How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market Reviews

• Helpful Concepts Abstractly Portrayed

  
  By A1K1JW1C5CUSUZ on 2003-10-06
  Few would have any argument with the central thesis of this book. Most new products fail rapidly in unexpected ways, suggesting that a misunderstanding of what is required by customers is part of the problem. Professor Zaltman goes on to suggest that his patented approach to considering more aspects of customer thinking (especially emotion, associations and context) can help improve matters.

  The book argues successfully that most marketing research methods are misused (usually by being applied to solve the wrong class of problem). He also does a fine job of explaining how marketers' attitudes and opinions create myopia that prevents them from learning what they need to know.

  There is extensive material in the book about how the brain works in the context of purchasing decisions. For those who are familiar with brain research, there is little new here.

  As someone who has worked in marketing research for over 30 years, I found the explanation of how to do better to be abstract and often counter to my own experience with extensive one-on-one open-ended interviews. Let me share a few examples. First, he states that consensus maps (a graphic expression of the universal considerations and order that consumers go through to make a purchasing decision) of how consumers think almost always emerge after 10 interviews . . . far short of statistical norms. That finding made me wonder if the maps are done too abstractly to capture the richness of customer thinking. Second, all of the examples of specific brands seemed to relate to an adult making a decision with the item in front of her or him. Yet, many consumers arrive at the grocery store (for example, since much of the book is about food products) with a shopping list in hand. Are consensus maps the same for self purchase as for purchase for others? The book doesn't seem to address that point. If the items are to be purchased for another family member, how do the different consensus maps overlap and affect one another? Third, the book doesn't do much to address how misimplementation of new products and marketing strategies causes failure. In my experience, that problem is greater than a lack of understanding of how customers think. Fourth, the incentives in most marketing organizations favor using marketing research to locate reasons to justify a marketer's decisions. Professor Zaltman acknowledges this, but doesn't really address how to institutionally change the culture. His suggestions presume that everyone is more interested in promoting company results than protecting individual careers while the opposite is often the case. Fifth, the real weakness in most organizations is that the head of marketing research has an insufficient background in the subject to make the right suggestions and to persuade management to follow those suggestions. That problem isn't addressed at all. Sixth, the best applications for this kind of research are for services . . . yet there were few examples of services compared to food items. In services, you have more things you can change and the potential for improvement is greater. The strength of the book mostly comes in the service examples (which are often overly disguised).

  The book also has a tone that I did not like. It seems to suggest that no one had ever developed thinking process maps or used depth one-on-one interviews before this patented process was developed. Many aspects of the concepts described here were in broad scale application in companies that I have worked with over 30 years ago. Many of these companies belonged to the Marketing Science Institute, with which Harvard (where Professor Zaltman practices) has long had a close association. In addition, those who have employed these concepts are universally praised. That was strange, because many of them have pulled some of the biggest errors that violate these principles. For example, the research on new Coke was flawed by not telling consumers that the existing Coca-Cola would be removed from the market. Yet Coca-Cola is cited universally as an example of advanced marketing research.

  The book also comes across as a sales pitch far too often. That is almost unprecedented in my experience in reading a book from a professor. The same marketing research organizations are used as examples over and over again. You are also told that one way to get these good results is to hire a "wizard," which is presumably one of these firms. Wouldn't it make more sense to develop a proprietary skill in this area so that competitors would have less chance to learn what you find out?

  Finally, the reports of success seem unconvincing. They are based on self-reported satisfaction with short-term results. Now, if you've hired someone to help you and spent a lot of money to do so, even the most inexperienced market researcher knows that there will be a bias towards reporting positive results. Also, paid market researchers will share their "best" results, rather than their average or below average results. I was left wondering what the long term benefits are, and what the average expectation can be.
  
  Despite these reservations, I think most marketing executives will benefit from the book's discussions of what types of marketing research to use for what types of issues. But the total of that information could have been captured in a magazine article.

  Both marketing executives and researchers will benefit from chapter 12.

  Those who purchase or use marketing research would do well to become familiar with this book.

  I hope that Professor Zaltman will write another book in the future that will be more helpful to marketing research professionals. It has always been the case that 99% of the profession is engaged in doing repetitive tracking research. With few looking into creative research to better develop new products, improve brands and enhance the lives of customers, we need to develop a larger cadre of well-trained individuals interested in these challenges if we are to ultimately improve on the dismal record of failure in making improvements.
  
  

• At Last! A book that addresses the customer's whole mind

  
  By A2V9DO3O8T4A2F on 2003-06-08
  Consumer research is a $6 billion business. But the ROI on research expenditures is being questioned as never before. This is ironic given that advances in information technology has vastly expanded analytic capabilities and increased customer data by an order of magnitude.

  Jerry Zaltman�s �How Customers Think� offers fresh insights into why companies are increasingly frustrated by consumer research. Drawing on contemporary brain research, he exposes fatal flaws in the hallowed premise in traditional consumer research that asking customers about their motivations is the best way to get clues about their future behavior.

  Zaltman points out that surveys, questionnaires and focus groups fail to get behind the curtains of consciousness. This can prove fatal for a marketing program because at least 90% of mental activity that leads to perceptions, thinking and decisions takes place outside the conscious mind.

  However, traditional research and marketing largely ignores the contents of the unconscious mind. Why is this so, when contemporary brain research has learned that this is where motivations as well as perceptions and decisions originate? Because lacking an understanding of how minds work, researchers and marketers must depend by default on consumers� conscious rational responses. However, disconnects between what consumers consciously think and what they feel at deeper levels often lead to marketplace failure.

