PENSIONS INSIGHT
Going ape for pensions
Johanna Nelson, associate director, communications at Punter Southall Aspire, wonders whether pensions communications appeal to your employees’ inner chimp
A re you a human or are you a Steve Peters, is that people are a bit of both. The ‘chimp’ side of our brain is the emotional, irrational side. And the ‘human’ side of our brain is the sensible, logical side. But they are not equal. According to Peters’ book, The chimp paradox , our emotional impulses trump our reason. In most scenarios, we react emotionally first – and only then, if we let it, logic takes over. The marketing world has long accepted the idea that people’s emotions are the stronger force and have taken advantage of this insight to sell more products, services, and even ideas. All marketers worth their salt will tell you the same thing: if you want people to buy from you, it’s not enough to explain the advantages of your product or service to them. You must tap into their emotions – make them feel the need to buy or do something, not just their logic. Can employers use this basic marketing rule of emotion to improve the way they engage people with their retirement and savings and change people’s behaviour, so they save more? And if so, how? One solution is for them to look at how other industries use this idea. Awakening people’s inner chimp The first step in any marketing campaign chimp? It’s not a trick question. The answer, according to psychiatrist
is to understand the consumer but it’s not enough to get a good demographic snapshot. Great marketers want to understand what their target audience is feeling – what problems frustrate them and what their hopes and dream are. ...awaken their audience’s inner chimp, because emotional triggers are more powerful than rational ones They also want to understand what emotions might drive them. For example, is there guilt to play on? Is there something that will shock them or anger them enough to make them take action? What might make them happy, sad, feel a sense of belonging, or gratification? With a clear picture of the emotions involved, marketers deliberately build campaigns which push these ‘buttons’. They try to awaken their audience’s inner chimp, because emotional triggers are more powerful than rational ones. When people are on the receiving end of a marketing campaign, some will be aware there’s been an attempt to appeal to their emotions. On other occasions, things are subtler, and they might receive a message that hits home without them
realising it has happened. Let’s look at some examples. Emotional marketing in action Telling everyone they should wear a seatbelt should be a straightforward message, using the logical approach. If you don’t do it, you are twice as likely to die in the event of an accident. And yet governments and safety organisations have had to resort to emotional messaging to get that message across. Typically, they show footage of someone being thrown through the windscreen. It’s the same message, but the shock of seeing the consequences appeals to people’s emotions, or inner chimp – instilling fear. Recently, in the UK, a radio campaign ran which emphasised the risk of people getting points on their license if they are caught without a seatbelt. Although this sounds like a logical message, it was designed to be emotional. The theory was that while dying felt like a remote possibility for most people, gaining points on your license felt realistic – and, therefore, scary. It’s the same with anti-smoking campaigns: no one thinks it’s good to smoke, but there remains a stubborn minority of people who have ignored the rational step of giving up and are now being targeted by pictures of diseased lungs and other gruesome images. While some research now indicates that people
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | June 2018 | Issue 41 28
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