Habit
Book

Habit

The 95% of Behavior Marketers Ignore

Neale Martin
FT Press, 2008
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8

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Recommendation

Consumer behavior expert Neale Martin offers an entertaining, informative explanation of how the conscious and unconscious minds work together in the context of sales and marketing. He put in years of extensive groundwork studying the principles of marketing to reflect findings in cognitive psychology and neuroscience up to 2008. He reports that unconscious habits govern much of the way people act. In the process of explaining the brain’s biological miracles, he also explains why some products fail and what marketers must understand to improve their odds. This intellectually invigorating book will intrigue marketers who want to learn how each customer’s two minds (conscious and unconscious) work together.

Summary

The habitual mind controls about 95% of human behavior.

The unconscious mind determines 95% of human behavior – a fact that traditional marketing theory overlooks. Instead, traditional theory posits that customers know what they are doing and why.

This fallacy has dominated marketing theory for 50 years, but new discoveries in cognitive psychology and neuroscience prove the need for a fresh approach

The mind works simultaneously in the conscious and subconscious modes, also known as the “executive” and “habitual” levels.

Humans evolved using their conscious and subconscious minds to make decisions at different levels. When people make conscious, self-aware decisions, they are using the “executive mind.” When people make subconscious decisions, they are using the “habitual mind,” which is housed in a separate part of the brain. The habitual mind works with the executive mind, not against it. The interaction of the two minds goes largely unnoticed, but a research study found that people carry out the same actions every day 45% of the time, usually while thinking about other things.

Marketing strategy has never drawn upon the power of habit...

About the Author

Consultant and educator Neale Martin, an expert in consumer behavior, writes about bridging the gap between technologies and markets. 

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