Unthinking: The Surprising Forces Behind What We Buy [Hardcover]

In the latest of his five bestselling books, Unthinking: The Surprising Forces Behind What We Buy, Harry Beckwith shares a number of especially valuable insights. Here are several, combined in these two mosaics of excerpts:

"We could excuse our foolishness...by recognizing that most of what we call thinking really isn't. During our decision making, the organ that that processes our data sits on the sidelines while our feelings do the work. When our feelings reach their decision, they summon our brains to come in and draft the rationale, a task it does so well that it manages to convince us that it's right - and that it was in charge the whole time.

"We experience the world through our senses, particularly our eyes: we think with them...We shape things and then they shape us...Design has become the great value-added feature: we think with our eyes...We love beauty and nothing looks more beautiful to us than something simple...But of all the forces [that influence a decision], none surpasses reputation...reputations change our experiences. If we think a concoction will sprout hair, for example, we soon see hair...Reputations create our expectations, and our expectations change our perceptions."

Beckwith's objective is to share with his reader what he has learned about the process that "leads us to choose what we choose, without really thinking" and suggests that the forces and their sources that influence our choices of various kinds are largely explained by our childhood, our culture, and our eyes. In fact, as already noted, he believes that "we think with our eyes."

Throughout his lively and eloquent narrative, Beckwith cites dozens of examples that illustrate various dimensions of juvenile, cultural, and visual forces and sources that help to explain why our human nature

o Loves to play
o Loves to be surprised and delighted
o Loves to tell and be told stories
o Feels empathic toward underdogs
o Celebrates individualism, and yet
o Needs to be connected with others
o Appreciates simplicity
o Is most comfortable with what is familiar, and
o Is essentially optimistic

Beckwith devotes the third part of his book to "Our Eyes' Sheer Force: Five Studies," explaining how and why design (e.g. shapes and colors) changes not only our perceptions but also our behavior and "beauty looks divine to us - literally." He also suggests that "The Lion King reminds us we are part of something special: the circle of life. We speak lovingly of our circle of friends...We call a person we think is complete `well-rounded'...The working space we most deplore is called a cube...None of the logos among the world's twenty-five favorite logos employs a rectangle, much less a box...We love the curve and dislike the edge."

These and countless other facts and insights help to explain how and why people choose what they choose or reject...including the decision not to make a choice. In my opinion, this is Harry Beckwith's most valuable book....thus far. It is also his most entertaining. Bravo!

I like Beckwith's work. It is uncommonly concise. This book offers more examples - in a clear, entertaining manner. The bottom line is that we ALL make decisions and do things based on our beliefs and perceptions - then spend time rationalizing. I think having an understanding of this basic characteristic (flaw?) has value on all areas of life, not just business and marketing.

Beckwith has offered us here a very accessible investigation into the cyclical exchanges that form the relationship between the consumer zeitgeist and the almost astoundingly complex world of marketing successes and failures. His best gestures are those that gently guide into understanding those justifiably perplexing examples that seem to defy all of our intuitions.

While the structuring of the book at times struck me as a bit scattershot and jumpy, this allowed for a certain fluidity that I appreciated in the way it worked to highlight the interweaving that underlies so much of the commercial world as it attempts to mime the movements of the Buyer. I did occasionally feel that Beckwith had left a lot on the workshop floor however, and my gut response is that while the book isn't slim as it stands, another 40 or 50 pages of deeper exploration on some of these topics were not only probably available but would have done some appreciable work towards a culminated effect that reached further than, "Well, that's all very interesting."

I suspect this might be reflected in the book apparently being framed less as an intellectual endeavor on the matters at hand than a `How-To' for young marketers looking to get a larger grasp of the market's often schizophrenic-seeming personality. This hardly means it is without insight, but does mean that at least this reader felt Beckwith had shortchanged not only the consumers of the book but his own investigations.

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