  Zaltman reconnects the emotional, feeling dimension of consumers� minds (right brain as it were) with the perceiving, thinking (left brain) dimension of their minds to yield a holistic picture of customers� minds.

  Marketing often fails expectations because undue attention is given the contents of the rational left brain that respondents disgorge in traditional consumer research. Zaltman observes that researchers and marketers widely ignore the deep shadowy realm of motivating emotions because it is easier to record, process and analyze what consumers say directly about their needs and motivations.

  Zaltman observes that recent brain research shows that emotional arousal is essential to the generation of sustained interest in a matter. Brain patients whose emotional capabilities have been destroyed while still having normal reasoning powers cannot determine whether one brand or another is best for them. Brand loyalty, it seems, is determined more by emotional responses than by rational analysis.

  Zaltman shows how to get better guidance than direct questioning of them yields about what will stir consumers� emotions. In doing this he addresses one of the most curious defects in traditional research and marketing: decisions are more often determined by the rules of statistical math than by tenets of behavior science. However, this should not be surprising because few marketers have grounding in how minds work. After all, a person can earn an MBA in marketing without a single course in behavior.

  If the primary functional purpose of marketing is getting the attention of minds and influencing them to action, then it should follow that a deeper understanding of how minds work will make marketers more effective in doing that. However, with Zaltman�s book in hand, one needs not go back to school for a degree in psychology to gain a practical understanding of how customers� minds work.

  A word of caution, however: This book is to be studied, not scanned. It does not offer the simple, sound bite-sized solutions that are so commonplace in marketing books and that make them quickly forgettable. Zaltman�s book will not be forgettable to any person who makes a study of his book because he/she will experience a quantum leap in understanding how customers think.
  
  

• A few gems hidden in a lot of muck

  
  By A18U2MWZZDCI44 on 2005-06-24
  For most of its pages, "How Customers Think" is a silly book which conceals shallow content with glib explanations, pseudo-scientific rationales, and marketing / management jargon. Since it assumes the basic principles of marketing research without explanation, it is not useful to a beginning research practitioner or buyer. However, an experienced practitioner will find some interesting ideas, provided (s)he is willing to spend some time cutting through fluff to get to the meat.
  
  The book's greatest flaw is its author's misconception, common to many authors in marketing and related fields, that books about marketing should themselves be examples of marketing. Much of the book reads like advertising copy for the marketing research methods and management principles expounded by the author. This slick style tries, but fails, to conceal a serious lack of content.
  
  Most of the book's content falls into one of three categories, all useless. The first category: explanations of traditional qualitative questioning techniques, such as projection using pictures or collages. These methodologies are rehashed without any really new content or in-depth explanation. The second category: discussion of recent findings from cognitive science, along with case studies showing how these findings lead to better MR methods. Unfortunately, the author's own understanding of cognitive science is too shallow, and the connection between cognitive science and his successful case studies so tenuous, that one suspects cognitive science is nothing more than window dressing intended to sell services to clients. The third category: principles for successful business management. The author essentially proposes creativity and flexible thinking as magic bullets for business success, with apparently little understanding of how useless is the *mere* recognition of these principles.
  
  "How Customers Think"'s one saving grace is its fourth category of content: genuinely innovative data collection and analytical methods, primarily for qualitative research. Most of this content relates to so-called "metaphor elicitation", a proposed technique for teasing out the language (and thus the concepts) relating to some core idea; and "consensus mapping", a proposed technique for systematically recording the results of many respondents' metaphor elicitation in a way that reflects the cognitive structure of the core idea. While these techniques do not represent a huge breakthrough, they are useful nonetheless. It's unfortunate that they take up such a small part of the book.
  
  

• This is a Must-Read for all Market Research Professionals!

  
  By A1BTKSFMALJG7Y on 2003-03-05
  In his book, How Customers Think - Essential Insights Into the Mind of the Market, Gerald Zaltman hits gold!

  Professor Zaltman has expertly combined the disciplines of all the sciences to provide not only "rich insights", but equally as important, practical applications. It is essential that Market Research Professonals go beyond their "Suite of Tools" and explore the sub-conscious through Dr. Zaltman's sound methodology. At the very least, it should be addressed when outlining a preliminary research design.

  As a market researcher for over 35 years, we've all been challenged by the mystery of how customers think...because, we know, that the sub-conscious rules and is difficult to measure. At last, we have an approach that I consider one of the best.

  Companies today would be hard-pressed to explain why they haven't tried this approach to gain competitive advantage in the knowledge of their customer base.

  I applaud Dr. Zaltman for publishing this book...and, will admit, have used his metaphor elicitation technique when tackling some very complex problems.

  I urge market research professionals to take this book very seriously. It can make a difference!

  Patricia Mordigan Hawkins
  Private Consultant
  
  

• If you're really "into" marketing, then rad this book

  
  By A2HM0BZWQRV1EF on 2003-04-29
  Heard the taped version of HOW CUSTOMERS THINK:
  ESSENTIAL INSIGHTS INTO THE MINDS OF THE MARKET
  by Gerald Zaltman . . . as the author, a Harvard Business
  School professor, notes: approximately 80% of all new products
  fail within six months or fall significantly short of their profit forecast . . . this shouldn't be surprising, he argues, since "a great mismatch exists between the way consumers experience and think about their world and the methods marketers use to collect this information."

