Thinking Isn’t Always Doing

Attitudes or behaviors, which is more important? Attitudes are a person’s inner thoughts, while behavior is the expression of that attitude. And they work together, right? Not always.

Advertising Age recently reported on a Yahoo survey conducted among 2,400 men (age 18-64). 51 percent of these men said they were the primary grocery shopper for their household. If the women were surveyed, do you think 51 percent of the women in those households would say their men were the primary grocery shopper? Not likely. Behavioral data shows that men make up only 35 percent of grocery and mass-merchandise shoppers. Men are clearly doing more of the shopping than they did in the past, but their belief that they’re the primary shopper doesn’t match their behavior.

Other studies have found that most adults believe they are in good health, yet obesity is widespread and many of these “healthy” adults have chronic conditions that impact their day-to-day life.

These differences matter the most when you’re trying to connect or build an emotional bond between your brand and your consumer. To build that bond, you need to talk to your consumer in a way that is consistent with how they view themselves. What’s most important is not necessarily what they do, but what they think they do.

As much as we all want to be considered rational and objective, we are not. Every one of us is emotionally driven. We act first, and think of the rational reason why we acted later.