Why are we here?

Thank you for taking an interest in this developing blog about the art and science of people.

Who are we? What do we want? How do we behave? Why so?

We examine these dimensions in the context of our identity as consumers. Consumers are marketplace actors. Consumers are willing to partake in activities of consumption by willingly foregoing owned or managed resources in pursuit of consumer goals that are met by this exchange. Every exchange is a multi-step process. Marketers have defined this process as the classic funnel from awareness to advocacy.

In a digital world the idea of the funnel itself and the linearity of consumer journeys is questionable. Consumer insights are ridiculously hard to put more than an tentative finger one. For marketers this means more effort in both flaunting your plumage and in keeping the kill.

Consumer actions and behaviour today are harder to predict let alone influence. This is not because consumers have changed how they behave but because of the following critical gaps:

• Obfuscation of consumer signals
• Diffusion of communication capital
• Shallow consumer research

Consumers arrive at go/no-go decision about participating in marketplaces as observers, exchangers, recommenders, facilitators, influencers, shoppers and users based on two key inputs - intrinsic psychology and extrinsic influences. The field of study embedded in psychology fundamentals is consumer behaviour. The field of study emanating from collective socio-cultural experiences, the very essence of humans as a species favouring community over isolation, is consumer culture. Digital platforms and products are the new marketplace contexts for which our knowledge of both consumer behaviour and consumer culture needs refresh. The full toolkit of behavioural nudges and outcomes will emerge from a foundational understanding of people as manifest in a digital world.

This is where Ricochet Ink hopes to help.

There are two challenges: first, an inadequate understanding of foundational texts from philosophy, anthropology, sociology, economics and history that prevents us from making the connections between thought and action, between irrationality and the inevitability of irrationality.  The second is the distance at which we find ourselves from contemporary research coming from academia, a world almost insular by design. We know that behavioural economics, behavioural science and behavioural design are explaining deviant consumer behaviour. Social scientists on the other hand are understanding the socio-cultural influences that affect consumer adoption, retention and advocacy. Practitioners need to access this research and build their own toolkit to apply this research to their own unique consumer conundrums.

Ricochet Ink is my attempt to bridge this gap. The mission at Ricochet is to make contemporary research accessible to anybody who needs to engage with consumers in a meaningful way. The vision of Ricochet Ink is to elevate consumer understanding and elicit purposeful yet responsible brand action. Do engage with the material here with a keen eye, an open mind and write to me with thoughts. The ideas here are meant to bounce off your experiences and your courage in attempting small experiments with big results.

At the least, Ricochet Ink is a place to learn about the science of people. At it’s best, it is a place to master the art.

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