  Zaltman takes what could be a complex topic and presents
  it so that most (marketers and those not in the field) should
  be able to grasp the key points . . . but I'd still only recommend the book for those really "into" marketing . . . I am, so I found it quite interesting . . . but others will be bored.

  Yet all should probably find the following passage of interest, in which six common marketing fallacies are presented:

  First, consumers think in well-reasoned, linear ways as they
  evaluate products. They don't. For example, consumers do not
  consciously assess a car's benefits attribute by attribute
  and decide whether to buy it. Instead, their emotions--the desire for happiness, prestige, and so on--play a bigger role than logic in the purchase decision.

  Second, consumers can plausibly explain their thinking and
  behavior. In reality, however, 95 percent of thinking takes
  place in our subconscious minds. People use conscious
  thought primarily as a way to rationalize behavior.

  Third, consumers' minds, brains, bodies, and surrounding
  culture can be studied independently of one another. In fact,
  the mind, brain and external world interact with, and help
  shape, one another. For example, people from different
  cultures experience physical pain differently.

  Fourth, consumers' memories accurately reflect their
  experience. Research reveals that memory is not perfect,
  and in fact it changes depending on the situation. For
  example, when people are asked to recall an experience,
  their memories are influenced by the sequence in which
  the questions are asked, and even the color of the paper
  on which the survey is printed.

  Fifth, consumers think primarily in words. Yet brain scans
  suggest that only a small portion of the brain's neural
  activity ultimately surfaces in language.

  Sixth, consumers can received "injections" of company
  messages--and interpret them correctly. However, consumers
  do not passively absorb messages. They constantly reinterpret
  such messages in terms of the unique experiences. For instances,
  people have long heard that they should visit the dentist every
  six months. But research shows that most individuals are very
  skeptical about the need for such dental visits.
  
  

• great book for the right person;a snoozer for the rest
  By A135Y35RRGHY3G on 2003-03-29
  I wanted to like this book. Great title,enticing blurbs,a respected author.And,if I was into a very detailed read on the chemistry of our brains,the nature of human thought,and the mechanics of how we perceive,then I would have loved it.And if those topics are of interest to you, buy this book.But don't get this book if you are looking for practical, hands on advice on marketing you or your services. The book's best chapter is "Memory,Metaphor,and Stories" and it has some useful concepts that you can put into practice,but no where near as useful as books like the Story Factor by Annette Simmons.
  
  
• Refreshing new insights
  By A3AKJSWDBWIK5 on 2003-05-02
  This book is a must-read for marketing researchers, academics, managers, or anyone else interested in why we make the decisions we do. Dr. Zaltman has integrated the latest findings from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and sociology into an easy-to-read, but definitely thorough, discussion of how the brain works and consumers think. Zaltman accomplishes that task by providing real-life case studies coming from his years of experience as a consultant along with a well-summarized view of the underlying theories and evidence. His discussions about the role of the subconscious should result in a paradigm shift in marketing research. Anyone who has conducted a focus group or distributed a large-scale written survey and has been left with the feeling that there must be more going on, will be comforted by the fact their intuition was right (there is) but also troubled by the issue of how to gain more information from consumers. Zaltman's research method, Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET), is presented as a way for managers to "dig deeper" into both their own and their consumers' decision processes. This book provides detailed information about ZMET and how real managers have gained unique insights from its usage.

  As both an academic memory researcher and consultant I was particularly impressed with Zaltman's coverage of the role of memory in consumer decision making, both with its frailty, making it subject to distortion on more traditional market research measures, and its depth, as in the role of storytelling and relationship to deep metaphors. On a practical note, Zaltman has integrated some features that make his book user-friendly, such as usage of pictures or images to demonstrate his points, summary tables that concisely articulate his ideas, a short glossary of terms that is helpful to the novice reader and an appendix on ZMET which includes good/bad examples of interviewing techniques. In addition to Zaltman's breakthrough coverage of content, he is also a gifted writer that is a pleasure to read. I highly recommend this book!
  
  

• Insights into the Mind of the Market
  By A23SB6VGGB9E8U on 2003-06-30
  Every marketing manager wants to understand the consumer's thought process. Yet few succeed.

  That is Gerald Zaltman, a professor of marketing at Harvard Business School and a fellow at Harvard University's interdisciplinary Mind, Brian Behavior Initiative, message in this fascinating book. Marketers would like to think they control the image of their brands, but in reality it is brain and the mind of the consumer that controls an individual's brand perception.

  To be effective, the author says, new marketing strategies will have to add neurology, musicology, philosophy and zoology to anthropology, psychology and sociology they currently use.

  Many marketing managers handicap themselves by clinging to the following ideas:
  * Consumers think in a rational way. In reality, Zaltman says, the selection process is affected by emotion, the subconscious and physical context.
  * Consumers can explain their behavior. The Harvard professor says that after the fact attempt attempts to make sense of their behavior, but rarely explain its controlling factors.
  * Consumers' mind, brain, body and culture can be studied independently. The best information, he says, from studying their interaction.
  * Memories accurately represent their actions. He notes their memories change with time.
  * Buyers think in words. Not true, says the professor. Their words expressed in surveys and focus groups come only after they consciously opt to express their unconscious thoughts.
  * Consumers interpret marketing messages the ways marketers intend them. Since consumers do not think in words, a clever message does not guarantee a message will be absorbed.

