How Shoppers Make Decisions in a Recession
In this groundbreaking 2008 book Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, Danish brand consultant Martin Lindstrom showed how neurology, as much as economics, drives consumer behavior. One of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, Lindstrom talks to TIME’s Sean Gregory, during a business trip in Thailand, about what’s buzzing around our brains in this recession.
There have been some signs, though fleeting, of a possible economic rebound. What’s the consumer thinking right now?
What is fundamentally different about the recession, except for the ones we had in the 1930s, is that we’re putting bookmarks in our brains. When icons that we defined as stable, like Lehman Brothers, fall apart, you are suddenly questioning everything around you. So consumers now, if things start to get better, will not run into the stores and start consuming like there had never been a recession. That will not happen. At the end of the day, consumers will want something practical that will enhance their lives in concrete ways. And that’s really a fundamental change from the past, right?
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