Book Review: Spent

Do we really understand what motivates consumers? Do consumers themselves understand what drives them to behave in the ways that they? Evolutionary psychology is a branch of social science which argues that we have inherent underlying motives which we may or may not be aware of that drives our thinking and actions. Grounded in a Darwinian view of the world, it argues that our minds have evolved via natural and sexual selection in the same manner as our physical bodies and that the results of this evolution are powerful drivers of how we behave.

Spent: Sex, Evolution and the Secrets of Consumerism by Geoffrey Miller, first published in 2009, is an excellent and accessible introduction to this emerging field. Miller is a Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of New Mexico and he has written an engaging, humorous and insightful book on how evolutionary motives drive our consumption behaviour. Evolutionary psychologists generally focus on four core motives, namely, reproduction, survival, kin selection and reciprocation and the primary focus of Miller’s book is the former. He demonstrates how a significant component of consumption is essentially fitness signalling to attract friends or mates in a manner analogous to the peacock’s tail or lion’s mane. In an interesting cost analysis he shows that the basic essentials for life (air, water, rice) are practically free while those that signal fitness (everything from lipstick, a Rolex or an iPod full of songs) command a significant premium. Proponents of sustainability will find this argument particularly compelling as fitness signalling, by definition, has to be wasteful in order to be effective.

The core of the book then moves on to examine the central six personality dimensions of general intelligence, openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, stability and extraversion and how large swathes of consumption is driven by attempts to display some or other of these traits. At the core of Miller’s argument is that we do not need to consume in order to demonstrate these traits and that we have evolved capacities such as language, humour, creativity and kindness that we can use to display our traits. In short, this book is a potent blend of psychology and marketing and is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in either of these topics. Marketers have only recently begun to recognise the potential of evolutionary psychology but it is likely to have a significant influence in the field in the years ahead.

Look Out Aer Lingus

Last week saw Aer Lingus finally resolve its three week old dispute with the trade union Impact which had centred on cabin crew rosters. As ever in these kinds of disputes, one very important stakeholder namely the customer appears to have been forgotten. The effects of such inside-out thinking will become all the more obvious during 2011.

Throughout the dispute, Aer Lingus cancelled an average of around 20 flights per day. As a result some 22,000 passengers had their flight cancelled. That is, 22,000 personal and business customers who couldn’t make their commitments because of the Aer Lingus dispute. For a service company, this demonstrates a shocking lack of understanding of the nature of service quality. There are five key elements to service quality namely reliability, tangibles, assurance, responsiveness and empathy. The most critical of these is reliability because it is its absence that causes dissatisfied customers (its presence merely meets customer expectations). And generating dissatisfied customers at a rate of approximately 1,000 per day does not make any business sense. If you are lucky they complain and stick with you, but most simply say nothing and just take their business elsewhere. Of all the things that Aer Lingus could have done, cancelling flights should have been its last option.

But this is not the first time that one could raise serious questions about Aer Lingus’ marketing strategy. The fact that their nemesis Micheal O’Leary proudly touted many times in the media that he was standing four square behind the company on this one should have caused the management in Aer Lingus to seriously reflect on whether their course of action was wise. With their passenger numbers down by 17% year on year for January – the big winner was Ryanair as Aer Lingus customers – now no longer able to trust their airline to deliver, switched their business elsewhere. But O’Leary has had Aer Lingus playing by his rules for years and very few companies win by playing the other guy’s game. Add to that the fact that the dispute will have had a negative effect on the Aer Lingus cabin crew, the prospects for improvements in service quality (that might differentiate them from Ryanair) are not very good either. Inside out thinking might give you some efficiencies but real strategy starts with the customer!