How to Drive Consumer Behavior Using The Psychology of Memory
Key points for driving consumer behavior with the psychology of memory:
Not all experiences are equally likely to be remembered. By designing for memory, marketers can optimize experiences for later recall
Capturing and maintaining attention is crucial, in particular, for converting explicit experiences into memories
Relateability is also a crucial memory-booster. Here, the use of analogies helps to connect in existing concepts with new ones, solidifying it more securely in the brain of the consumer
You wake up every morning as a slightly different person. What’s the glue that holds you together through time, making you feel like an enduring entity? It's your memory
Memory is a crucial human ability. And as such, it’s imperative for marketers to understand it, in order to create enduring impressions for their consumers. It has a massive, unappreciated role in driving consumer behavior.
Put simply, all marketers are in the memory business. The most amazing, gripping thirty-second commercial in the world means absolutely nothing if viewers instantly forget it the second it’s over. An incredibly designed in-store experience means zilch if it isn’t remembered.
So how should marketers think about memory? One common analogy for memory is the video camera: When you’re having an experience, you press the record button. And when you want to conjure that experience back up and remember it, you press the rewind button.
It turns out, however, that neither of these things are true. Memory is much more complex, and much more recreative than a simple playback. And when you're having the experience itself, not all elements of that experience are going to be equally weighted in the recall process. Certain features of the experience are going to be prioritized.
Understanding these features is key for memory design. Two are particularly important: attention, and relatability.
How Attention Drives Memory and Consumer Behavior
Firstly, attention is key for memory. Studies by Diana Tamir, have found, for example, that when you go to a concert and take out your phone to film or take pictures, your memory for the event is actually much worse than if you had just experienced it on your own. This is because you outsourced your attention to an external device instead of fully immersing yourself in the experience.
As a marketer, you can optimize for this by creating experiences, and content which strains attention. Research has found for example, that when messages are written in fonts which are slightly difficult to read, they are remembered much better. Devising clever ways of engaging the attention of the consumer will help optimize for the impression.
One great example of this was a campaign by the Mattress brand Casper. They did a series of subway takeovers which featured whimsical word puzzles. As an example, see if you can guess what is being spelled out here:
Chances are, you had to strain your attention to try and figure it out. Otherwise known as The Generation Effect, this additional attentional strain helps make the advertisement stick in our memories. (If you’re still stumped, the answer is revealed at the end of this post).
Clever marketers can optimize for attention by finding fun - but mildly challenging - ways of engaging consumers.
How Relateability Drives Memory and Consumer Behavior
Secondly, optimizing for memory requires a recognition that memory is a fundamentally physical process. In order for a new experience to leave an impression, it must change the brain. One key way to help create new memories is to connect the new experience with something familiar: a concept which is already known, and represented in the brain. This is the idea within the psychology of relatability.
So how can you utilize this insight? One key tactic here is the use of analogies. These help boost memory by relating something new, with something the consumer is already familiar with.
Think about it: How would you describe the movie The Lord of the Rings to someone who’s totally unfamiliar? Using an analogy, you might describe it as “Star Wars but with Dwarves”. This is instantly recognizable and relies on the memory boosting power of analogies. Provided the person is familiar with Star Wars, they’ll have a neural foundation for the new concept to connect to.
Think about this within simple marketing communication. Imagine describing the company, “Blade”, to a new consumer. Using an analogy, you’d say, “Uber, but for helicopters”. Again, instantly relatable, and optimized for memory since it's anchored to an existing concept.
Final Thoughts on Memory in Marketing
As you review your marketing, keep memory design in mind. Remember, not every experience is equally likely to produce an enduring memory. And it doesn’t produce a strong memory, it’ll have little to no difference on consumer behavior.
For any given campaign or activation, think about the ultimate impression you want to instill.
Then reverse engineer this: as you begin crafting the experience, try and implement these features - the power of attention, and the power of relatability - as much as possible. In this way, you can design campaigns and experiences which are not just enjoyable in the moment but will leave a lasting impression as well.
PS: the answer is “snooze fest”
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
About the author
Matt Johnson, PhD is a researcher, writer, and consumer neuroscientist focusing on the application of psychology to branding. He is the author of the best-selling consumer psychology book Blindsight, and Branding That Means Business (Economist Books, Fall 2022). Contact Matt for speaking engagements, opportunities to collaborate, or just to say hello
References for “Using The Psychology of Memory Design to Drive Consumer Psychology”
Barrick, E. M., Barasch, A., & Tamir, D. I. (2022). The unexpected social consequences of diverting attention to our phones. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 101, 104344.
Johnson, M., & Ghuman, P. (2020). Blindsight: The (Mostly) Hidden Ways Marketing Reshapes Our Brains. BenBella Books.
Johnson, M. A., Turk-Browne, N. B., & Goldberg, A. E. (2016). Neural systems involved in processing novel linguistic constructions and their visual referents. Language, cognition and neuroscience, 31(1), 129-144.
Tamir, D. I., Templeton, E. M., Ward, A. F., & Zaki, J. (2018). Media usage diminishes memory for experiences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 161-168.
