Marketing planners decipher from data what appeals to a consumer about a product and develop behavioral targeting strategies. Several cognitive approaches like demographic and psychographic profiling through surveys, focus group discussions etc. are prevalent to understand the consumer decision making processes.
How can we find out what makes a consumer feel that need or desire to consider a product in the first place? Essentially, this delves into how consumers respond to various stimuli. Something we may not learn from traditional survey methods and projective techniques.
Drivers of consumer response to stimuli can be evaluated from experiments that can be designed to be administered online. Data from such experiments relate to various cultural, situational, instinctual, emotional and social triggers that lead to purchase. Thus archetypes of consumers' decision triggers can be created that allow marketing planners to develop strategies that focus on alluding to productive influences-- such as an ‘authority figure’ or ‘social consensus’ -- rather than emphasizing brand messages. Such a technique of creating an influence strategy framework called Persuasion Profiling is featured in the Wired Magazine.Here are two interesting videos on Persuasion Profiling:
