s1600/image+(4).jpg)

Image source:

http://www.locuspublishing.com/events/1111FM085/p3.html

References:

Why do we live like this and work like that? The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

https://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010560033

Reference video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=el6kYx6qFmo

---

Further reading

• Is your choice really your decision?
• I want to “have sex” with you.
• Marketing is an organic creation: looking at marketing through antifragility

---