I have listened to a very interesting interview between Eben Pagan and evolutionary psychologist and author Geoffrey MIller.
You may know that Eben Pagan made his money in the dating/seduction industry teaching men how to attract women as David DeAngelo. Since then he has become a recognised business guru, especially in the Internet marketing area.
Geoffrey Miller started researching how people are attracted to each other and has moved into consumer psychology. He has recently published
"Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior"
which of course is available from Amazon.com (compensated affiliate link)
The basic ideas is that the goods and services we buy unconsciously advertise our biological potential as mates and friends. Everything we do involves some kind of signalling about who we are and effectively what we want.
It is a very interesting interview which reveals that there is a huge divide between the psychology being taught to marketing and MBA students which could be up to 40 years out of date.
Ouch.
Applying The Consumer Psychology
If you own or manage a business, there are two sides to these consumer psychology and marketing psychology issues - as a seller and of course as a personal consumer.
So what do you want to signal and how can you help your customers to signal what they want more effectively?
It seems that it all links back into the Big 5 personality traits which have proven to be good predictors of behaviour across a wide range of areas.
Very interesting - and in some places quite concerning as other people may not be noticing your signals in the way you want (that red Ferrari that you think looks cool, others may think you are a flash ***) or may not even notice at all.
I have added Geoffrey Miller's book Spent to my list of books to read.
Comments