Targeting is now moving away from the individual to the crowd. From social media to real-world engagement and word of mouth, embracing communities and collective minds is proving a far more efficient way to convey a message with authenticity and build brand reputation.
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How crowds and communities of people behave is not only fascinating but also essential to know.
Especially if you run a shopping centre, stadium or train station – at Waterloo, they are currently looking at how commuters move and navigate between each other and structures. But it’s also important if you are a progressive marketeer.
And even more so post-Brexit.
How people behave as a group - Communal Economics - is very different from how they behave as individuals (Behavioural Economics).
The problem is, most data and insight research tells us the wrong thing because it focuses on the individual.
Gustave LeBon, the French sociologist, christened the term “Group Mind”, to explain the various characteristics of crowd (community) behaviour. He believed that when individuals come together, a collective mind emerges and they display a different type of behaviour than when they are alone and deindividuation occurs.
[Note: A crowd is a random collective with no real connection, while a community is a collection of people connected by one of more commonalities]
Some of the earliest exploiters of this psychology were the Nazis. They used the power of grouping people together to align behaviour and even create a sense of euphoria. Rallies become a powerful mechanism. Also, by converting the crowd into a community around the cause, it kept people in check. Dark and sinister, but highly effective.
Religious groups use a similar technique. No matter what your personal views, attend any powerhouse bible-bashing American evangelist session and you soon succumb to the mass group of followers. It’s just how we are wired, we are pack animals and, like fish, we swim with the crowd.
One of the fundamental flaws in 90% of consumer research is the simple fact it’s a collection of individual views and expression, rather than a collective view. It doesn’t really reveal how we buy when we are shopping with a group of friends, or buying within a community (small or large).
If all your mates want a pizza but you prefer an Indian, you’ll change your emotional preference and go with pizza. It’s natural to align our mind to others.
If all your neighbours own a Prius, that community will affect you choice of car.
This has been discovered as a key factor in recycling - the best way to get people to recycle is when their neighbours do so. Community is rarely well understood yet it is one of the most powerful influencers. More so than a B actor in a reality TV show.
Few of us buy solo. Women more than men shop in groups and seek the validation of others. While men, being more egotistical, worry about how other men will judge them. [Ref: Why Women Shop on Venus and Man Shop on Mars]
Even if we think we are buying as an individual we aren’t - we are still influenced by the crowd and our communities. We may think initially like individuals but we behave within communities.
The shocking thing is when crowd psychology takes an extreme turn and people start to behave in a way that is almost opposite to their normal behaviour – the Tottenham riots being such a case. Many of those arrested for looting were middle class white educated people, including a primary school teacher, who became intoxicated in the moment. Not the people you may think would do such a thing.
It also helps to explain why trends can spread so quickly.
As mentioned, a crowd is a random collective with no real connection, while a community is a collection of people connected by one of more commonalities. Give that community an identity and you have a clan (all well explained by Seth Godin).
Social media has allowed us to overdose on this group behaviour - sometimes very negatively, the most negative being group trolling and school bullying.
On a more positive note, causes, once dominated by charities and NGOs, now spring up with online crowds that suddenly galvanise entire communities. Social movements that once used rallies and group protests in the street now use online collective groups to achieve their goals.
Understanding of the difference between ‘what we say we’ll do and buy’ as individuals, to ‘what we actually do and buy’ in our group (the collective difference) is critical. It also helps to explain why some strategies that research well can still fail big-time.
If you show an idea to an individual they might tell you, “yes I’d buy that”. But show it to them with the group mind in play and then it’s the collective mind that may well say, “no we won’t buy that.”
A recent study among Millennials reveals that as a group they are likely to support the idea of better ethical products, environmentalism and stopping worker abuse, but as individuals they behave with little regard and responsibility as they buy cheap clothes they know came from a sweat shop.
On a basic level we see this with men and women and their relationship to work, family and friends. We dress differently and behave differently.
A recent study in colleges revealed that the majority of students said they didn’t want to get drunk but within a social group they did because they believed others wanted to, and so conformed.
Marketing needs to move from the collective averages of the ME to the group behaviour of the WE.
To explore the group community view, not the personal one.
The consumer is changing and developing to a group-led behaviour and to understand individuals’ behaviour we have to understand communities as a whole. To explore how to engage and influence these communities of consumers, on line and off line in the real world.
Community engagement marketing (known as B2C2) is already a growing science in the US but in its infancy here. Often confused with social media that sometimes claims the term community engagement (which it rarely achieves). B2C2 is way beyond social.
As we move towards an island mentality post Brexit, as half the voters decided to trade a big community for a smaller one, understanding, engaging and influencing community becomes even more important in creating effective marketing strategies in what will become a more competitive environment.
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Chris Arnold is a Dr of Business and co-founder of CONNECT 2 (the UK’s leading community engagement marketing agency) He is also founder of ethical marketing agency, Creative Orchestra and The Garage Innovation Lab (specialists in agile adaption and re-evolution).
He is author of Ethical Marketing & The New Consumer (published by Wileys) and has written the Brand Republic blog on ethics for over a decade as well as for Third Sector magazine, FT, Marketing, Campaign, Adage, Brand Strategy, Creative Review, Impact and numerous publications.
Chris is founder of the UK's biggest community arts festival and is involved with numerous community groups and projects.
To feedback email: vichris@me.com
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