Your customers aren’t telling you everything.
They’re also not lying.
The truth is that humans often do not know what is driving decision making. In fact, 95% of mental activity occurs at a nonconscious level. This aligns with what we know from behavioral economics and neuroscience, which emphasize that much of what influences human behavior lies outside conscious awareness. When asked directly what they think, people don’t realize they only tap into a surface layer of their brain for the answer. They experience a fundamental disconnect between what they actually feel and think and what they can articulate. This gap between their personal truth and what they can explain is where brands often lose touch with their customers.
The Cost of Overlooking the Nonconscious Mind
The old adage goes, “Ask a simple question. Get a simple answer.” But humans are complex. So, when brands don’t invest in asking deeper questions to understand their customers more deeply, problems build up. One potential problem could be seeing market share decline as a competitor connects more emotionally and wins the loyalty game. Besides losing what they have, brands can also experience increased marketing expenses needed to attract new customers when it is more cost-effective to keep the ones they have. Thirdly, employees can become frustrated if they can’t deliver on mismatched brand promises, leading to operational strain. Over time, the brand’s equity and position in the market weaken when shallow connections fail to create meaningful touchpoints with consumers that drive growth and foster loyalty.
Tapping into the Nonconscious Mind
Conventional research methods, such as direct questioning and surveys, often fail to address the nonconscious drivers of human behavior. Many of these methodologies are built without a full understanding of how humans really make decisions. These traditional approaches assume people carefully weigh facts rationally, but the brain operates differently. In order to tap into the nonconscious mind to get to a deeper truth, you must understand that the brain is a prediction machine running on three key systems – pattern recognition, emotional logic and narratives :
Pattern Recognition
Customers view your brand through the lens of their previous interactions, shaping how they anticipate future experiences. These expectations act as shortcuts, helping customers move along their path to purchase but can lead to misalignment if the brand doesn’t meet or exceed them.
Emotional Logic
People feel first and think later. Emotional connections spark purchase intent and brand loyalty, far outweighing the influence of purely rational considerations.
The Narrative
Every purchase becomes part of a personal narrative. Brands that position themselves as integral characters in their customers’ stories—offering solutions, inspiration, or identity reinforcement—become indispensable. This alignment strengthens each touchpoint along the buyer’s journey, from awareness to post-purchase loyalty.
Understanding these three interconnected systems reveals the true architecture of decision-making in the nonconscious mind. People do not choose brands based on features or price points. Instead, they rely on familiar cues and deep-seated feelings alongside stories that align with their identity. When brands engage these nonconscious influences, they forge connections that transcend transactions by accessing the deeper truth of how consumers make choices that feel meaningful and inevitable.
New Approaches to Brand Building
Given the complexity of human decisions, research tools must evolve. Traditional focus groups and surveys capture only what people articulate, overlooking the nonconscious processes that drive most behavior. To build stronger brands today, we need to understand the emotions driving customer choices. We must create experiences that fit naturally into customers’ lives. And most importantly, we need to measure what truly matters – the strength of emotional connections, not just sales numbers.
Bringing It All Together
The world’s most valuable brands achieve greatness by tapping into deeper emotional territories. Athletic brands inspire feelings of personal achievement, allowing individuals to push boundaries. Technology brands spark creativity, enabling users to unlock their full potential. Luxury brands symbolize self-expression, helping customers define and project their identities. These brands succeed because they understand and activate all three systems: they build on past positive experiences, connect emotionally and become part of their customers’ personal stories.
Put Human Truth to Work
The gap between what customers say and what they do creates both risk and opportunity. Brands that rely solely on surface-level feedback risk losing relevance, while those that dig deeper to understand how customers truly feel, think and need will find new ways to grow and build lasting loyalty. Success comes down to one thing – understanding the Human Truth that drives what people do.
Want to learn more about how the human mind really works and why it matters for your brand? Watch our on-demand webinar “How Human Truth Builds Better Brands – And Might Just Save The World!” Discover the science behind decision-making, see real-world examples of brands that got it right (and wrong) and why Human Truth matters more than ever in an AI-driven world.
