sugary drinks) at precisely the right time: when people are thinking of drinking a soda.
CONSIDER THE CONTEXT
These campaigns underscore how important it is to consider the context: to think about the environments of the people a message or idea is trying to trigger. Different environments contain different stimuli. Arizona is surrounded by desert. Floridians see lots of palm trees. Consequently, different triggers will be more or less effective depending on where people live.
Similarly, the effectiveness of the hundred-dollar cheesesteak that we talked about in the introduction depends on the city where it is introduced.
A hundred-dollar sandwich is pretty remarkable, wherever you are. But how frequently people will be triggered to think about it depends on geography. In places where people eat lots of cheesesteaks (Philadelphia), people would be triggered often, but in other places (such as Chicago) not so much.
Even within a given city or geographic region, people experience different triggers based on the time of day or year. One study we conducted around Halloween, for example, found that people were much more likely to think aboutproducts associated with the color orange (such as orange soda or Reese’s Pieces) the day before Halloween than a week later. Before Halloween, all the orange stimuli in the environment (pumpkins and orange displays) triggered thoughts of orange products. But as soon as the holiday was over, those triggers disappeared, and so did thoughts of orange products. People moved on to thinking about Christmas or whatever holiday came next.
So when thinking about, say, how to remember to take your reusable grocery bags to the grocery store, think about what will trigger you at exactly the right time. Using reusable grocery bags is like eating more vegetables. We know we should do it. We even want to do it (most of us have bought the bags). But when it comes time to take action, we forget.
Then, right as we pull into the grocery store parking lot, we remember. Argh, I forgot the reusable grocery bags! But by then it’s too late. We’re at the store and the grocery bags are at home in the closet.
It’s no accident that we think about reusable bags right when we get to the store. The grocery is a strong trigger for the bags. But unfortunately it is a badly timed one. Just as with the bath mat public service announcement, the idea is coming to mind, but at the wrong time. To solve this problem, we needto be reminded to bring the bags right when we are leaving the house.
What’s a good trigger in this instance? Anything you have to take with you to buy groceries. Your shopping list, for example, is a great one. Imagine if every time you saw your shopping list, it made you think of your reusable bags. It would be much harder to leave the bags at home.
WHY CHEERIOS GETS MORE WORD OF MOUTH THAN DISNEY WORLD
To return to the example that started the chapter, triggers help explain why Cheerios get more word of mouth than Disney World. True, Disney World is interesting and exciting. To use the language of other chapters in the book, it has high Social Currency and evokes lots of Emotion (next chapter). But the problem is that people don’t think about it very frequently. Most people don’t go to Disney World unless they have kids. Even those who do go don’t go that often. Once a year if that. And there are few triggers to remind them about the experience after the initial excitement evaporates.
But hundreds of thousands of people eat Cheerios for breakfast every day. Still more see the bright orange boxes every time they push their shopping carts down the supermarket cereal aisle. And these triggers make Cheerios more accessible, increasing the chance that people will talk about the product.
The number of times Cheerios and Disney are mentioned on Twitter illustrates this nicely. Cheerios are mentioned more frequently than Disney World. But examine the data closely andyou’ll notice a neat
CONSIDER THE CONTEXT
These campaigns underscore how important it is to consider the context: to think about the environments of the people a message or idea is trying to trigger. Different environments contain different stimuli. Arizona is surrounded by desert. Floridians see lots of palm trees. Consequently, different triggers will be more or less effective depending on where people live.
Similarly, the effectiveness of the hundred-dollar cheesesteak that we talked about in the introduction depends on the city where it is introduced.
A hundred-dollar sandwich is pretty remarkable, wherever you are. But how frequently people will be triggered to think about it depends on geography. In places where people eat lots of cheesesteaks (Philadelphia), people would be triggered often, but in other places (such as Chicago) not so much.
Even within a given city or geographic region, people experience different triggers based on the time of day or year. One study we conducted around Halloween, for example, found that people were much more likely to think aboutproducts associated with the color orange (such as orange soda or Reese’s Pieces) the day before Halloween than a week later. Before Halloween, all the orange stimuli in the environment (pumpkins and orange displays) triggered thoughts of orange products. But as soon as the holiday was over, those triggers disappeared, and so did thoughts of orange products. People moved on to thinking about Christmas or whatever holiday came next.
So when thinking about, say, how to remember to take your reusable grocery bags to the grocery store, think about what will trigger you at exactly the right time. Using reusable grocery bags is like eating more vegetables. We know we should do it. We even want to do it (most of us have bought the bags). But when it comes time to take action, we forget.
Then, right as we pull into the grocery store parking lot, we remember. Argh, I forgot the reusable grocery bags! But by then it’s too late. We’re at the store and the grocery bags are at home in the closet.
It’s no accident that we think about reusable bags right when we get to the store. The grocery is a strong trigger for the bags. But unfortunately it is a badly timed one. Just as with the bath mat public service announcement, the idea is coming to mind, but at the wrong time. To solve this problem, we needto be reminded to bring the bags right when we are leaving the house.
What’s a good trigger in this instance? Anything you have to take with you to buy groceries. Your shopping list, for example, is a great one. Imagine if every time you saw your shopping list, it made you think of your reusable bags. It would be much harder to leave the bags at home.
WHY CHEERIOS GETS MORE WORD OF MOUTH THAN DISNEY WORLD
To return to the example that started the chapter, triggers help explain why Cheerios get more word of mouth than Disney World. True, Disney World is interesting and exciting. To use the language of other chapters in the book, it has high Social Currency and evokes lots of Emotion (next chapter). But the problem is that people don’t think about it very frequently. Most people don’t go to Disney World unless they have kids. Even those who do go don’t go that often. Once a year if that. And there are few triggers to remind them about the experience after the initial excitement evaporates.
But hundreds of thousands of people eat Cheerios for breakfast every day. Still more see the bright orange boxes every time they push their shopping carts down the supermarket cereal aisle. And these triggers make Cheerios more accessible, increasing the chance that people will talk about the product.
The number of times Cheerios and Disney are mentioned on Twitter illustrates this nicely. Cheerios are mentioned more frequently than Disney World. But examine the data closely andyou’ll notice a neat
Similar Books