  Time spent reading this book will challenge marketing experts to deliver messages that are relevant to consumers' experience and context, rather than bombarding them with their own perceptions.
  
  

• This may be first great book of the 21st Century.
  By A3T1JCYKA5OBRJ on 2003-01-22
  Wittgenstein said: "An 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria" (PI1,580). Well, we have it now! Lets face it! Customers are the most opaque problem we have. How do we develop, promote and sale our products in a highly aggressive and competitive world, if we do not have any insights into how customers make the choices they do. Certainly focus groups, refined listening and the staggering advances in statistical techniques have been some help. But for the most part they have added to the noise and we are no better off than our mentors who grew up in the world of mass marketing. Now we have a truly 'new' and finely tested way to know the customer. Zaltman's book is the culmination of his valuable insights and just plain, sound inter-disciplinary thinking at the Mind of the Market Lab at Harvard. If you do not read this book, you will live to regret it! This is certainly the first great marketing book of the 21st century. Get It!
  
  
• waste of money and time
  By A3ZI48D8B655T on 2006-01-18
  what a load of rubbish - I very rarely give bad feedback as I know that it is easy to criticise BUT really this book is absolute rubbish. Claims are made but not substantiated, putting a reference does not validate a claim. The title is attractive and the summary compelling but the actual content insults any experienced marketing, or for that matter any business, reader's intelligence. If you want a laugh go to page 31 where the author says ""What happens when a "marketer pyramid" and a "consumer pyramid" come together...The result appears in figure 2-2". Figure 2-2 shows two triangles with lines joining bits up BUT there is absolutly no content!!! - I laughed so much people sitting next to on the plane looked at me and I showed them the page. Five other people read the page and laughed at the audacity of what was being presented. I will never buy another book from HBS Press. Where is the peer review? Where is the editorial control? Heaven help us if the current and future generations of HBS graduates are being taught, and accept(!) this garbage.
  
  
• Advertising and Neurology Brought Together
  By A3F7RG1ORJFAJW on 2004-02-12
  With the advances made in the last 15 years on brain research and understanding, creating advertising is a whole new ballgame.

  Consumers conscious thoughts are only 5% of their thinking, so it is often that most research doesn't address the incredibly important 95%. Zaltman explains how to do it and how to do it effectively, of course plugging his own firm here and there.

  Being in a big ad agency, I know that most work isn't produced with solid research behind it, but instead for a client who has "dictated" what the advertising needs to do or how it should appeal to consumers. The best account planners and managers can take the knowledge from this book and guide their clients to understanding the benefits of this type of research (through ROI) and ultimately achieve better results.
  
  

• Two Steps Forward - no steps back
  By A2ONMSB73W0XXA on 2003-03-17
  I am a man of few words, and I believe marketing should also work in few words. Gerald Zaltman has captured fundamental marketing insights in precise terms. He has one foot in the here-and-now of marketing and one foot in future.

  It's well worth the read.

  Eric Masi
  Torque
  
  

• Before you buy, know this...
  By on 2003-05-20
  The technique that the author discusses in this book, known as ZMET (the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique) is patented. It is owned by a private research and consulting firm, Olson Zaltman Associates, and must be licensed through them. While this book was definitely interesting and provides a unique approach to marketing research, I can't help but question how much of this book is genuine, impartial knowledge and how much of it is an advertisement for the technique.
  
  
• Insights into the Mind of the Market
  By A23SB6VGGB9E8U on 2003-06-30
  Every marketing manager wants to understand the consumer's thought process. Yet few succeed.

  That is Gerald Zaltman, a professor of marketing at Harvard Business School and a fellow at Harvard University's interdisciplinary Mind, Brian Behavior Initiative, message in this fascinating book. Marketers would like to think they control the image of their brands, but in reality it is brain and the mind of the consumer that controls an individual's brand perception.

  To be effective, the author says, new marketing strategies will have to add neurology, musicology, philosophy and zoology to anthropology, psychology and sociology they currently use.

  Many marketing managers handicap themselves by clinging to the following ideas:
  * Consumers think in a rational way. In reality, Zaltman says, the selection process is affected by emotion, the subconscious and physical context.
  * Consumers can explain their behavior. The Harvard professor says that after the fact attempt attempts to make sense of their behavior, but rarely explain its controlling factors.
  * Consumers' mind, brain, body and culture can be studied independently. The best information, he says, from studying their interaction.
  * Memories accurately represent their actions. He notes their memories change with time.
  * Buyers think in words. Not true, says the professor. Their words expressed in surveys and focus groups come only after they consciously opt to express their unconscious thoughts.
  * Consumers interpret marketing messages the ways marketers intend them. Since consumers do not think in words, a clever message does not guarantee a message will be absorbed.

  Time spent reading this book will challenge marketing experts to deliver messages that are relevant to consumers' experience and context, rather than bombarding them with their own perceptions.
  
  

• THOUGHT-PROVOKING INSIGHTS ON METAPHORICAL MARKETING
  By A1L8HRCM60W0W7 on 2003-11-05
  To summarize broadly, Zaltman's work is multi-disciplinary -- it scuttles through neuroscience, psychology, surrealistic art, marketing etc. -- and offers a viewpoint that the strip-mining form of quantitative market research that is predominant in our businesses fails to uncover a lot of hidden (or tacit, or latent) forms of consumer thought.

