Whatever the Problem - Behavioural Economics is the Answer!
Is there a Behavioural Economics term for marketing fads?
It seems like the business world is becoming awash with a wave of suddenly BE-savvy consultancies, agencies, research institutes.... and now journalists. There's a sturdy BE bandwagon rolling down main street.
Any marketing or business challenge, it seems, can be “re-framed” into a Behavioural Economics model.
Take this recent article on McDonalds in online publication Market Watch:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-mcdonalds-uses-interior-design-tricks-to-keep-customers-wanting-more-2018-03-23
The journalist proposes that the company uses interior design tricks to keep customers wanting more. It is suggested that McDonalds is “a master of leveraging behavioural psychology”.
Question: did McDonalds actually use BE to inspire any re-designs? Were other considerations at play?
We don’t actually know – there are no statements from McDonalds in the article.
A consultant is quoted – with, surprise surprise, a link to a website called behaviouraleconomics.com. The link takes you to a longer article on McDonalds, again with a very narrow BE bias. It contains no primary research, no quotes from McDonalds management or employees. The same consultant is indeed the person referenced as the expert in the Marketing article.
Sound a bit circular?
Never mind – BE is the answer, whatever your problem is or was.
This kind of intellectual retro-fitting is jarring, and often without empirical basis or scientific ambition.
We live in an age of influencer marketing and storytelling - journalists are still influential, have a responsibility as potential multiplers.
They are also challenged by digital disruption, which has profound consequences. Web traffic stats may not warrant research involving talking to say three sources on an article that may have a shelf-life of only two or three days.
Sure, this is just one example - there are many others I've read, and encounters at conferences recently have left the same impression.
BE as a scientifically cogent and important movement is now well and truly popularised - fine, but there are downsides, one of which is (ironically) a bias towards an uncritical BE adoption mode: jargon overtakes independent thinking, concepts are adapted robotically, alternative conceptual approaches not even considered. A serious case of bias.
Would Mssrs Kahneman, Loewenstein and Thaler approve?
Good creatives come up with solutions to fit a particular strategy. Weaker ones look to adapt a strategy to fit their pet idea. Analysts and strategists beware.
BE models may be powerful, but they're not a panacea, and not all business strategies can be solved by waving the BE wand. That would warrant an S rather than an E after the B.
Curious, as ever, as to others' views.