Buyhaviour 1: Availability Bias

Are you more afraid for your life when boarding a plane or jumping in a car? In Australia do you think sharks or kangaroos are responsible for more deaths? 

Rationally we know there's less fatalities in the sky than on our roads, and that shark attacks only happen a handful of times a year. But, because we have such well developed and vivid memory structures of plane crashes and shark attacks (Thanks to the nightly news), which makes them more available to recall, we instinctively think they're more significant. 

This is the Availability Bias.

According to Tversky and Kahneman (1973), "the availability bias is an unconscious process that operates on the notion that, if you can think of it, it must be important." 

In other words, the easier something comes to mind (how available it is to recall) the higher you rate its importance.

The advertising implications are enormous. 

It means when your consumer is shopping, they aren't rationally remembering whatever unique hard sell (USP) you tried to persuade them with in your advert. They certainly aren't thinking of which position your brand occupies on a venn diagram, and they definitely aren't ticking off a checklist in their minds about which brand has the most promoted features.

They're being guided by their memory, on autopilot, and simply grabbing the brand they remember most. 

Because that brand, according to their irrational mind affected by the availability bias, is the best brand there is. 

This is big news for creatives, because when you're conceiving ideas for ads, you can forget about the hard sell, and focus on being witty, intelligent and memorable. And that's what you do best!

Also, once you understand the bias, you can use it to your advantage. It's a really nice way to tap into the 'unexpected' territory. Below are a recent series of executions that have manipulated the bias to create some powerful print ads. 

Keep an eye out for the next Buyhaviour installment 'Buyhaviour 2: Status Quo Bias', where we explore the tendency to favour the current state of affairs, and the implications this has on advertising. 

Discover more of the Buyhaviour series:

Buyhaviour Series: An Introduction 
Buyhaviour 1: Availability Bias 
Buyhaviour 2: Status Quo Bias 
Buyhaviour 3: Confirmation Bias 
Buyhaviour 4: Conjunction Fallacy 
Buyhaviour 5: The Spotlight Effect
Buyhaviour 6: The Matthew Effect  
Buyhaviour 7: Fight or Flight Heuristic
Buyhaviour 8: Imposter Phenomenon 
Buyhaviour 9: Red Queen Hypothesis 

Tversky, A; Kahneman (1973). "Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability". Cognitive Psychology 5 (1): 207–233.

Christopher Ott

Buyhaviour Series: An Introduction

These posts will single-handedly blast the bedrock advertising has been built on. This is the first post in a series that marries behavioral economics with marketing science.  

I call it 'Buyhaviour'.

In this series we'll disseminate individual decision-making biases, and reinforce them using marketing science. A marriage of psychology and sociology within an advertising framework. 

Most clients and agencies are still under the classical-economics illusion that we act rationally when we're making purchase decisions. That we rationally analyse each purchase with something like a cost-benefit analysis. 

This antiquated viewpoint has spawned the fantasy that advertising works as a strong persuasive force.

The idea of advertising being a strong persuasive force is wildly fanciful.

Some creatives place far too much import on the 'unique selling proposition'. (Biggest, strongest, longest, blah blah blah). Although the boundaries are incredibly helpful for idea-ation; strategically they're redundant.

Some strategists place too much importance on differentiation and finding a brand position. Category buyers aren't different and don't see brands differently!

And most clients and suits think that the more detail you put into a commercial, the more the audience takes out. Wallpaper!

All of these are based on the misconception that advertising is something like a sales pitch, and the audience, circa Apple's 1984 Superbowl commercial, are being attentive, edge of their seat absorbers of advertising.

In this Buyhaviour series you're going to discover how consumers actually consider brands, and the implication this has on the creative process. 

The first post is about the Availability Bias. Hope you like it. 

Buyhaviour Series: An Introduction 
Buyhaviour 1: Availability Bias 
Buyhaviour 2: Status Quo Bias 
Buyhaviour 3: Confirmation Bias 
Buyhaviour 4: Conjunction Fallacy 
Buyhaviour 5: The Spotlight Effect
Buyhaviour 6: The Matthew Effect  
Buyhaviour 7: Fight or Flight Heuristic
Buyhaviour 8: Imposter Phenomenon 
Buyhaviour 9: Red Queen Hypothesis 

Christopher Ott