consumersycology Inertia is good Caroline Whitehill, Acacia Avenue, shows how inertia can contribute to brand loyalty, and suggests strategies for leveraging it IE WORD INERTIA has always ‘een associated with a litany of negatives —lazy, uninterested, slow, taking the easy way out’ and so on. In ‘marketing, inertia is bad. Itis often posi tioned as the archrival to involvement and responsiveness. But a simple exami- nation of our own behaviour reminds us how cften we choose to do what we have always done rather than make a change. Maybe we should look at inertia wth cout the cultural spectacles that judge it to be undesirable behaviour? Newton's First Law of Motion says ‘An object in a state of motion possesses ant ‘causes it to remain in that actsonit! Thisarticleexploresthedifferent kinds of inertia to which many brand fal victim. It suggests that there are better ‘ways of managing inertia in marketing ang research and lays down asset of princi plestodoso,toensurethata constant state ‘of motion’ is perpetuated. Marketing inertia Marketers are keenly aware that inertia exists and are constantly trying to affect changesothey can unlock the potential of their products. A quick sweep of WARC's database shows several hundreds of refer ‘ences to loyalty, behaviour change, habit and inertia. They use the resigned lan ‘guage of acceptance, attributing inertia to automatic behaviour, low involvement, low-interest categories, promiscuity, prod uct parity and ton much choice. However, other than references to loyal ‘ty models, there is almost nothing that tres to explain this phenomenon. The focushas been on how tochange behaviour, quantify ‘behaviour and move people up the loyalty ladderto the holy grail ofemotional loyalty. “There are certainly no well known theories, that explain the broader issues of why peo- pleact habitually, Digging beneath the surface The following theories from outside the ‘world of marketing give usclues that help ‘0 explain inertia ‘M4 Rimap - Oocombsr 2005 Ldtardwiring can explain why 41 always do x when I'm feeling y’ ‘The brain is made up of a series of 2590 ciative networks (1). At a basic level, it comprises millions of cells,each of which s a set of fingerike tendrils sticking out of it, called dendrites. As one cell is stimulated, a chemical reaction stimu lates the next one to ‘fire’, and so it con- tinves, A memory is a whole intercon: nected series of firings. Repetition makes the dendites of adja- cent cells clamp together until they phys ically become ‘wired’ together. ‘This sis known as haréwiring. Howev. enittakesa ong time tocreate hardwired connections. Think of a fresh field of grass that you walk through every day. It is only after several months that a path: ‘way will be visible. But, once created, it takes even longer to disappear. The brain is like this. seldom forgets, Inbranding, we come across this every day when we are faced with people who remember a tagline from 15 years ago despite millions having been spenton dif ferent taglines since. It is the same with behaviour ~ hardwiring explains a lot of our automatic and unconscious behav- iour—"I always do x when I'm feeling y. Hardviring can tale up to two years to create butaa lifetime to destroy: Its litle wonder that in today’s world of short Inertia “There are men 50 incorigibly lazy that no fnducemen hat you can ofr wil tmp them to work; s0eaten up by vie that virtue is abhorrent ‘other, and so inveterately dishonest that thefts tothem a master passion. When a human being has reached tat stage, it must he recognised that the has become lanai, morally demented, inca able of selfgovernment, and that upon him, therefore, must be passed the sentence of perma- nent seclusion froma world in which he snot ft tobeat large? William Booth (1828-1912), ‘Salvation Army founder term messages and budget cuts it sso hard to change ingrained behaviour pat- terns. D7rteuristics mean 1 don't have fo make a fresh choice each time ‘As Tim Williams (2) says, ‘in the rel ‘world, making a good decision is not so ‘much about choosing the best option. A good decision means choosing the option that works’ A heucistcisarule of thumb ‘a mental short-cut ~ that guides ws in decision-making. Heuristics eliminate the need for complex processing ever thing wedo, rendering everyday ‘making quick and easy. “leuristics apply to all stages ofa deck sion making process ~ we have rules thumb to govern when and haw to search, what to look for and when tostap ‘Bveryone uses them, though they are di ferent for everyone and vary b brands, categories, moods and situ For example, I might look for fami ‘brands on foreign supermarket shelves ‘when {am abroad; for my bathroom, my caiteria for a toothbrush raight be colouy ‘fam doing something fora secondtime, such as buying car insurance, Imig refer back to what I did last time; or ‘ight always buy zhe mostexpensivein category, based on the assumption that ‘must be good. All things being equal, people are ‘more likely to defer to their heuristicthan torrsk a new and different behaviour B our natura inctinaton to protect ourselves, Leon Festinger’ theory ofcognitived nance (3) shows that much of wih Inumans do is to protect ourselves f distressing feelings. The people wit grammes we choose to watch and th books we choose to read are alm beliefs — we would rather stick with) ‘own version ofthe status quo than re conflict. But when presented with % tressing feelings, we will go as far ‘29ers Amt eth aeconsumernsycology Caroline Whitehill is 2 co- founder chancesarethat lam not goingto change. 5."Think, glows Acknowledging past decisions could be quo. ig a ese: key to influencing future ones. 6. ‘Lass feamipevisa powerful ° can it hejeveraged? What this all adds up to 7. Reguingingspeople,, There are many ways to tackle inertis. decision in the first place may be the i ‘The following are a few principles to tochanging behaviour in the future ian f anal count think about Finally in research, we have inherited regret. Journal of Fesonality and Social 1. Dorit assume that emotional loyaltyis certain tried-and-tesied methodologies cholo 75,998 more powerful than habit overthe years Usage & Attitudestrveys, 6.1 Kahnemnan, | Knetch amd & Thaler: change2uidiedwising or ois fittesishfor yee tolbcunsrqunsandeG ac WiDE-t9a a ue the effdsrandinicateghmrahcihowesadhitibe levenrd a.dewrbrlawcgenenuigngsown.the Uy ik docsn'tagedthr contemporiseyllick to say ond thougimugelves may not kiow the ae things BeMkedhangoessolake thazesponsi- for their original implementation... Bg ing tiltforghshassoofchange avay frcnarganatinuaisascien. 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