Research world vs real world

The Yellow Papers Series

Research World vs.

Real World Why Current Research isn’t Enough

Research World vs. Real World The Yellow Paper Series

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“I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” - Alan Greenspan Isn’t this an exciting time to be in communications? We spend our days trying to understand people. Then we turn this human understanding into ideas which change our clients’ businesses. So aren’t we lucky that there is so much fascinating new stuff emerging right now from so many directions- evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, network theory, behavioural economics and anthropology- all of which is transforming our understanding of us as 21st century primates.

But at the same time, there is a bit of a problem. It’s becoming clear that the research we all routinely use- to come up with strategies, and to pre-test and track our communication ideas, is the same old research we’ve been using for decades. So there’s now a growing and worrying disconnect between what the latest science tells us about how people think and are influenced by communications in “the real world”, and how in the “research world” we attempt to understand and measure these things. It’s as if the dials on our research dashboards are no longer reflecting what’s going on under the bonnet (i.e. inside our brains). We’re not measuring what’s really going on.

This paper isn’t going to solve all our problems. It’s too soon for that. But things do need to change. And we all need to be part of making this happen.

Here we outline some of the issues that we all need to grapple with over the coming months and years. And then, we point to some very new ways to try to resolve this disconnect.

So • Let’s recap on what we’re learning about how our brains really work • What’s the disconnect between these new learnings and how we still use research today?

• Finally, what sort of research should we be using instead?

Research World vs. Real World The Yellow Paper Series

Sarah Carter is a Strategy Director at DDB London. With Les Binet she co-edits all our IPA Effectiveness Awards entries, writes a monthly column for Admap and with Les will be running DDB’s new Brain Lab project. This is a pioneering new joint venture with Goldsmiths, University of London whereby a Research Fellow from their Psychology Department will act as part-time Scientist in Residence with us at DDB, helping us to continue to be at the forefront of understanding how communication works.

How Do Our Brains Really Work?

This is covered in much more detail in the accompanying “Do you Know Your Audience as well as you think?” yellow paper. But for our purposes, here’s a quick summary of the brain learnings which are important when we think about research.

• Our brains are led by System 1 (emotional brain) thinking - fast, automatic, effortless, rooted in habit and heuristics. This is the system that research is now revealing as dominating decision-making and behaviour. We can, and do, engage in System 2 (rational brain) thinking – slower, conscious, usually verbal – sometimes - but only when we have to. Usually we manage very nicely without it, so we don’t bother. The result: we think much less than we like to think we do. As Kahnemann1 said “ humans are to independent thinking like cats are to swimming. We can do it if we have to but we’d much rather not”.

• This leads to a second very important thing to understand. It means when it comes to the order in which things happen in our brains, we tend to ‘Feel – Do - Think’ NOT ‘Think – Feel – Do’. So if we think at all about anything, and remember often we don’t, we are more than not merely post-rationalising what we have already decided via System 1 (the emotional brain). We humans are absolutely brilliant at postrationalising (yes not just planners!). So good, in fact, that very often we have no idea that this is what we are doing. So remember we humans are not rational creatures but rationalising creatures.

• Because most decisions are led mostly or totally by non-verbal System 1 (the emotional brain), it follows that it is very difficult for us to understand or articulate in words why or how we have made any particular decision. That’s why, when we do verbally explain why we do something, it’s usually a convenient post-rationalisation – not the real explanation. Its not that we’re lying – we’re trying really hard to be helpful – but we just can’t do it. As someone said2, it would be like dancing about architecture.

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Research World vs. Real World The Yellow Paper Series

• We have evolved to be brilliant copiers of other people. We like to think of ourselves as highly independent, free–thinking individuals, don’t we? But, actually, we’re much more influenced by what other people say and do, than we like to admit to – or are even aware of.

As Mark Earls says3, “we are a we species that thinks it is a me species”. This is important because it means that groups of people behave in ways that are not easily predictable from the behaviour of individuals.

• The work of Watzlawick (an expert in communication theory) has shed fascinating light on the important elements of communication.

