Customer Reviews

How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market

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'How Customers Think' was a very interesting read to understand this new approach to gaining market insights by 'mining the unconscious'. The author, Gerald Zaltman, argues that most market research (surveys, questionnaires and focus groups) is used to confirm ideas or beliefs, often after the product has already been introduced to the market. Zaltman suggests that the success of new product launches can be improved by utilizing research from many academic disciplines. He postulates that marketers have not tapped into the unconscious (or emotional) processes where most of the interaction between marketers and consumers occurs. The conscious and unconscious interaction of marketers and consumers is what he refers to as 'The Mind of the Market'.

People communicate by telling stories and often speak in metaphors (e.g. Tastes like chicken). The book describes metaphor elicitation as a means to interview the mind/brain to get at these conscious and unconscious thoughts. These thoughts must then be carefully given labels that can be organized into a mental model called a consensus map. These maps represent a convergence of consumer thinking and when carefully analyzed can provide insights into consumer thinking that should give proponents of this marketing technique an edge in the market. Insights derived using these methods should allow marketers to better position their brands or companies in the marketplace.

Nothing new for anybody with a strong background in cognitive science, but applying it to marketing is innovative and relevant. Must read.

With the advances made in the last 15 years on brain research and understanding, creating advertising is a whole new ballgame.

Consumers conscious thoughts are only 5% of their thinking, so it is often that most research doesn't address the incredibly important 95%. Zaltman explains how to do it and how to do it effectively, of course plugging his own firm here and there.

Being in a big ad agency, I know that most work isn't produced with solid research behind it, but instead for a client who has "dictated" what the advertising needs to do or how it should appeal to consumers. The best account planners and managers can take the knowledge from this book and guide their clients to understanding the benefits of this type of research (through ROI) and ultimately achieve better results.

The title of my review refers to Sergio Zyman, in his book "The end of marketing as we know it!". His quote just entered my mind while writing this review. This is what Zyman in his book calls a "Mental reentry map".
When you are facing a mature market, the book of Zyman can provide you with enormeous growth potential. This just by tapping into the consumers' mind.
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Van&Goos Marketing Partners helps firms in the Healthcare market to make sustainable profits.

This is by far the most revolutionary book on marketing to be released to the public in the past two decades. Frankly, I was astonished as to the level of depth and detail Zaltman revealed into his methods. Backed with hard data, validated by huge windfall profits where implemented, and celebrated by Fortune 50 firms, How Customers Think will transform your perceptions of business marketing strategy.

To summarize broadly, Zaltman's work is multi-disciplinary -- it scuttles through neuroscience, psychology, surrealistic art, marketing etc. -- and offers a viewpoint that the strip-mining form of quantitative market research that is predominant in our businesses fails to uncover a lot of hidden (or tacit, or latent) forms of consumer thought.

Through an array of exciting examples of his own work, he builds a theory of information processing and thought formation in the human brain. This romp through a coterie of different fields is gratifying, as is Zaltman's captivating writing style.

I bet you will come away with some thought-provoking ideas. For instance, there's a suggestion that you could segment your markets along entirely new lines. Among other things, brain scans could be used to classify your customer base into people who prefer visual communications and those who prefer auditory ones, and then target the first group with a newspaper display ad and the second with a radio spot.

But now for my paltry quibbles. While I adore the way the theory is constructed, I do not entirely agree with the author's ideas. Some ambiguous findings are shrugged off with "Qualitative research is not a replacement, it is complementary." The truth in some of the cases is that all his metaphorical attempts with showing of eccentric visuals etc do not always lead to any more exhilerating insights than could have been attained through other forms of research, or plain gut instinct.

For instance, consider his study of executive MBA students at Harvard Business School who were questioned: "What do you mean by customer focused?" Part of the answer: It means collecting information, analyzing data, anticipating customer needs - all exactly what customer-service gurus advise. But further elicitation revealed another part of the answer: Being customer-focused means having integrity, caring about customers in an authentic way, being a company worthy of trust. This leads Zaltman to the conclusion that "The executives were surprised by how much of their individual thinking was shared by others, although they had never discussed these things with anyone."

I am not sure how "having integrity, caring about customers, being a company worthy of trust" translates into something seminal?

This is not to trivialize the impact of this book. I love it. I love the WAY in which the theory is constructed. Chances are you will indeed be goaded into thinking of issues pertinent to your function and gain a good deal of insight into how human beings assess and operate (spoiler: in images, not in linguistically confined words.)

I recommend this book wholeheartedly, perhaps even a must-read book for anyone involved in psychology or strategy, but just keep your reality hats on.

Few would have any argument with the central thesis of this book. Most new products fail rapidly in unexpected ways, suggesting that a misunderstanding of what is required by customers is part of the problem. Professor Zaltman goes on to suggest that his patented approach to considering more aspects of customer thinking (especially emotion, associations and context) can help improve matters.

