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Understanding (really) the consumer for a publicist is the same as going to the racecourse to bet on the horses and finding an almanac on the ground with the results of the future. It is something you dream about, it is projected but it does not exist. However, there are some chosen who approach, that surround that abstract understanding with unsuspected shortcuts. These can be born of empathy, statistics or perhaps experience. The Englishman Richard Shotton is one of those trappers of social science who has reached the oracle category of advertising companies. His book The Choice Factory (unedited in Spanish) is not the dream almanac, but it is a method covered in behavioral science that aims to predict something as wildly stimulating as the irrationality of people .

We assaulted him on an express visit to Madrid, a city he visits - invited by APG (Spain Account Planning Group) - to give a conference at the Miami Ad School advertising school, and we make him pose for photos with some flamingos. Maybe the English thought it was going to be more an experience with bailaores and not ornithological, but he doesn't complain. On the contrary, his kindness is suspicious. He must be selling us something and we don't know. He knows a lot about it and that's why he makes a good living as a consultant.

Shotton talks about biases and responds with quick and pedagogical slogans: "People are more likely to value their lives more when they have an age that ends in nine . " "The context in advertising is much more important than the message." "When in the store accordion music sounded, French wine sales increased ..."

Why do people buy useless things? Like buying useful things. We believe that people are rational but it is not ...

Everything here is irrational. So much so that a psycho named Winston Moseley changed Richard Shotton's thinking. In 1964, Moseley killed a woman in front of 38 witnesses. (subsequent research clarified that they were actually less). No one did anything. This passive attitude scandalized public opinion. However, some psychologists, after studying such behavior, concluded that no one had done anything because there were too many witnesses. According to the theory of the spectator effect or Genovese syndrome, the chances of relief decrease as the public grows. It is the I do not go because you will go. This research impressed Shotton very much and made him change the strategy of a campaign that had little blood donation success in the United Kingdom. The generic messages didn't work so he decided to be more concrete. Each locality of the country would have a specific poster. "Brighton has little blood," for example. This change made donations up 10%. Behavioral science had many applications in the world of marketing.

Has technology really changed the consumer? I think advertisers and brands overvalue the effects of technology. But we cannot forget that people have consistent motivations for a long time. Changing human nature would take millions of years. So will technology kill the pain of paying us? At least it has been possible to reduce the hangover of cash payment. There are studies that say that when people pay in cash the cost is overvalued up to 9% while paying by credit card underestimates it. And the contactless is even less painful than the card.

Shotton is able to talk about hundreds of ads, which he has studied as the fan who recites the lineups of his football team. From successful campaigns such as Nespresso, Kraft or Trojan condoms, as well as the classic among the classics, "a diamond is forever" , by De Beers, which changed the consumption habit decades ago (and strangled its savings) of the bride and groom around the world.

Who has done the best and longest advertising campaign in history? The Catholic Church? The truth is that it has a very good logo (laughs). Someone said it is the most successful brand. We are storytellers, we like them, they help sell and that the church has done fantastically. All thanks to the use of bright parables that people remember. Look at the good Samaritan.

Q. Finally, does a marketing guru receive a lot of spam mail?

Receive it, acknowledge. Not even he is safe from the plague. Shotton recalls that there has always been junk mail quoting from memory a fragment of an article by Samuel Johnson written in 1759. "The ads are now so numerous that they are read with much negligence and, therefore, it is necessary to draw attention to the magnificence of the promises, and by the eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic. "

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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