According to him, all communication has a “content” and a “relationship” aspect. The important bit of this theory for us is that it is the relationship bit that has the greatest influence on any communication – that’s why he calls it meta-communication.

For a lesson in the power of meta-communication, remember how Nixon was said to have “won” the 1960 debate vs. Kennedy but only for those people who heard it on radio. Those watching it on TV were more swayed by Kennedy’s tan and confident demeanour vs. Nixon’s sweat and pallor, than any words – highlighting the power of System 1 (the emotional brain).

In other words how you say something has more impact than what you say. Anyone who has a teenager, who grunts “whatever” regularly, knows exactly what I mean! So when it comes to advertising, the same thing applies. The dominance of System 1 (emotional brain) thinking in our brains means that its the meta-communication – the music, pace, typeface, casting, facial expressions, production values, media context, etc, which is much more influential than the words, the message, proposition, support, etc. A humbling thought when we consider how much time and discussion we devote to those 2 aspects of our communication ideas in our day-to-day work.

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Research World vs. Real World The Yellow Paper Series

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Okay, so that’s a quick review of the important things we are learning about us 21st Century primates.

Let’s turn now to how we tend to do research at the moment.

Well, by and large it seems we’re doing it all wrong.

• Our brains are led by System 1 • We are a “we” species, but (emotional brain) implicit thinking. we research people as a But research is led by System 2 “me” species. We ask people (rational brain) thinking. We merrily questions as individuals and do research as though rational, then aggregate answers up cognitive, verbal and logical thinking by computer. So there’s no and behaviour lead us. We live by opportunity for people to be the questionnaire. We ask people influenced (research would call it rational, logical, verbal questions “contaminated”) by what others in a nice tidy order, then collect think or do. But this is what unquestioningly their logical, post happens all the time in real life. rationalised verbal responses.

Sometimes we do put people in groups in research of course - the • We are rationalising not rational “focus group” - but these are creatures, as we’ve seen. So artificial groups in artificial sitting we can’t help but be unreliable rooms. So this may be a bit better witnesses to our own minds and than individual research, but behaviour. But in research we usually we specifically prevent assume that what people think, people from being in groups with believe and feel, they can easily the sorts of people they are most understand and then helpfully influenced by in real life - i.e. we explain in words to a researcher. actively exclude their friends, We assume that there are always peers or family. good reasons for what people do.

We then gratefully take these verbal responses at face value.

Clearly there’s some considerable room for improvement in how we use research in the future to more helpfully reflect how we humans really think, feel and behave.

• In researching our ideas, we slavishly obsess over the communication (the language or main message) at the expense of the meta-communication (the body-language or tone and execution). And yet, the metacommunication is the most important bit. We will happily spend thousands of dollars researching propositions or messages out of any context, but then balk at paying for an original sound track or a more evocative location. We believe it makes no difference to research an animatic (essentially an ad with all the meta-communication stripped out) vs. a finished film.

I often wonder - if this were really true – why clients don’t just save themselves a lot of “unnecessary” production monies and just run the animatic....

Research World vs. Real World The Yellow Paper Series

So what sort of principles should we be adopting in research? Then we’ll look at some examples of these in action.

• Questionnaires and verbal questions and answers are fine for any decisions and thinking which takes place at a System 2 (rational brain) level. And some decisions do take place at this level e.g. the latter stages of car buying. But we should be very wary of using them for System 1 (emotional brain) thinking and we should certainly not take responses just at face value.

• Where System 1 (emotional brain) thinking is prevalent (and this is usually the case as we’ve seen), we need to be much less dependent on self reporting and words, and instead find other ways of revealing what’s going on “ under the bonnet” • This means finding more ways of using and prompting visual rather than verbal responses (visual responses are more linked to System 1, whereas verbal is more linked to system 2).

• More focus on feelings rather than words • More observation and less self-reporting – so, for example, think about using ethnographic research rather than just focus groups. Go and see what people really do with your products rather than asking them to tell you what they do with your products.

