Tagged
- behaviour
- context
- research
Carly Osman-Holme, Sprowt.
I care about sustainability. I also have Amazon Prime.
I want to spend less time on my phone. I am writing this while my phone is approximately six inches away from me.
I want to eat well. I also occasionally find myself standing in the kitchen eating something directly out of the packet because apparently plates are too much administration.
People are contradictory.
I say this because businesses can sometimes get very upset when research and behaviour don’t match. We asked customers whether sustainability matters and 80% said yes, but they’re still buying the cheaper product. The research must be wrong.
Not necessarily.
Both things can be true.
I can care deeply about the environment and also have a child who needs something for school tomorrow. I can believe quality matters and still be skint that month. I can want to support independent businesses and choose the place with free parking because it is raining and I cannot be arsed.
This is why context fascinates me.
We talk about “the consumer” as though this rational little creature wakes up every morning ready to consistently act according to their stated values.
They don’t. I don’t.
Life gets involved.
Money, time, convenience, embarrassment, habit, partners, children, energy, social norms, what’s available on the shelf and whether someone slept for four hours the night before all get involved.
That doesn’t make attitudinal research pointless. Far from it. It means we need to understand the gap.
If somebody tells me sustainability matters and then consistently chooses convenience, I want to understand what is happening in between those two things. What trade-off are they making? What would need to change for their behaviour to line up with their intention?
That gap can be where the opportunity is.
Human beings aren’t inconsistent data points that need cleaning up.
We’re just complicated.