  Through an array of exciting examples of his own work, he builds a theory of information processing and thought formation in the human brain. This romp through a coterie of different fields is gratifying, as is Zaltman's captivating writing style.

  I bet you will come away with some thought-provoking ideas. For instance, there's a suggestion that you could segment your markets along entirely new lines. Among other things, brain scans could be used to classify your customer base into people who prefer visual communications and those who prefer auditory ones, and then target the first group with a newspaper display ad and the second with a radio spot.

  But now for my paltry quibbles. While I adore the way the theory is constructed, I do not entirely agree with the author's ideas. Some ambiguous findings are shrugged off with "Qualitative research is not a replacement, it is complementary." The truth in some of the cases is that all his metaphorical attempts with showing of eccentric visuals etc do not always lead to any more exhilerating insights than could have been attained through other forms of research, or plain gut instinct.

  For instance, consider his study of executive MBA students at Harvard Business School who were questioned: "What do you mean by customer focused?" Part of the answer: It means collecting information, analyzing data, anticipating customer needs - all exactly what customer-service gurus advise. But further elicitation revealed another part of the answer: Being customer-focused means having integrity, caring about customers in an authentic way, being a company worthy of trust. This leads Zaltman to the conclusion that "The executives were surprised by how much of their individual thinking was shared by others, although they had never discussed these things with anyone."

  I am not sure how "having integrity, caring about customers, being a company worthy of trust" translates into something seminal?

  This is not to trivialize the impact of this book. I love it. I love the WAY in which the theory is constructed. Chances are you will indeed be goaded into thinking of issues pertinent to your function and gain a good deal of insight into how human beings assess and operate (spoiler: in images, not in linguistically confined words.)

  I recommend this book wholeheartedly, perhaps even a must-read book for anyone involved in psychology or strategy, but just keep your reality hats on.
  
  

• Brilliant insight. Required reading for all marketers!
  By A2VR67M2Z31CRH on 2005-04-25
  REVIEW SUMMARY: "How Customers Think" will help you peer into the mind of your market in a way you never thought possible. It is new, fundamental, and essential for any marketer who wants to succeed. . In very understandable language the author explains how buying decisions are influenced by the complex interactions between mind, brain, body, and society. We also learn how the minds of marketers can distort their perceptions of customer's responses. Zaltman introduces the technique of metaphor elicitation to uncover and truly understand consumer wants and needs. This technique encourages consumers to use metaphors in talking about companies, brands, products, needs, etc. The author reports that by one estimate, we employ nearly six metaphors per minute of spoken language. Why? Because they facilitate the making of connections, helping humans understand the world that surrounds us. Metaphors, as defined by the author, are essential for understanding and communicating with the market (and all human interatcions for that matter). The book is important, interesting, applicable, and a pleasure to read
  
  
  FULL REVIEW: It is a fantasy that many of us have experienced at some time in either our personal or professional lives: being able to peer inside someone else's mind to learn what exactly that person is thinking. The ability to understand another person's thinking, and the reasons for the thought process, has an enormous potential to reduce the friction inherent in human interactions. Imagine how it would reduce communications friction between you and your significant other if you could know exactly what your partner wants, and exactly why he/she wants it. With this information we could tailor our communications and interactions so that both parties get what they want and both are satisfied with the process.
  
  Marketing, in essence, is about understanding the needs of a group of people called a market, creating a valuable solution to address the market's needs, communicating the differentiate value you have created, and pricing it in such a way as to induce a transaction where both parties are satisfied.
  
  Zaltman helps us peer into the mind of the market in this very significant book, "How Customers Think." He tells us how people think from a neurological level. In very understandable language the author explains how a customer's buying decision is influenced by the complex interactions between mind, brain, body, and society. We also learn how the minds of marketers can distort their perceptions of customer's responses. It becomes clear that not only do we need to understand how customers think, but how we as marketers think.
  
  In this book we learn some important facts about buyers and their thinking:
  
  1. Consumers don't think in well-reasoned, linear ways.
  
  2. Consumers cannot plausibly explain their thinking and behavior (because 95% of our thinking takes place in our unconscious).
  
  3. Consumer's mind, brains, bodies, and culture can only be studied in relation to each other.
  
  4. Consumer's memories may not accurately reflect their experience and those memories can change over time.
  
  5. Consumers do not think primarily in words. The unconscious mind reveals itself as metaphors (similes, analogies, allegories, personifications, and proverbs).
  
  6. Customers rarely can absorb a company message and interpret it correctly. They constantly reinterpret these messages in terms of their own unique experiences.
  
  If consumers don't think in linear ways, 95% of their mental processing is unconscious, their memories are malleable, they don't think in words, and they reinterpret our marketing messages, how are we to understand them? Zaltman recommends the technique of metaphor elicitation to uncover and understand consumer wants and needs. This technique encourages consumers to use metaphors in talking about companies, brands, products, needs, etc.
  
  A metaphor is a figurative language, referring to the representation of one thing in terms of another. The author reports that by one estimate, we employ nearly six metaphors per minute of spoken language. Why? Because they facilitate the making of connections, helping us understand the world that surrounds us.
  
  Need an example of using a metaphor to communicate an abstract concept? Most people have never tasted frogs' legs, but they have an idea of what they taste like because they have been told they taste like chicken.
  
