Mark Arnold :: Blog :: Successful Marketing Must Tap The Subconscious

What comes to mind when you hear the word car? Do think of the word car or do you see an image of a car? What does that car look like? Is it your car or is it someone else’s car?

These are the kinds of questions partners from Attune ask during a typical interview session with consumers. Attune has developed a new marketing methodology based on how the brain processes information. Their research reveals two important details about the way people think:

1. People think in images and metaphors


2. People make 95 percent of their decisions subconsciously.

“Our senses process more than 11 million bits of information per second. Our consciousness can only process 20 - 40 bits per second, from all sources. We make decisions constantly without being consciously aware of it,” said Maya Bourdeau, founding partner of Attune.

Attune’s research found that words do not equal thoughts. Images and metaphors do, like in the car example above. The image in your mind’s eye might be your own car. It might be a dream car. It might be a car from a previous life experience. That’s because the mind is searching for something familiar.

“Linking what you don’t know to what you do know is a metaphor,” said. Bourdeau. “Words transfer or communicate that particular image or metaphor.”

Now think of the term credit union. What are some images that may come to consumers’ minds when they hear that? It could be money, a credit card, maybe a stack of unpaid bills, or perhaps a house or car or something else they obtained with credit. Maybe it’s a union atmosphere, such as a blue collar work environment. Like anything else, a credit union ends up being defined in consumers’ minds based on what they already know, not on what you’re trying to tell them.

If the words, metaphors and pictures you use to communicate your marketing message are not in line with their thought processes, your message will not be effective. Even if you’re trying to change their perception, you have to start with images they relate with and use those images to create a new perception.

“Marketers tend to use surveys and focus groups to figure out what consumers are thinking. Focus groups may scratch the surface of the subconscious, but they never really get to the deeper reasons why people make the decisions they make,” said Jiao Zhang, the other founding partner of Attune. “We get so deep into the subconscious that people get very emotional. It’s not uncommon for them to cry and really open up to us.”