When building a brand story, we are always finely tuning what information we should play up — and what we can ignore. This is more important than ever, as cognitive reasoning is becoming too difficult for many target audiences today because of information overload.
Specifically, a recent Newsweek article confirms what I’ve always believed about changing behavior: providing too much information can actually prevent people from making desired decisions.
Over-analysis causes paralysis
Researchers have found that we all have an unconscious system that guides our decisions. When people are faced with too much information, or a multitude of choices, their brain struggles to determine what should be accepted or discarded. As a result, they often make poor decisions — or no decision at all.
Our decision-making center also places greater emphasis on the latest information (eg, an e-mail on your smart phone or a new post on your favorite social media site). The danger of focusing solely on “recency” messaging, however, is that information may never reach the desirable unconscious level where change can start to occur.
Once more with a little feeling
When emotions are not part of the decision-making process, people tend to over-think their decisions, and that can be detrimental when you are promoting a competitive healthcare brand.
Scientifically speaking, the prefrontal cortex of the brain connects emotional feelings about choices with the output of the rational brain. Making positive emotional connections with target audiences has always been our approach to changing behavior at The Core Nation. This new scientific evidence strongly affirms our position that to change the brain, you’ve got to start with the heart.
RELATED TOPICS
Ken is a great deal more than just the president of a medical communications company. He is something of a hybrid. He’s part marketing manager, part creative director, and part copywriter. To the chagrin of his peers—but to the delight of his clients—Ken is a consummate perfectionist. As a former creative director for a high-end consumer agency, he challenged his creative teams to go beyond the mundane to produce work with real creative impact, something he’s just as fervent about today. From producing and directing TV commercials, to launching DTC and Rx-to-OTC switches, Ken brings his clients a world of experience in OTC pharmaceuticals as well as business, lifestyle, and high-end consumer products and services. Whether huddled with clients behind a mirror in a market research center in Houston, facilitating a strategic workshop in Madrid, or developing a global campaign either in the New Jersey or California office, Ken is always fully engaged, bringing “bestness” to all areas of his hectic but full life.