  You will have to read the book to learn more about metaphor elicitation and how to use the data to more effectively market to your target segments. Or, to use a metaphor, Zaltman's book will be the key to unlocking the treasure chest of new information on communicating with your target market.
  
  Of course, nothing is perfect and How Customers Think is no exception. The part on consensus maps could have been expanded while the section titled "The 10 Crowbars for Creative Thinking" could have been left out and covered in a separate article. And it's not a "how-to" book that will give you steps by step instructions for metaphor elicitation. Nor should it be, this book is an excellent introduction to an important and complex new marketing tool.
  
  Bottom line: An excellent book with brilliant insight. It left me breathless as new and useful insights were revealed on almost every page. I was glued to the book as if it was a best selling mystery novel(Use of metaphors intentional!)
  
  
  
• Turgid
  By A26BZF4VGX91HI on 2005-08-04
  I'm an avid reader of business and marketing books, but I found this turgid. I've actually given up. I can tell there are some interesting thoughts in there, but my eyes just glaze over. Could be just me.
  
  
• How Marketing and Consumers' Minds Interact: A New Paradigm
  By A26JGAM6GZMM4V on 2003-06-04
  In recent months, I have read a number of excellent books on the general subject of marketing or on the more specific subject of branding/brand management. I think each of them would be invaluable, not only to those entrusted with marketing responsibilities but to all other decision-makers within any organization, regardless of size of nature. For example, Jeff Fox's How to Become a Marketing Superstar and Seth Godin's Purple Cow.

  This book is certainly outstanding but I recommend it only to those who are (a) corporate marketing managers, (b) principals, account supervisors, and account managers in advertising agencies, and (c) students enrolled in MBA programs, preferably if read in combination with Joseph Murphy's The Powers of Your Subconscious Mind. Zaltman makes significant demands on his reader as he explores with meticulous care how all people (not only customers) function both on the conscious and subconscious level. He identifies and applies a number of key terms such as cognitive unconscious, metaphor elicitation, response latency, and neuroimagining. He explains the Metaphor-Elicitation process, how to use a Consensus Map, and memory's "fragile power." For me, some of the most interesting and most valuable material is provided in Chapter Nine ("Memory, Metaphor, and Stories") and Chapter Ten ("Stories and Brands"), in part because I am especially interested in organizational symbols, rituals, and traditions. Zaltman shifts his and his reader's attention to "Crowbars for Creative Thinking" (a terrific chapter title) following by the final two chapters in which he (somehow) reviews and then integrates all of his key concepts while explaining how and why "Quality Questions Beget Quality Answers" and how to launch a "New Mind-Set."

  I hope you have noted my frequent use of "how to" while briefly reviewing the range of subjects embraced by Zaltman's own intellect as he takes a "frank" look at the state of marketing today, introduces and analyses a "new paradigm" through examples of "how companies today apply the paradigm's principles, with remarkable results," and (in Part III) expands the perspective beyond customers' and consumers' thinking. Specifically, Zaltman shows managers ten ways to "break out of the box" when thinking about consumers and marketing -- and how they can help their colleagues to do the same. In Chapter 12, he suggests that new ways of thinking begin with better ways of asking questions and offers eight guidelines. Then in Chapter 13, Zaltman offers a word of caution about regressing into "business as usual" attitudes and practices, to what Jim O'Toole has characterized as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." Zaltman views his book as a "starting point" for better representing (and understanding) the "mind of the market," which is to say both the conscious and subconscious mind of the given customer or consumer.

  Zaltman's reference to a "starting point" can be interpreted in quite different ways. Some may conclude that he is suggesting that his book offers an appropriate "starting point" for those in need of books about marketing. In m y opinion, that is not his intention. (My own recommendations would be Theodore Levitt's The Marketing Imagination, Ries and Trout's Positioning, and Harvard Business Review on Marketing. After a careful reading of those two volumes, Zaltman's book will be much more accessible.) Rather, I think Zaltman's use of the term "starting point" has quite a different purpose: To suggest (and I agree) that mankind's efforts to understand what the mind is, how it works, etc. have only just begun...especially with regard to efforts to understand how and why customers think. Our "voyage from the familiar" has only begun.

  This is one of several books I felt obliged to re-read at least once before attempting to formulate a review of it. (Others include Edelman's Bright Air, Brilliant Fire and Pinker's How the Mind Works.) Earlier, I suggested that this brilliant but challenging book would be of greatest value to those who are (a) corporate marketing managers, (b) principals, account supervisors, and account managers in advertising agencies, and (c) students enrolled in MBA programs. I'll go with that, taking this opportunity to thank Gerald Zaltman for a uniquely thought-provoking as well as informative intellectual experience. How well I apply what I think I have learned from him has yet to be determined. Frankly, my own journey of discovery is only at its "starting point."
  
  

• Essential for MBAs
  By A1SAOBADLQMGWJ on 2003-05-02
  I was captivated by this book immediately and have integrated it into my summer executive MBA class. This is a bold and provocative book. Zaltman challenges the traditional assumptions that have guided both applied marketing research and theoretical consumer research, particularly in his discussion of the role of the subconscious. He effectively builds a bridge between practice and theory by showcasing the relevant research on the mind/brain interface and providing strategic applications for managers.

  Executive MBAs are often hard to impress, but I expect that this book will excite their thinking and change how they view their consumers. The real-world examples will be particularly useful for bringing home the major ideas to them.

