When marketers design a marketing campaign – we typically design them for “rational” buyers. But do buyers ever act rational?

And what about us?

When we make decisions we think we’re in control and making rational choices. But are we?

Dan Ariely a faculty member at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and member of the Media Lab has launched a book called Predictably Irrational and the blog by the same name dedicated the study of behaviors. His work is fascinating and enlightening for all marketers.

PS - Dan is going to be one of the Keynote speakers at MarketingProfs B2B Forum on June 9-10 in Boston (along with David Meerman Scott) which sounds like a fantastic line up to me – I know I will be there as well conducting a panel on: Is Social Media Harder for B2B vs. B2C? so don’t forget to join us for that.

This is a direct link to the event use promo code ESPK08 to save $200 on the $1,295 registration fee (save $350 if you sign up before May 19th).

About Dan

Dan’s immersive introduction to irrationality took place many years ago while he was overcoming injuries sustained in an explosion (here is a description of his experiences in the hospital). The range of treatments in the burn department, and particularly the daily “bath” made him face a variety of irrational behaviors that were immensely painful and persistent. Upon leaving the hospital, he wanted to understand how to better deliver painful and unavoidable treatments to patients so he began conducting research in this area. After completing this initial research project, he became engrossed with the idea that we repeatedly and predictably make the wrong decisions in many aspects of our lives and that research could help change some of these patterns. A few years later, decision making and behavioral economics dramatically influenced his personal life when he found himself using all of the knowledge he’d accumulated in order to convince Sumi to marry him (a decision that was in his best interest but not necessarily in hers). After managing to convince her, he realized that if understanding decision-making could help him achieve this goal, it could help anyone in their daily life.

Predictably Irrational, is his attempt to take research findings in behavioral economics and describe them in non academic terms so that more people will learn about this type of research, discover the excitement of this field, and possibly use some of the insights to enrich their own lives. In terms of official positions, he is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and at the Media Laboratory, a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, and a visiting professor at Duke University.

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Harvard Business School professor John Quelch once said “The purpose of marketing… should be geared to changing and reinforcing customer actions rather than customer attitude.” I recently revisited this quote and feel it still holds true. But in the age of social media, it is likely to come under siege.

Within his quote is the idea that we as marketers need to focus on driving fundamental shifts in customer behavior. Using tactics like pay per click advertising, you can effectively do just that. One well-placed Google AdWords can get prospects to engage in the exact behavior you want them to! It’s short. It works. And John would be pleased!

Other forms of media, however, can no longer deliver a captive audience. Customers and prospects have plenty of reasons to dislike media these days: irrelevance, interruption and just plain clutter.

But now factor in social media. The media balance is shifting from push to pull. Content creators represent 13% of all U.S. adults online. That means command and control of exact behaviors just gets harder every day.

So to think marketers can really affect customer behavior with social media is a dangerous idea to hang your hat on these days. Sure, marketers can perhaps influence behaviors with forms of social media like communities. But to me, it seems like we are getting further and further away from where Professor Quelch was directing us.

What’s your view?