The book argues successfully that most marketing research methods are misused (usually by being applied to solve the wrong class of problem). He also does a fine job of explaining how marketers' attitudes and opinions create myopia that prevents them from learning what they need to know.

There is extensive material in the book about how the brain works in the context of purchasing decisions. For those who are familiar with brain research, there is little new here.

As someone who has worked in marketing research for over 30 years, I found the explanation of how to do better to be abstract and often counter to my own experience with extensive one-on-one open-ended interviews. Let me share a few examples. First, he states that consensus maps (a graphic expression of the universal considerations and order that consumers go through to make a purchasing decision) of how consumers think almost always emerge after 10 interviews . . . far short of statistical norms. That finding made me wonder if the maps are done too abstractly to capture the richness of customer thinking. Second, all of the examples of specific brands seemed to relate to an adult making a decision with the item in front of her or him. Yet, many consumers arrive at the grocery store (for example, since much of the book is about food products) with a shopping list in hand. Are consensus maps the same for self purchase as for purchase for others? The book doesn't seem to address that point. If the items are to be purchased for another family member, how do the different consensus maps overlap and affect one another? Third, the book doesn't do much to address how misimplementation of new products and marketing strategies causes failure. In my experience, that problem is greater than a lack of understanding of how customers think. Fourth, the incentives in most marketing organizations favor using marketing research to locate reasons to justify a marketer's decisions. Professor Zaltman acknowledges this, but doesn't really address how to institutionally change the culture. His suggestions presume that everyone is more interested in promoting company results than protecting individual careers while the opposite is often the case. Fifth, the real weakness in most organizations is that the head of marketing research has an insufficient background in the subject to make the right suggestions and to persuade management to follow those suggestions. That problem isn't addressed at all. Sixth, the best applications for this kind of research are for services . . . yet there were few examples of services compared to food items. In services, you have more things you can change and the potential for improvement is greater. The strength of the book mostly comes in the service examples (which are often overly disguised).

The book also has a tone that I did not like. It seems to suggest that no one had ever developed thinking process maps or used depth one-on-one interviews before this patented process was developed. Many aspects of the concepts described here were in broad scale application in companies that I have worked with over 30 years ago. Many of these companies belonged to the Marketing Science Institute, with which Harvard (where Professor Zaltman practices) has long had a close association. In addition, those who have employed these concepts are universally praised. That was strange, because many of them have pulled some of the biggest errors that violate these principles. For example, the research on new Coke was flawed by not telling consumers that the existing Coca-Cola would be removed from the market. Yet Coca-Cola is cited universally as an example of advanced marketing research.

The book also comes across as a sales pitch far too often. That is almost unprecedented in my experience in reading a book from a professor. The same marketing research organizations are used as examples over and over again. You are also told that one way to get these good results is to hire a "wizard," which is presumably one of these firms. Wouldn't it make more sense to develop a proprietary skill in this area so that competitors would have less chance to learn what you find out?

Finally, the reports of success seem unconvincing. They are based on self-reported satisfaction with short-term results. Now, if you've hired someone to help you and spent a lot of money to do so, even the most inexperienced market researcher knows that there will be a bias towards reporting positive results. Also, paid market researchers will share their "best" results, rather than their average or below average results. I was left wondering what the long term benefits are, and what the average expectation can be.

Despite these reservations, I think most marketing executives will benefit from the book's discussions of what types of marketing research to use for what types of issues. But the total of that information could have been captured in a magazine article.

Both marketing executives and researchers will benefit from chapter 12.

Those who purchase or use marketing research would do well to become familiar with this book.

I hope that Professor Zaltman will write another book in the future that will be more helpful to marketing research professionals. It has always been the case that 99% of the profession is engaged in doing repetitive tracking research. With few looking into creative research to better develop new products, improve brands and enhance the lives of customers, we need to develop a larger cadre of well-trained individuals interested in these challenges if we are to ultimately improve on the dismal record of failure in making improvements.

I have just spent a few days finished "How Customers Think" and it provides thought provoking insights that can not be ignored. Lots of intersting ideas.The author challenges us to understand the deeper "meaning" and he achieves this is with a style that a true master brings to their choosen profession. I also finished High Intensity Marketing by Idris Mootee, another excellent marketign resouce book abd very up-dated.

Here's a good marketing book.The marketing literature is rich with marekting management techniques and applications, but developing customer inisghts require a unique approach, dissimilar from conventional marketing wisdom. It requires an emphasis on the narrative life of the brand and its relationship to the consumers who adopt it. This is an excellent book. I also like 60-Minute Brand Strategist by Idris Mootee, it is almost a handbook for brand managers, providing tools and applications that needs to devleop an effective brand strategy. Both books are must read for marketing executives.

I have just finished "How Customers Think" and it provides thought provoking insights that can not be ignored whether you are dealing with the customer or family members.

Zaltman challenges us to understand the deeper "meaning" and he achieves this is with a style that a true master brings to their choosen profession.