What businesses can learn from the psychology of failed New Year’s resolutions

There’s nearly a 1 in 4 chance you’ve already given up on your good intentions for 2018. But, hey, at least the road to hell is paved with lessons for marketing.

By Margaret Magnarelli

If you’re anything like me, you found re-entry to your regimen tough after the holidays. Coming off a four-week cookie-cheese-salami binge, I had words with the scale on the morning of the 2nd before grabbing a yogurt — time to bite the bullet, I muttered — and hustling off to work.

That was where my mind was when I was confronted in Grand Central by a station takeover for Dannon’s Light & Fit Greek yogurt. I was struck by the effectiveness of the ad campaign in time (post holidays) and place (along a high-traffic commute). Not to mention that the rich colors, fun fonts, and heroic fruit photography made eating healthy seem almost… indulgent.

Kudos to that media buyer and ad agency for getting in my head just as I was about to forgo my yogurt for a buttery croissant.

As I continued on my way, I started thinking about the psychology of resolutions, and had what I decided was an inspired realization: Resolutions are all about behavioral change — and you know what else is all about behavioral change? Marketing! Our goal as marketers is to motivate people to diverge from their norms to purchase our products. So I resolved to later look into some of the psych research on resolutions to see what I could learn for our practice.

As it turns out, the answer has nothing to do with yogurt — and everything to do with ice cream.

PEOPLE NEED TO BELIEVE THEY CAN SUCCEED.

One of the most-cited studies on resolutions, out of the University of Scranton, tracked New Year’s goal-makers over a period of two years. The study proved what most of us know from experience: Resolutions are hard to keep. Some 22% of people dropped off in the first week, 81% by the end of the study.

Among those who stayed true, a powerful motivator was what psychologists call “self efficacy.” In plain English: If you truly believe you can achieve, you have a greater chance of doing so.

And if you instead set your sights on something that you know is a reach, you probably won’t try as hard to get there. Or you’ll quickly become disenchanted when the pounds don’t melt off after two 30-minute sessions on the elliptical, and you’ll fall hard into the chocolate cake somebody conveniently left in the break room at work.

What marketers can learn:

• Give the gift of confidence. How can you inspire self-efficacy? Start by using market research to identify your customer’s anxieties and frustrations, then get your brand, digital and copy teams together to talk about how to become more of a cheerleader through your brand voice and customer experience. For inspiration, check out diet brands and gym chains — most try to act as coaches in their customers’ lives.
• Reality-check your product benefits. Our inclination when it comes to product value propositions is that bigger is better — so if one customer had a 50% improvement from using our software, say, we’ll want to get that in a testimonial stat. But the resolution research suggests we might want to temper our instinct. Are you sure your typical customer believes that the benefits you’re touting are actually possible? The only way to know is to ask.
• Provide a yardstick. We see from the resolution research that a more realistic goal — losing 5 pounds vs. 50 — is more likely to be achieved. So you might think about breaking a big value proposition (70% reduction in acne in 12 months!) into more realistic-sounding smaller steps (10% reduction in the first month), and setting up checkpoints along the way (like a cadence of weekly emails telling customers what to expect). Research indicates that people gain self-efficacy through mastery, so they’ll keep up with a behavior if they feel they are seeing results.

PEOPLE NEED TO FIND THE BEHAVIORAL CHANGE FUN.

File this one under “the real reason I haven’t lost those 10 pounds:” Several studies suggest that people need to find the path to behavioral change enjoyable in order to achieve the change.

The most recent study on this topic is from a 2016 study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin that asked people who made New Year’s resolutions whether they felt the rewards for them were immediate (the pursuit was enjoyable or engaging) or long-term (the result would be important or life-changing). Those who derived immediate value were found to be more persistent in achieving their goals. Perhaps they’re also the types of people who’d buy a poster that says “Happiness is the journey, not the destination.”

A British study published in the Journal of Personality that asked participants to do increasingly difficult exercises on a fitness bike similarly found that intrinsic motives led to greater doggedness. But part two of that study adds another note: Some participants were first shown a video of a person of the same gender describing positively their involvement in a similar exercise and the feeling that the goal would be difficult but enjoyable. Those who saw the video had greater persistence, greater results, and greater likelihood to want to participate in future goals.