• More creative ways of getting under the radar or disarming the post- rationalisation of System 2. o This could involve using speed of response as a measure (see Implicit Attitude Testing later) or more generally getting quick gut reactions (clicking fast on a visual icon rather than explaining in words) or finding ways to distract the rational bit of the brain, so we can access the intuitive bit (see later for an example).

o Or a renewed focus on interpretation in focus groups (body language, posture, facial expressions etc) vs. taking at face value the words uttered. It is worth noting that the origins of focus groups lay in motivational research doctrines where Freud et al stressed the importance of what lay beneath the surface of the easily expressed. Although not perfect, qualitative research (when it’s practiced by someone who knows how to use projective techniques and understands the importance of INTERPRETATION rather than just reporting what people say) still gets us closer than most current research to System 1 (emotional brain) thinking. Unfortunately it is not always practiced with this level of skill, and the pressures for instant debriefs can work against us using it to get underneath the rational responses.

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Research World vs. Real World The Yellow Paper Series

• When it come to pre-testing, the task isn’t easy. But we do need to appreciate much more the importance of execution in how something communicates.

For an ad working more on a System 2 (rational brain) verbal/ rational level, this may be a bit less important. But in many ads it is an inconvenient truth that the apparently insignificant details, which are only there in a finished piece of communication may be more important than anything else. Sorry - but this can only mean that much pre-testing is limited in its usefulness and predictive ability.

So what do we do instead? o It may be in some cases that it’s actually better to research a mood film, for example, than an animatic. Or we may recommend pre-testing finished films where we know it’s a particularly emotive ad. o In some cases, it may even mean that a pre-test is not going to be useful. o Perhaps, ‘Do- Test- Learn’ is a better model than the old ‘Test- Learn- Do’. So in those media where production costs are low, maybe we need to be much more ballsy and actually produce more work without pre-testing it. Or where production costs are higher, maybe we can exploit free distribution and tap into online communities to get their feedback before paying for media. Remember that no less than the lauded last CEO of Procter & Gamble, A.G. Lafley said he was unhappy if MORE than 60% of P&G’s new products each year were successful – since this would mean they were playing it too safe!

Maybe when it comes to pre-testing we might all benefit from accepting a bit less apparent certainty.

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Research World vs. Real World The Yellow Paper Series

Some Examples of New Thinking in Research It is not possible here to go into lots of detail of different techniques and different companies. But here are a few ideas which are interesting and valid attempts to tackle the woeful current disconnect between what our research dials are telling us and what is really going on in our brains.

• Think of ways you can disable System 2 (rational) brain thinking. These can be quite simple e.g. design research, which is more visual and playful. Online makes it even easier to make this fun for respondents.

They can move icons round, drag and drop visuals into different containers, select different images etc. When it’s fun and visual, you’re more likely to be sidestepping System 2 post-rationalising.

• In the United States, DDB took on the task of trying to understand perhaps the most rational of all sub-species of humans - the male CEO … Interviewing them in their offices, or in the back of their limos as they were driven into New York was hopeless - they were in full-on C Suite mode - no chance of getting beyond the rational brain barrier. But in a genius idea, the planner instead came up with the idea of talking to these alpha males at the weekend and, this is the great bit, as they were driving their cars themselves. So now not in work mode, and with their thinking minds occupied on the roads, we could access a much more intuitive un-post-rationalised part of their brains.

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Research World vs. Real World The Yellow Paper Series

• Another way you can get at System 1 (emotional brain) thinking is to look at speed of response not just the response itself. We have done this for years in an informal qualitative way, by using quick word associations with a brand for example. But it can also be done more formally via something called Implicit Attitude Testing We mentioned earlier how this technique, which basically measures speed of response, rather than answering questions verbally, helps get to the System 1 (emotional brain) thinking under our rational or post-rationalised responses. At DDB London we used this type of research when exploring attitudes among the public towards people with facial disfigurements. Of course, when asked, people all said oh no they weren’t at all prejudiced against people who looked “different”. They claimed that they were just as likely to give these people a job for example as anyone with a “normal” face. And they weren’t lying. They genuinely believed this. But when given visuals of different faces and forced to rapidly click on words which they associated with different faces, the analysis of speed of response found that there was in fact sometimes quite profound sub -conscious discrimination going on.

