Author: Jerry Zaltman

Publisher: Harvard Business School Press

Pub. in: February, 2003

ISBN: 1578518261

Pages: 352

Measurements: 9.8 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches

Origin of product: USA

Order code: BA00367

Other information: ISBN-13: 978-1578518265

A required reading for marketing researchers, managers, and entrepreneurs.

Practical synthesis of the cognitive sciences: Drawing heavily on psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and linguistics, Zaltman combines academic rigor with real-world results to offer highly accessible insights, based on his years of research and consulting work with large clients like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble.

An all-new tool kit: Zaltman provides research tools - metaphor elicitation, response latency, and implicit association techniques, to name a few - that will be all-new to marketers and demonstrates how innovators can use these tools to get clues from the subconscious when developing new products and finding new solutions, long before competitors do.

In this book we learn some important facts about buyers and their thinking:

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1. Consumers don't think in well-reasoned, linear ways.
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2. Consumers cannot plausibly explain their thinking and behavior (because 95% of our thinking takes place in our unconscious).
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3. Consumer's mind, brains, bodies, and culture can only be studied in relation to each other.
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4. Consumer's memories may not accurately reflect their experience and those memories can change over time.
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5. Consumers do not think primarily in words. The unconscious mind reveals itself as metaphors (similes, analogies, allegories, personifications, and proverbs).
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6. Customers rarely can absorb a company message and interpret it correctly. They constantly reinterpret these messages in terms of their own unique experiences.

In How Customers Think, Zaltman provides an interesting perspective on the field of market research as it relates to consumer behavior. According to Zaltman, (1) thought is based on images, not words; (2) most communication is non-verbal; (3) metaphors are central to thought and (4) memory is fragile. The book is very well researched (and footnoted) and well written, with abstract concepts presented with real-life examples that support the thesis being presented. In the end you may not buy into all of the conclusions reached by Zaltman, but the material is sufficiently compelling to least warrant serious consideration. The material will clearly make you think about previous assumptions. If you do market research or make decisions based on market research, Zaltman's book should be part of your essential.

“There are no mature markets. Only lazy marketers!” declares Sergio Zyman in his book The End of Marketing as We know It. As the world frequently shows, consumers follow those products that touch their heart (iPod is a good example. Apple didn’t invent the Mps player, Samsung launched its Yepp line-up long before Apple.)

MSL highly recommends this book to all the professionals in the field of marketing, advertising, market research, communication and product development, as well as university lecturers and academics of marketing, psychology, neuroscience, and sociology.

Target readers: Marketing professionals, product development professionals, advertising and communication professionals, entrepreneurs, academics, and MBAs.

Better with Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping :

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