Closing the say-do gap

“The problem with market research is that people don’t think how they feel, they don’t say what they think, and they don’t do what they say.” – David Ogilvy 

David Ogilvy’s famous observation that people are poor witnesses to their own behaviour has hung in the air for more than 50 years. And for the longest time, market researchers were doing very little about it. 

What people say is often different from what they do. Stated attitudes differ from observed behaviours. This is the “say-do” gap — and it limits traditional market research.  

The truth is that people aren’t always conscious of the factors that lead them to their decisions, meaning they can’t tell researchers about them.“How likely are you to buy this?” is an easy question to put into a survey, but it is a poor predictor of what people do in real life.   

This is where behavioural science emboldens researchers. Research through a behavioural lens looks through what people say, to find out what they actually do. It closes the “say-do” gap, ensuring organisations make better, more profitable decisions. 

This piece is the first in a series of articles about how and why behavioural science improves market research. Over the upcoming weeks, we’ll explore: 

• The framework of human decision-making that behavioural science provides us.
• Why observation is critical and how to observe the moments that matter.
• How choice-based tasks and experiments can improve quantitative measurement. 

It is a companion to our book Closing the Say-Do Gap. Free copies are available, get yours today at the following link.