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Reading consumers’ minds

July 17, 2008 | Hospitality Industry

Progressive consumer modeling combined with modern analytics allow businesses to identify key but hidden drivers behind consumer behavior. This approach "reads consumers' minds" in a way far superior to "recommendation engines" used today.

Market studies, especially those geared towards targeted advertising applications, should be done well or not done at all. It is a wasteful to conduct market studies of any type based on outdated and misguided consumer models and using imprecise statistical approaches.

On the other hand, the ideas and approaches outlined here offer tremendous potential for reaching many business goals, such as:

- Identifying the hidden motivations behind buyers and non-buyers of your products or services.
- Developing a sales-marketing campaign to attract and influence the consumer behavior of a specific demographic.
- Gaining empirical insights into strategies for improving your brand awareness, equity and quality, especially within certain demographic groups.

Understand upfront that studies that aim to “read consumers’ minds” at this level are resource-intensive. Yet, forward-thinking organizations can obtain a powerful competitive advantage with the right investment in this line of research. Warner Bros. reaped the rewards of what was essentially a first-mover advantage over twenty years ago, but statistical modeling never stopped improving. Applying modern analytics to progressive consumer models is the next generation strategy. And to think you may have been under the impression that “recommendation engines” were the best contemporary research had to offer.

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