As consumers we are supposed to be getting smarter – or at least more rational.
To help with this evolution, the internet offers an endless array of comparison and peer review sites designed to help you locate the ultimate house, camera, insurance policy or nanny – all with a few mouse clicks. These sites are intended to remove emotive brand triggers and bring consumers back to the empirical fold.
Purists hold this as the ideal model because it provides an empiric, non branded comparison environment which places the emphasis on features and price. In doing so, in theory anyway, it reduces or removes the less tangible emotive qualities that give branded products a level of dominance that sometimes outweighs the product’s tangible features. These emotive factors are frequently dismissed as noise.
There’s no doubt that this style of rational purchasing behaviour is very popular. In fact, according to BIG Research, 89% of consumers making in-store purchases in key retail categories have conducted online research prior to purchase. This would lead you to think that we can all look forward to becoming far more sensible consumers.
However, it may be that our own method of reasoning may work against us.
Earlier this year, accomplished author and Wired journo Jonah Lehrer reviewed a paper by Leonard Lee, Dan Ariely, and On Amir published in the Journal of Consumer Research which suggests that consumers who use their emotional reasoning are actually more consistent in their decision-making.
As Lehrer relates; “It is possible consumers would be much happier with choices based more on their emotional reaction. For example, if one buys a house and relies on very cognitive attributes such as resale value, one may not be as happy actually living in it, as opposed to a person who attends to his or her emotional reaction to the house prior to purchasing it.
Indeed, our results suggest that the heart can very well serve as a more reliable compass to greater long-term happiness than pure reason… subjects who relied more on their emotional system made a more consistent set of decisions.”
He goes on to say that “The scientists (Lee, Ariely and Amir) speculate that the internet leads consumers to engage in more rational deliberation, since there are fewer affective cues…and yet, this sort of thinking might also lead to consumer inconsistency.”
The irony, as Lehrer observes is that it may actually turn out that the more we try to be rational, the more we come to rely on our less tangible natures.
in senior marketing, online media and digital brand management roles. Passionate about the customer experience and cautious of false prophets, I help create genuine long term value within the digital & social media landscape. 
