Consumer Behavior

We live in an age of extreme corporate concentration, in which global industries are controlled by just a few giant firms - big banks, big pharma, and big tech, just to name a few. But concern over what Louis Brandeis called the "curse of bigness" can no longer remain the province of specialist lawyers and economists, for it has spilled over into policy and politics, even threatening democracy itself.

If today’s brands want to succeed, they have to be in the conversation, and influencers make that happen. The Age of Influence is an essential guide for marketing professionals and business owners who want to create and implement a highly effective and sustainable influencer marketing plan.

Since the Enlightenment, there has been a very simple but widely held assumption that we are a species of thinking individuals and that human behavior is best understood by examining the psychology of individuals. It appears, however, that this insight is plain wrong. The evidence from a number of leading behavioral and neuroscientists suggests that our species is designed as a herd or group animal. Mark Earls applies this evidence to the traditional mechanisms of marketing and consumer behavior, with a result that necessitates a complete rethinking about these subjects.

People buy for emotional reasons. Yet "emotional selling" is missing from most marketing. That's why so many pros are now using BRAIN GLUE™ to boost the performance of their ads, emails, social media posts, and one-on-one presentations. Based on sold-out workshops at the US Small Business Administration, here’s how top marketers turn ordinary products into blockbusters (with little or no cost)!

The Psychology of Advertising offers a comprehensive exploration of theory and research in (consumer) psychology on how advertising impacts the thoughts, emotions, and actions of consumers. It links psychological theories and empirical research findings to real-life industry examples, showing how scientific research can inform marketing practice.

No one in America has done more observing of more people than Dr. Frank I. Luntz. From Bill O'Reilly to Bill Maher, America's leading pundits, prognosticators, and CEOs turn to Luntz to explain the present and to predict the future. With all the upheavals of recent events, the plans and priorities of the American people have undergone a seismic shift.

Anyone can go online and buy a pair of pants - but the likelihood that we would do so depends to a significant degree on where we live. The presence of stores nearby, trendy and friendly neighbors, and local sales taxes play a large role in the decision-making process when it comes to buying online. Location Is (Still) Everything is for anyone who wants to understand the patterns underlying how and why we use the Internet to shop, sell, and search, including entrepreneurs, students, and investors.

After enjoying my best-selling book, How to Publish a Book on Amazon, people have sent me scores of emails asking me to write a follow-up book about how to market a book on Amazon. Many of them say that although they wrote a great book, the sales just aren't coming in. They are discouraged because they put so much work into their book. They are desperate for an answer to one burning question: How can I get the word out about my book and start making sales? I’ll give you an easy-to-follow, step-by-step launch and maintenance plan for your book’s success.

Martin Lindstrom, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, harnesses the power of "small data" in his quest to discover the next big thing. Hired by the world's leading brands to find out what makes their customers tick, Martin Lindstrom spends 300 nights a year in strangers' homes, carefully observing every detail in order to uncover their hidden desires and, ultimately, the clues to a multimillion-dollar product.

Green Giants examines nine companies that are merging social responsibility with wild profitability - and reveals the six factors responsible for their success, including: iconoclastic leadership fueled by deep conviction and a rebellious streak; disruptive innovation that uses sustain ability to spur the development of radically better products and services; a higher purpose that ignites the company - when the mission leads, profits follow.

How much time have you spent reflecting on the fact that revenues are generated by actual customers—the people who pull out their wallets and pay for your products and services? In The Customer-Base Audit: The First Step on the Journey to Customer Centricity, experts Peter Fader, Bruce Hardie, and Michael Ross start you on the path toward really getting to understand your customers' buying behavior as well as the health of your overall customer base.

Cheap fashion has fundamentally changed the way most Americans dress. Stores ranging from discounters like Target to fast fashion chains like H&M now offer the newest trends at unprecedentedly low prices. Retailers are producing clothes at enormous volumes in order to drive prices down and profits up, and they've turned clothing into a disposable good.

While modern medicine produces miracles, it also delivers care that is too often unsafe, unreliable, unsatisfying, and impossibly expensive. For the past few decades, technology has been touted as the cure for all of healthcare's ills. But medicine stubbornly resisted computerization - until now. Over the past five years, thanks largely to billions of dollars in federal incentives, health care has finally gone digital.

The Art of Manipulation offers you a framework to master powerful and practical ways to influence and control people’s behavior, negotiate better, make your pitch, and manipulate others to get what you want. The Art of Manipulation will reshape the way you think about influencing people and getting what you want. You will get tools and effective strategies - not mere theories, but real practical strategies and how-to’s to start transforming your thinking and behavior, influencing people, and thus, get desired results faster.

Play predates the development of human culture and our brains are hard-wired to use play as a tool to accelerate learning, strategically explore unfamiliar environments and develop collaborative social connections. Games are human created, formalized structures and processes designed to maximize engagement and get the most out of the "play" impulse. In fact, gaming comes so naturally to us, we don't even notice it for what it is.

Social media connected the world - and gave rise to fake news and increasing polarization. Now a leading researcher at MIT draws on 20 years of research to show how these trends threaten our political, economic, and emotional health in this eye-opening exploration of the dark side of technological progress.

Competition is tougher than ever these days and competing on price or product just doesn’t work as well anymore. So how can companies stand out in a crowded marketplace that is constantly evolving? The answer is customer experience, and the best part about customer experience is that it's delivered by human beings who are unique to a company. The Experience Maker helps managers and executives focus on customers who are already spending money with their company rather than spending more money on marketing new customers.

How much information is too much? Do we need to know how many calories are in the giant vat of popcorn that we bought at the movie theater? Do we want to know if we are genetically predisposed to a certain disease? Can we do anything useful with next week's weather forecast for Paris if we are not in Paris? In Too Much Information, Cass Sunstein examines the effects of information on our lives. Policymakers emphasize "the right to know", but Sunstein takes a different perspective, arguing that the focus should be on human well-being and what information contributes to it.

For centuries, economics was dominated by the idea that we are rational individuals who optimize our own “utility”. Then, in the 1970s, psychologists demonstrated that the reality is a lot messier. We don’t really know what our utility is, and we care about people other than ourselves. We are susceptible to external nudges. And far from being perfectly rational, we are prone to “cognitive biases” with complex effects on decision-making, such as forgetting to prepare for retirement.

Forget everything you've been taught about selling: forget the hard sell, forget negotiation strategies, forget those closing techniques. In The Inner Game of Selling, Ron Willingham debunks the familiar myths about "sales skills", showing that those tired methods are too shallow and manipulative to do anything but alienate potential customers and drain you of energy and dignity.