Applying behavioural science to advertising

Richard Shotton, Behavioural Psychologist and Author

Shotton touched upon the importance of marketers and retailers learning from behavioural science and human nature, in order to increase relevancy with their audience by changing their behaviour, in order to drive sales.

Retailers need to focus on doing one or two things well, as opposed to doing everything “slightly better”

Behavioural biases are essentially a catalogue explaining why people decide to partake in certain actions. Using this, retailers would be able to better understand their customers’ behaviour to craft elements of the retail experience in a more tailored way- from pricing, marketing, promotions and the instore experiences themselves.

With high-street retailers constantly up against their competitors, combined with the pressure of online shopping, retailers face an added pressure of convincing the consumer to move back to the high-street. Shotton believes retailers can solve this by the ‘Peak End Rule’- where people think back on previous experiences and place emphasis on the ‘peak’ and ‘end’ points. According to Shotton, retailers should focus on making these two moments of in-store experiences exceptional, rather than trying to do everything “slightly better”.