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Research World vs. Real World The Yellow Paper Series

• This same sort of idea can be used to help pre-test ads too. Always think of ways in which you can use research to get at the feeling bit not (just) the thinking bit of our brains4. We need to use more techniques allowing us to measure both the conscious and the unconscious take-out from communication- how it makes us feel, not just rationally what we recall an ad saying. These sorts of techniques have found up to 40% more positive ad effects in some ads than the effects we see when measured in just more conventional ways which tend to overplay the explicit System 2 (rational brain) elements and miss many of the more subtle, implicit, System 1(emotional brain) effects.

• Visual rather than verbal responses can be used in pre-testing too. EG FaceTrace5 is a nice technique whereby people click on different facial expressions in answer to questions like “ which of these faces best expresses how you think people would feel about this idea?”

• Think of ways to get at the “we” not “me”. Use the wisdom of crowds to predict product or an ad success. Instead of asking whether individuals would buy a product ask how well they think the product or ad would perform among other people not themselves as individuals. Think of ways to mirror the online YouTube ShareValue effects of an ad. Why not encourage people to share our ideas with their friends and get their responses?

• Try where possible to use techniques which observe people “ in the wild” rather than asking questions “ in captivity”. So install cameras in people’s homes, encourage them to make films of themselves using the brand, buying to etc, use mobile phones to get quick gut reactions at specific moments of encountering a brand, participating in an experience etc.

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Research World vs. Real World The Yellow Paper Series

Final Thoughts When searching for interesting new research techniques to share with you – it’s clear that as yet, there aren’t many. Despite all the exciting new understanding coming through about us humans, our brains and our decision-making - there seems a bit of a willing conspiracy to just quietly carry on with the same old research. Too many research companies and too many clients have too much business, too many norms, too many internal procedures tied up with doing things the old way. If they change at all, it’s to do what Russ Ackoff6 has called “doing the wrong things righter”. And the problem with this is the more efficient you get at doing the wrong things, the wronger you become.

So if we want to dismantle some of these old ways of doing things, we’re going to have fight for it. But there is a great new opportunity to start this process I think – with some of the new media ideas we are coming up with. It’s just not possible to pre-test ideas like Telstra’s ‘Cabbie-oke’ programme (which involved decking out taxis with karaoke kits), or Hasbro’s online experience for Monopoly City Streets with a standard pre-testing methodology, like the Millward Brown Link Test, for example. If we can start looking at some creative ways to research these sorts of ideas using the principles I’ve outlined here, who knows where it may end.

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Sources: Daniel Kahneman. Nobel Prize Winner in Economics 2002. Leading thinker on Behavioural Economics. Coined terms System 1 and System 2)

1

Russell Davies Blog 2006. We’re as disappointed as you are – thoughts of an account planner

2

Mark Earls; Herd; How to change mass behaviour by harnessing our true nature.

3

See www.cogresearch.com Implicit /Explicit Attitude persuasion test demo for an example of this.

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See www.brainjuicer.com lots of new research techniques based on latest thinking about the brain

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Russ Ackoff (1919-2009) Organisational theorist, pioneer in the field of operations research, system thinking and management science. “All of our problems arise from doing the wrong thing righter. The more efficient you are at doing the wrong thing, the wronger you become. It’s much better to do the right thing wronger than the wrong thing righter. If you do the right thing wrong you can correct it, you get better.”

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DDB Worldwide Communications Group Inc (www.ddb.com ) is one of the world’s largest and most influential advertising and marketing services networks.

With more than 200 offices in over 90 countries, DDB provides creative business solutions by its proprietary philosophy and process built upon the goal of influence. DDB and its marketing partners create and deliver unique, enduring, and powerful brand experiences for competitive advantage.

DDB is excited by ideas. We invite you to visit our website to share yours and keep abreast of ours. We believe that creativity is the most powerful force in business and that ideas get sharper with more minds rubbing against them.