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Why
Feelings Don't Explain Everything
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There
is valuable learning to be gained in the traditional marketing
research approach of asking consumers their thoughts and feelings
about a product or advertisement directly; however, the scope
of this learning is limited. Respondents are able to communicate
their feelings about, for example, a packaging design, because
feelings are synthesized through conscious rational thought
that is informed by social and cultural context, as well as
personal belief systems.
What
consumers cannot explain are subconscious emotional responses
that are short hand for all the experiences that have left an
impression on an individual both in terms of evolutionary learning
and life experiences. The brain activity that causes a person
to jump when he sees a long coiled object sitting in his path
before he realizes it is not a snake, or gives him a good feeling
whenever he sees a bag of M&M's®
because his mother would treat him to M&M's® whenever
he got hurt as a toddler, fall into the realm of emotions. The
person may never have encountered a snake or remember his mother
giving him M&M's®, but the mind has processed information
about each and uses this knowledge as a framework for evaluating
his daily environment. Because the areas in our brain that deal
with our emotions are not directly connected to our speech system,
this crucial emotional dimension of our decision making process
has been ignored. Our VERT methodology fills this
void by bringing understanding of emotions to the forefront
of marketing research.
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