Aggregate insights

I just read about a fantastic project by Eric Fisher who is using Flickr and Picasa to map photos taken by visitors or taken by locals in a city. In Boston, some places are obvious visitor photo ops - the Freedom Trail, and Copley Square. Some are obvious local - Iman Square for example.

It is the details of Eric's data that is truly exciting. For example, looking at the patterns around MIT, one can see very specific location on Mass Ave that are visitor photo op places - mostly in front of the main dome. A few hundred feet down the street, and it becomes local.

I want to look at human emotions in a macroscopic way. For example, are there specific emotional patterns after someone consumes a satisfying meal? One common emotion I am beginning to see is the feeling of serenity. We eat not only to satisfy our hunger, but to calm ourselves down. If this turns out to be true, we might solve childhood obesity very differently - perhaps by finding other ways to give children some serenity rather than shoving 'healthy' alternatives at them.

Many aspects of human emotional responses are predictable and will greatly explain our behaviors. It would be great to have some hard macro data to analyze.

Autos

I was thinking last night about the negotiation process when you buy a car. Sales people never talk price until he/she has made sure that you are emotionally attached. Once our reptilian brain has decided that we want the specific car, the price is really nothing but a little speed bump. The sales person's job is to give you just enough pricing concession to allow you to rationalize why it was worth it. Pretty smart.

Intro

There is no longer any doubt that emotions drive human behavior. Some estimates that I have seen suggests that 70% - 80% of decisions are driven by emotions.

One of my favorite quotes is "consumers decide emotionally, then justify rationally." It is not much of a stretch for any of us to think of things we have bought that solves no rational need, but provides us with an emotional jolt. A few years ago, I would buy and change processors in my computer every few months so that I can get another few megs of clock speed. Not sure if I ever saw a difference, but, boy, it felt good to know that I have the fastest chip available.

So, as marketers, how should we think about emotions? Many of us are very comfortable with solving for rational needs - make it brighter, faster, easier... Emotions are no different. We are looking to solve for emotional needs. Are consumers aspiring for a higher sense of self-worth? Are they seeking some serenity? Perhaps some social acceptance? The process is the same, but identifying emotional needs are a little more difficult. More on that later. But, once you think about your product or service in terms of fulfilling your consumers' emotional needs, you are 50% of the way there.