A dreaming or playful customer can offer a lot

It’s never been more important for marketers to understand why shoppers buy and why they don’t. Without the basic understanding of what is driving them, what chance do we have of helping shoppers navigate through the growing myriad of pathways that lead to a purchase?

When trying to establish what makes shoppers tick, the one constant we have always found, is the need to connect with the changing emotions of a shopper. This is not easy as a shopper’s motivations are consistently changing. But as Canadian neurologist Donald B. Caine stated; “Reason leads to conclusion, but emotion leads to action.”

So in a bid to identify the emotional state of shoppers, Saatchi and Saatchi X observed, talked to and shopped with well over 2,000 shoppers throughout the US, UK, Middle East and validated the research in Russia and India.

The research helped Saatchi and Saatchi X develop a model called the ‘Emotional Drivers of Shopping’. In this model, eight powerful emotional drivers were identified: dreaming, sanctuary, connection, sport, playtime, self-creation, mastery and security.

Each driver represents the emotional mind-set of shoppers and how their moods can change depending on their motivation to shop. In order for our clients to be successful, we must understand how these various mindsets are affecting shoppers so we can develop creative ideas that will overcome barriers to purchase.

Take ‘dreaming’ for example — a shopper in this emotional frame of mind might be browsing, exploring new possibilities and/or imagining how products can improve their quality of life. When they buy they may be taking the first step to fulfilling their dream.

For example, a typical shopping experience that evokes dreaming is home decoration. Just look at IKEA and how it helps shoppers imagine how a new bed might look with a dresser. IKEA anticipates subsequent questions of shoppers during this ‘dreaming’ mindset and shows them various possibilities.

As a further example, consider the emotional driver of ‘playtime’. We love fun and entertainment and an entertaining shopping experience has begun to catch on as retailers in Dubai begin looking for new ways to innovate.

Hence, store environments are being designed to make it a social place where families can have some fun while they shop. Take Virgin Megastore for example, who claims that the average shopper spends 45 minutes in store, and that is not 45 minutes consistently shopping but playing video games, chilling on the bean bags reading or going through the playlists.

So when planning their next shopper marketing campaign, brands and retailers need to ensure they go beyond behavioural tracking, to reveal the underlying emotional factors that drive shopping behaviour and what their barriers to purchase might be.

With this information those same brands and retailers can give shoppers what they want, when they want it and how they want it. And once the emotional drivers have been uncovered, they need to align with a brand’s personality in store so they work in harmony to strengthen, differentiate, or augment their positioning against the competition.

The process also helps identify negative emotions that can impact behaviour as strongly as positive emotions. So by reducing the factors that frustrate shoppers, retailers will ensure brands are not diminishing a consumer’s desire to shop.

Get this right and it should lead to better in-store design, retail communications, packaging and product innovation. And the insights you glean should influence the development of big ideas and ultimately create ‘loyalty beyond reason’.

— The writer is managing director for Saatchi and Saatchi X.