  I have read many managerial/marketing books and have been disappointed by the superficial nature of their content, the abstractness of their ideas, and their lack of breakthrough insights. Zaltman's book, in contrast, presents a deep theoretical and practical background and through his discussion of his consulting projects provides concrete suggestions for how managers might act under these new assumptions regarding the mind/brain.

  Executive students are often hard-pressed for time, and this book, while being thorough, is something that they will be able to read and digest in short time periods. This is the first time I will use a book in addition to the traditional text and am expecting great results. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in how this worked out (later in the summer of 2003).

  [name] [website]
  
  

• Incredible
  By on 2003-11-11
  This is by far the most revolutionary book on marketing to be released to the public in the past two decades. Frankly, I was astonished as to the level of depth and detail Zaltman revealed into his methods. Backed with hard data, validated by huge windfall profits where implemented, and celebrated by Fortune 50 firms, How Customers Think will transform your perceptions of business marketing strategy.
  
  
• Highly Recommended!
  By A1NATT3PN24QWY on 2005-06-22
  In this thoroughly researched, documented, footnoted book, author Gerald Zaltman opens a gateway into a deep, fertile field for marketing professionals. After a thorough review of traditional marketing research techniques based on the abysmal failures of consumer surveys and focus groups, Zaltman addresses the importance of the subconscious in framing consumer attitudes and behaviors. He cites a wide variety of interdisciplinary sources, including results from biochemical research about brain function. This is definitely not a light read, but it has insight and offers great potential for dedicated, large corporation marketers who have a background in behavioral science. While the book is interesting and challenging, it is also dense and sometimes repetitive. The book explores an interesting metaphysical discussion and uses apt case studies to drive home key points, yet its practical application is open to discussion. For instance, how can marketers practically find the intersection between their subconscious and the consumer's subconscious, as Zaltman suggests? We recommend this thought-provoking work to all research-oriented marketing executives.
  
  
• Watered down with....
  By ASYKTK1W9TIAT on 2006-02-19
  This book has some good concepts, but the majority of the text deals with the workings of the brain, neurophysiology and neuropsychology. The book is entirely mislabeled as a business/marketing book when only 10% of the overall text addresses business, marketing or even consumer science. It is a cleverly disguised neuropsychology book.
  
  
• Customers can't tell you what they can't tell you
  By A2P7W1QQNR37IR on 2006-04-13
  Why do I like fast cars? If you ask me, I'll tell you that as a purely rational man, I read the automotive press, can speak intelligently about my Quad Four engine and my Northstar System, and always make highly intelligent buying decisions. The reality is that forty years ago, I was standing in front of the Dart Drug in NW Washington, DC, and I was holding my father's hand at the curb in the parking lot when a red convertible flew past us driven by guy in sunglasses with a big smile and next to him was a beautiful, laughing girl. My father looked down at me and said, "son, do you know who that was? That was Sonny Jurgenson, the quarterback of the Washington Redskins." He said it with respect, and my father wasn't a very gushy kind of guy. And that's the real reason I like fast cars.
  
  What goes on deep in the subconscious is where the real truth lies and often it can only be reached by deep metaphor elicitation. The above only came back to me when reading this book and considering deep metaphor in my own frame of reference. I've used Olson Zaltman Research and the techniques work -- his isn't the only way to get at this type of data, but it works.
  
  The book makes several other important points, including his lambasting of focus groups -- deadly accurate -- and very truthfully pointing out that the vast majority of research is done purely to support decisions that have already been made.
  
  How Customers Think is very much worth reading for anyone in the marketing profession who is a buyer, consumer, or provider of marketing research. I'd like to think that this kind of book can help resurrect a profession that has damaged its reputation from years of corner cutting and avoiding heavy lifting. If marketing spent more time being a science and less time manipulating fluff and personal opinions, you'd see CMO's keeping their jobs longer.
  
  
• By page 40, I was writing memos from the ideas seen.
  By AM3XXUA0H8P46 on 2003-05-22
  Buy this book. I rarely (well outside Michael Porter's early books) say this but I am serious.

  By page 40, (and it was a winter Saturday night) I had already used the information to start sending emails to my team on the insights into how people see ideas about products rather than how they communicate to you about these same products. Our memories are open to change and while we use words to tell each other about products, we think and decide in metaphors which like memories are open to change and enhancement.

  This is a clever book of insights. They are presented for you to assess but not overly presented such that you get the idea and your answer (or their guess) on the same page. It assumes a critical and able reader, and it needs imagination to secure the best out of of the book.

  Well worth the cost and I suggest you will read it several times.
  
  

• Simply a good book
  By on 2003-09-09
  I have just spent a few days finished "How Customers Think" and it provides thought provoking insights that can not be ignored. Lots of intersting ideas.The author challenges us to understand the deeper "meaning" and he achieves this is with a style that a true master brings to their choosen profession. I also finished High Intensity Marketing by Idris Mootee, another excellent marketign resouce book abd very up-dated.
  
  
• Does not deliver ...
  By A64YXSVMJZA1F on 2007-03-14
  In one way I enjoyed reading the book as it pulled together various studies and experiments related to aspects of cognitive psychology and the use of some techniques (e.g. metaphors), but in the end the book simply does not deliver on the title.
  
  For me, the failure of the book is that it does not propose any coherent, overall model of "How Customers Think" (or more importantly ... how purchase decisions are sub-consciously arrived at), just simply some interesting observations on different aspects of thought with little or not integration. I suspect that most people would read the book and think "interesting ... but what the heck do I do now?"
  