What marketers can learn:

• Focus on the CX of shopping. As marketers, we tend to focus our messaging on the end-result benefits of buying a product. But we shouldn’t ignore the customer experience of buying. How can we make that so fun that our target customer can’t help but purchase? If you’re selling furniture, for example, why not let customers upload a picture of their room then place your sideboard in it to see how it fits, just as Warby Parker lets you try on glasses? And how about letting people create a vision board that they can export to Pinterest or Instagram?
• Serve spinach with dessert. Ok, you say, but how do I get a boring product to trigger endorphins? Take a cue from a study in Management Science on temptation bundling. To get people to do something that wasn’t fun (going to the gym), researchers offered some participants the chance to do something that was (listen to a page-turning audiobook such as The Hunger Games); those who got to hear the book went to the gym 51% more frequently. So think about what “want” could you pair up with your “should.”
• Introduce a smiling face. In the study of British bikers, the researchers were able to encourage participants to take certain actions for themselves by showing them someone else’s motivations and satisfaction. So look for ways you can introduce your potential customers to your happiest existing customers, and let them actually hear and see their voices and faces if possible through videos or actual meet-ups.

PEOPLE NEED TO HAVE A BACKSTOP.

If you’ve ever slipped up on a New Year’s resolution, welcome to the club; I’m already looking at my own goals in the rearview mirror.

Speaking of…I think I promised you some ice cream? Well, here it is: Dr. Janet Polivy and Dr. Peter Herman, two psych professors at University of Toronto, used my favorite treat to show how slip ups often lead to people giving up. They offered dieters milkshakes of various sizes, followed by ice cream. Those who had a large milkshake actually ate more ice cream than those who had a small. Polivy cleverly called this the “What the hell” effect, since people say “What the hell, my diet’s already broken, so I might as well eat everything in sight.”

Lack of willpower was a significant deterrent for resolution makers in the Scranton study as well. But that paper found that lapses are not always ends: A little over half of goal acheivers had slipped. The key difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that the former typically have a trampoline in place to help them bounce back from missteps.

What marketers can learn:

• Meet customers at the bottom. Obviously, your ad placements are just as important as your creative. That Dannon ad bookends my day, reminding me that I’m supposed to be eating well. Where can you place your creative to meet your customer at their point of lapse or where they are likely to get distracted from a purchase? For example, a meal-subscription service targeting busy working professionals may consider an OOH campaign outside pizza shops or display ads on Yelp.
• Keep your friends close. Think about the people who’ve come to your website directly but haven’t purchased as akin to someone who’s made a resolution and lapsed. Can you help them turn an interest into a commitment? Some data shows that website visitors are 70% more likely to buy than those who haven’t. Pixel- or email-based sequential retargeting — where you deliver several pieces of content in a specific order, like this Xbox example of storytelling around Halo Wars 2 — can help you pull someone through your buyer’s journey.
• Create a support network. If you’ve ever had a gym buddy, you know the importance of accountability in helping you achieve a goal. Some brands have found innovative ways to provide this kind of support. My favorite example is My Fitness Pal, which lets you connect with friends who use the app to cheer each other on in your diets. Other brands have created actual communities — think Harley Owners Group for motorcyclists, which literally and figuratively keeps members from falling off the bike. Is there a way you could similarly create a village around your customer?

Just as people tend to be more loyal to supportive friends, consumers may become more loyal to those brands that seem to care about their interests. If there’s one thing that all these resolution studies point to, it’s this: The more you can align your marketing efforts with your customer’s goals, the greater shot at success that you’ll both have. And that’s a very happy new year for everybody.

Oh, one final note: If you’re thinking I’ve undone your 2018 diet with all these sexy photos of ice cream and doughnuts, think again. A study done by researchers at Brigham Young found that looking at pictures of a food curbed interest in that food. So, you’re welcome. Of course, this probably means I should avoid walking by that yogurt ad tomorrow…

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ABOUT ME

I’m a senior director of marketing at Monster, the leading global platform for connecting jobs and people. Previously, I worked as a magazine editor, which is actually not so different from marketing (shhh, don’t tell my journalism friends!). I believe that being customer-focused, content-centric, and cross-channel are the keys to improving reputation and revenue. I also believe in alliteration. I consider myself a creative growth marketer, whose role is to shepherd and shape innovative ideas from the high-performing people who work for me. My greatest accomplishment, aside from my amazing son: I’m cited in the Merriam-Webster definition of the word “snarky.” I welcome your opinions, experiences, anecdotes, disagreements, and craft cocktail recipes in the comments. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on Twitter.