Stories
Stories
The Mind Speaks, Marketers Listen
Calling HBS professor Gerald Zaltman “a maverick marketing professor,” the New York Times reported on the interactive technique he developed to gauge consumer preferences using visual images, semiotics, and neuroscience. “While the conventional wisdom in his field says to take consumers at their word — to grill them about their tastes, buying habits, and favorite brands — [Zaltman] seeks to converse directly with their brains instead,” the Times observed (February 23, 2002). The Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET), the first patented marketing research tool in the United States, has been used by the likes of Coca-Cola, General Motors, and AT&T to craft marketing strategies. “Most new products are developed and launched using focus groups and questionnaires,” Zaltman said, “and 60 to 80 percent of all new products fail.” Because he believes that consumers' deepest thoughts are unconscious and often visual, for the last decade Zaltman has solicited visual images from subjects to chart thoughts about a wide array of products. While skeptics may see the ZMET as a passing fad, others consider it evidence of a growing trend toward the use of methods that take a deeper, more psychological look at consumer behavior.