  I'm waiting for a better book on the subject to come along ...
  
  
  
• Brand, Emotion , Listening , Usefulness
  By A5WMBIOGE8Q6N on 2007-04-04
  1. Rohit Deshpade noted that over 80 percent of all market research serves mainly to reinforce existing conclusions, not to test or develop new possibilities. Managers act as if endorsing current views merits 80 percent of their resources.
  2. Recent studies of the effects of brain lesions demonstrate that when neurological structures responsible for either emotion or reasoning sustain damage, the affected individuals lose their ability to make the kinds of sound decisions permitting a normal life.
  3. The operation of our memory and emotions occurs below our threshold of awareness. Why do people purchase expensive things? One answer reveals an important feeling relating to self-esteem. Once realized the company strengthens its relationships with the purchasing agents by acknowledging the feeling most closely related to self-esteem during sales calls.
  4. The Western view of the mind states the mind does not exist absence the brain, body, and society.
  5. Emotion allows the mind to reorganize, innovate, and produce something better and more useful. Memories are metaphors. People generally do not think in words, they think in metaphors. Metaphors help the individual to perceive the world, help to see new connections, and draw meaning from experiences. Without imagination nothing in the world would be meaningful. Without imagination we could not interpret our experiences. Without imagination we could not reason toward knowledge of reality.
  6. When customers are exposed to product concepts, company stories, or brand information, they don't passively absorb those messages. Instead, they create their own meaning by mixing information from the company with their own memories, other stimuli present at the moment, and the metaphors that come to mind as they think about the firm's message.
  7. Poor quality thinking cannibalizes high-quality thinking. Quality thinking takes time. True understanding takes time.
  8. Many consumers view their clothing as a personal container or an extension of the self.
  9. Largely ignored, are the Emotional benefits of the product or service. The goal is insightful consumer analysis feed by understanding how consumer mental activity occurs.
  10. The more skilled marketers are in listening to customers, the more effective their marketing strategies will be establishing the value of the firm's offerings
  11. The more clearly current and potential customers understand the value of the firm's offerings, the larger the top line will be.
  12. Skillful listening tells the management team how large a challenge they face, especially in terms of meeting latent needs.
  13. Michael Tomasello, states that cognitive skills have been learned fast because of social and cultural transmission.
  14. When we encounter new ideas through verbal communication, they root themselves within a preexisting system that gives them relevance. Different cultures emphasize different thoughts.
  15. 80 percent of communication occurs non-verbally.
  16. Joseph Turner, reason and emotion are not opposites; they are partners who occasionally disagree but depend on one another for success
  17. Logical thoughts are much easier to articulate than emotions.
  18. Managers who deeply understand their consumers may accurately anticipate their responses to a new product before the firm presents it.
  19. Unconsciously a buyer believes that the national brand works better and is therefore better for loved ones (severe sympthoms, self or spouse or child)
  20. Fast stimulus to messages occurs when the message is flashed subliminally.
  21. People perceive messages transmitted by a baby-faced person as more sincere because they see babies as innocent and honest.
  22. The exact same dinner tastes different depending on whether one is dining with a close friend or an unpleasant stranger.
  23. The correlation between stated intent and actual behavior is low. 12 percent of the time, customers actually purchases items that they verbal indicated that they would purchase.
  24. Customer predispositions create feelings and thoughts toward the brand and unconsciously influence their reaction to the brand.
  
  
  
• Worst book Ever
  By A1ZEXSYI04178I on 2007-08-10
  I dont know if this is a marketing book!!
  
  Too much text for less benefits
  
  Ideas are not integrated with each other specially when connecting science with Marketing
  
  Not too many marketing examples.
  
  Even the examples did not show what where the exact results of the specified theories conducted
  
  At the end of the book he fills it with text about creativity, oh please!!! this is supposed to be a book about marketing and how I am supposed understand customers not how to be creative
  
  One more thing, he argues that products are how they are perceived in the mind of the customer and not what the products are in reality. Well, this is a very old idea, maybe the writer should read books for Al Ries and Jack Trout about Positioning.
  
  
• 5 highlighters!
  By A10C8BSCOWBHK8 on 2003-03-04
  One of the best business books of all time. The author brings to light a fascinating subject that seems so obvious but has received so little attention. Mr Zaltman chooses not to focus on the famed five p's of marketing and points out that the main driving force of our purchase decisions and for that matter other decisions that we make in our lives are driven largely by our subconscious mind.
  One reason the power of the subconscious may receive so little attention in business books and courses is because it requires a solid grasp of many fields of study, including psychology, sociology, neuroscience, etc..It would not surprise me to hear Mr Zaltman, who has an MBA and a PhD in sociology, say that his PHD has had an equal if not greater impact on his business success than his MBA. Mr Zaltman stresses the importance of a diverse knowledge base and 'an ability to find relevance where others see triviality.'
  Mr Zaltman has wriiten a classic!
  
  
• Fabulous!
  By AE1O2DQ4APYRM on 2004-07-22
  This is the best book about marketing research and understanding both your customers & yourself that I have ever read. Having applied lots of cutting-edge research results from other disciplines, such as philosophy of mind/psychology and cognitive science makes this book a must read for those in today's bloody business world, not just traditional marketing peoples. Much valuable than those books with fashion titles as "experiential marketing".
  
  

• Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping
• Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal About the Minds of Consumers
• The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do
• Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die