Measured consumer behavior: an oxymoron

Consumer behavior: six, neat little syllables that run the life of every market researcher. The statistical reports consist of a dehumanizing package of abstract measurements, urgently created to shorten the distance between a product going on the shelf and a product purchased. In spite of how we fight off those who want to categorize ‘us,’ we move with urgency and passion to fit all people into these concise, mental boxes. We write the description on a tag, in ink, seal it up quickly and deliver it to the advertising group to create our messaging and sales strategies.

“This person likes funny stories and family sitcoms. This person is college educated and serious about life. This person buys 40 iTunes each week. And so forth. It’s as though we believe that once we catch a potential consumer in a repetitive behavior, whether it’s sampled correctly or not, we are somehow Pavlovically bound to put that momentary rhythm into a static, scientific equation. Satisfied with our pronouncement, we eagerly fill in the line with a number two pencil as though we can freeze this subject matter into a glacial, economic compass to act as an inert tool of commerce.

We are not a product of these patterns. In fact, even by reaching back and asking respondents what they had for breakfast, or where they live is still ignorant of the rocky landscape we balance our lives on. Each of our experiences, like a dodge ball shot unexpectedly into our gut, causes us to change course and become new people in every instance of consciousness. Surprise and rigidity are our constant reactions, as we decide how to catalog the things that throw us off kilter. And…everything throws us off. So, it stands to reason that every moment must be an act of trying to return to balance.

In fact, new studies are confirming that are lives change with each sweep of the second hand no matter how we were educated, raised, abused or celebrated. When a consumer walks into your store today he or she will NOT be the same person tomorrow or even later that evening. On their way to see you a bad call could have come from the Principal’s office, PMS could be flaring up; an interview for a new job could have breathed new life into things, and so forth. Trying to target and hit people using static measurements is so impossible, there’s no metaphor to define its silliness. We are constantly changing and that is a good thing - but only to the extent of seeking equilibrium and of course, safety.

So really; consumer research as a science…hmmm. How and why did we ever start this punch-card like race? What has moved us, in all our intelligence to even conceive of such a Borg-like activity? Where is the final value in creating millions of small chips of non-conclusive giga-blurbs to populate spreadsheets, pie-charts and bar codes? Are we really finding patterns that repeat without fail? Are we exponentially developing success in gaining market share over the long haul? Are we becoming more profitable with less effort and waste? And really, have the results of these frozen moments of madness ever brought us to any kind of enlightenment in creating sustainable, organic, human connections? Has our statistical desire for output truly trumped the conscious mind and its ability to reach out? Or is that fear of showing up without a report too permanent. Is it so palpable so that we deny the fact that our buyers can never be labeled, only nurtured, encouraged and protected?

It’s easy to see the answer is no to many of the questions asked above. Perhaps this is a cultural question. Born in the synapses of early western settlers who were thrown together in a mix of blood and DNA, we found each other gathered together with the tools of modern civilization at our fingertips but we use a compass run by primitive, instinctive forces. Our ancestors, a mix of exiles, adventurers, criminals and dreamers, followed their hearts to conquer a new land and a continent. We ignored or it was bred out of us, that enlightenment is not something you own or achieve, it is a state of being. And soon, we forgot about this moment and focused only on the past and the future; two things that really never occur. We replaced much of our curiosity with impulsive abandon, our common sense with guilt, replaced our natural ability to believe in magic and love with the industrialized oil and grit of civilization.

Now, even though this appears to be a treatise of banishing modern industry, it’s not. It’s simply a debate on the idea that we are easily encouraged to lock ourselves into static progression, without admitting that the ebb and flow of our emotions, our circumstances and the Tao of Physics are the forces that will lead us to peace.

Sure, our western culture seeks equilibrium, but in a broken way as it relates to sensory balance and wellness in selling. I see metaphors all around us of how we repel fear, treating it like a leprous stranger, fraught with superstition as we ignore its benefits and companionship in learning how to stay balanced, in learning how to overcome a problem, in learning how to serve our fellow man.

We assume that if we come to close to madness one day or euphoria the next that we are coming dangerously close to eliminating ourselves from the normalcy of the human race. Our fears constantly revolve around the entanglements of ego that will be lost or stolen if we don’t act “normal.” We are galvanized by the idea of hiding our very humanity.

Take for instance the fact that a new drug store is rising out of the dirt on any random corner on any random day. We live for the drug or pill that keeps us centered on some middle point we consider to define our functionality, afraid to veer right or left and not knowing why. It’s as though these drug stores stand as our temples of hope against our fear of losing control. Unable to verbalize our pain, name our demons or find the insanity in the phrase, “real men don’t cry,” we pay the price by ignoring our own shut-off valve to stress and pressure.

Think of this abstract behavior and tell me we’re not a dichotomy of opposites: Although we are licensed to operate 2,000 pound, metal vehicles at speeds of 60 miles per hour, separated from death and chaos by only an agreement to obey the omniscient power of the yellow, dotted line, it seems our respect for ourselves and our understanding of our fragile humanity has skipped over our collective heads, like so many pebbles ricocheting off smooth water.

How strange our minds are that survival is a series of cooperative events, unattached and random. We encounter each other for only that split second that we pass within inches of carnage and death, thinking only of our shoes, our appointments, or our hair.

All of these explanations bring us again to one conclusion, and that is that safety is the only foundational and constant element that we can use as our diving rod in seeking commercial success.