Power Marketer Q&A with BJ Fogg, PhD

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At last week’s ADMA Forum, BJ Fogg gave a compelling presentation involving beach balls, dental floss and the future of marketing. PowerMarketer finds out more.

You’ve previously said that persuading people through technology is the next social revolution. What are the biggest challenges faced by companies when it comes to using technology to change customer behaviour?

I look at this more in terms of opportunity rather than challenges but I think there are three main challenges. Number one is not diving in and figuring out how you can use technology to achieve your business goals. If you stand on the sideline and you wait and see, you will be left behind. No company has completely nailed it. Even the most prominent companies such as Facebook and Google make mistakes and are pressing forward and that is the pattern for success. If you wait until it’s all figured out and perfect, somebody else will have arrived before you and it will be too late.

Mistake number one is not diving in and figuring out how technology can help you achieve your business goals. Mistake number two is to not focus on behaviours that are strategic to your company. I strongly advocate that companies should focus on behaviours that they want to achieve. I’m not big on getting people to change their opinions or getting them to think lovingly about a brand as I don’t think those things matter as much as behaviours. My approach to behaviour design and persuasion is that you have to reduce it down to the strategic business behaviours that you want to achieve, whether it be signing up for a newsletter, sharing with a friend, purchasing a product or committing to a contract. If you focus on things that aren’t strategic behaviours, I’m going to bet against you – I think you’re going to be wasting your time. Getting your team to agree on what behaviours you should be targeting, might not always easy, but is an important conversation to have.

The third danger is getting distracted by the technology and diverting from your business goals. Technologies such as Google Plus, Quora and Facebook are just channels or means of getting the behaviours that you need for your company. You need to know what business goals you’re achieving with your social network and identify the customer behaviours that drive your business. Once you have that clarified with your team, then you can work out the channels to help you achieve that, whether that be a social network, Facebook page or online video. But you don’t start with the technology and then assume that having a Facebook page magically translates into your company performing better. You always begin with strategic behaviours.


How do current levels of technology hinder our ability to persuade customers to buy and how do you think this will evolve in the future?

I think technology has helped us buy more. From Amazon, to Zappos to Overstock, we’re all buying more products. Online reviews reduce fear and good reviews give you confidence to buy. The main issue here is that it’s still too difficult to shop online. Amazon got it right early with one click shopping and free shipping with Amazon Prime. If I need a book, or a ukulele, I can type in ukulele and it will turn up on my doorstep in a few days.

 Now a month ago, I was trying to book a ticket through Delta Airlines, and the entry process was so difficult I had to repeat the process at least ten times. It took 14 to16 attempts to try to purchase this ticket. You have to make it so simple to do what you want your customers to do. Most checkout processes are so complicated and so brittle, that if you make one little mistake, it just breaks and doesn’t account for the mistake.

 It’s important to remember that people are fundamentally lazy and want to do the least work possible to achieve their goals. If I want a product, I want to  purchase it in the fewest steps and in the simplest way possible. How will this evolve? In the future, the companies that make it easy for customers to shop are the companies that will survive. Evolve is exactly the right word – companies will have to evolve to the reality and the reality is that people want things to be simple.

 A big shift that’s happening right now is the social filtering of information. At present, through social networks, the opportunities around information come to us through our friends, and that’s becoming more and more important. A big brand that cannot get my friend to recommend me shoes is not going to succeed. In the future, I’m going to be looking to my friends to filter the products and services I want to buy more frequently. The mass advertising campaigns that are trying to spam me are going to be less effective.

 Stay tuned for Part Two of this series where BJ offers insights on persuasion profiling and its place in marketing campaigns.

Article by Neha Kale

Neha is a writer and editor for The Media Pad, publisher of Power Retail. She has a background in business, arts and film journalism and an interest in new media and digital strategy. She is looking forward to exploring how marketers are impacted by the online space for Power Marketer. Neha is a magazine junkie whose other addictions include coffee, travel and live music. She likes to run but has a long-time allergy to team sports.

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