Reading Reflection No.3

Thinking, Fast and Slow: Daniel Kahneman

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The general theme of the book is the idea that when it comes to persuasion in marketing, there are two ways to appeal to people. These basic modes of thinking which can be appealed to are people's reason and/or intuition. Intuitive thinking is the thinking we do that is fast, based on emotion, and automatic, whereas rational thinking is slow, deliberate, and systematic thought. Kahneman says that the problem with marketing is that it tries to appeal to rational thinking and not intuitive, when most consumers actually use intuitive thinking to judge whether or not they will buy something. Therefore there is an opportunity to focus more on intuitive thinking in marketing, however, to do this, one must first understand the social, cognitive, and emotional factors that coincide our intuitive thought. This book covers the biases of our intuition, or assumptions that we make. Kahneman calls these assumptions heuristics, which are important to understand when it comes to marketing. 

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

This book connected in some ways to ENT3003, but even more so to a psychology or marketing class. In this class we learned and worked on mainly who we were marketing our products to. We interviewed potential customers and explained our product/idea, and determined what customers were looking for when purchasing, what they thought could be improved, etc. This book did however, enhance what we learned about marketing, by going more specifically into the way customers think when they look to buy products, and what heuristics and biases intervene when we make that decision. Also, a focus on interviewing potential customers was closely tied to the idea that in this book that, in order to market properly it is important to know what your customers are thinking and how they come to think that way.

3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

Off of the ideas presented in this book, I would design an exercise were students would have to design a market strategy for their target market of choice. It wouldn't have to be very complex; mainly they would have to decide what sources they will use for marketing (Social media, television, etc.), how they will appeal to the market in this advertisement/ marketing strategy, and then after create a hypothetical advertising message. After doing this, students must interview 3 potential customers and present them the marketing idea/message, and ask if the marketing appeals to the person, and if not what would.   

4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

The biggest surprise to me was the importance of appealing to customers intuition rather than their reason. This is the mistake that the book believes people make when it comes to marketing. When I read this concept, I thought really hard on what exactly I think of when I decide to purchase something. I realized that I do in fact, tend to mainly decide based on my emotions. If I feel like its a good decision, I will follow through and buy the product. I also tend to purchase or lean toward specific brands, and never really considered the affect branding had while I shopped. Both of these are considered to be formed from intuitive thinking. I expected most of my purchasing decisions to have been made by rational thinking, but this is not the case. This concept has made me think very differently about why I should buy something, and also what a products marketing appeals to when I see it.