People will say one thing and do another. They’ll make decisions that seem to defy a logical thought process. Everyone who works with a brand has seen this. People are unpredictable.
Well, not totally unpredictable.
As Dan Ariely has shown us in his excellent book Predictably Irrational, people’s irrational behavior can be predicted. It starts with accepting that we are all creatures whose decisions are driven by emotions.
Trust your gut. It knows more than your head.
Early in my career, I ran into product managers who insisted that any brand communications we created needed to be straightforward. “Just give them the facts” was the mantra.
Being young, I thought that maybe that’s just what you did with certain audiences. It didn’t feel right in my gut. But, hey, what did I know? I was just a young guy.
Should have trusted my gut.
Those efforts were lackluster at best, leading to a reevaluation of the whole brand/marketing program.
Looking back, it makes sense why these managers drove everything to the rational. Human motivations are driven by emotions. Which means they can seem fuzzy and messy. That can be uncomfortable territory for some. So it’s easier to fall…
