RITUALSTHE GAME CHANGER

Christy Cyriac

Why Rituals Stick?Imagine yourself in the shoes of Aamir Khan in Ghajini. You wake up and you don’t know where you are Worse, you don’t know your favourite toothpaste.Then you find out that you have run out of groceries and you rush to the supermarket.You are lost, because you don’t know your customary brands, Same with every other choice that you have to make in a day. i.e. your mind is now making not hundreds, thousands but gazillion choices every single day.Very taxing right.

Now think about your life.

You wake up at your home, on your own bed. You know where your toothpaste is kept.You brush the way you do everyday.Make breakfast in your own kitchen. Take a shower .Pick up your familiar set of clothes.Put on your favourite TV channel.While munching on your favourite biscuits.And sipping your favourite tea.Effortless right.

Humans are creatures of habit.It brings normality and comfort to our lives.Our brain simply doesn’t have the energy to make so many choices in a given day.Therefore we have habits concerned with almost everything we do in our lives.Habits are mostly self generated over time.

But rituals are always patterns developed by an external source, and adopted for reasons that might have nothing to do with decision making.

For e.g. blowing a candle at your birthday.

We adopt these rituals and make them habits.

And when brands also come out with rituals, they simplify our lives even more.Brands know that habits are extremely hard to change because they're so ingrained, because they're so almost-automatic.

OREO: A ritual that transcends language barriers

They have activations that revolve around just this..

Connoisseurs of Corona know the right way to drink the beer is by placing a slice of lime in the bottle’s neck.

Anything less and you just won’t enjoy the product as much and certainly not as intended. 

Ad: https://youtu.be/mEPOktV5esY

Such rituals convey added value and importance. They also convey a sense of being part of an exclusive club or family, which plays to consumer emotions and loyalties .

BUT YOU CAN’T JUST CREATE A HABITOUT OF THIN AIR

Like everything else, there is a science behind this too..

LET’S ENTER THE WORLD OF THE HABIT LOOPA neurological loop that governs your every single habit.

The Habit Loop

Cue, or trigger, that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and let a behaviour unfold.A certain sight, smell, or thought will elicit associated response. (A yellow light can be a cue to stop driving)

The routine, which is the behaviour itself.

(You apply pressure to the breaks after the yellow light)

A Reward – The final step, the reason for carrying out a certain habit.A positive reward may urge an individual to develop a habit quickly.(You may be satisfied with safety or avoiding a potential ticket)

Cue can be a location, time of day, a certain emotional state, other people, or a pattern of behaviours that triggers a certain routine.

Similarly…

Tension

Alcohol

Relief

To change a habit, you need tokeep the cue,provide the same reward,But insert a new routine.(Talking it out instead of indulging in alcohol will give you the same sense of relief)

From a marketing standpoint, having customers forgo a thought process during the purchase decision is extremely valuable. Companies can reap enormous gains by successfully identifying or creating habit loops.

Positioning products to be purchased as the end-result of a habit has been a widely used as a successful business practice.

P&G addressed habits to promote their Febreze cleaning spray back in the 90s. Labeled a “dud” after its initial launch, P&G executives restructured their product in a way that would appeal to a cue.

Research showed that their target consumer, a mother, often smiled and felt happy upon finishing cleaning chore.

From this trigger of satisfaction, they created a habit loop –“Febreze was positioned as the reward: the nice smell that occurs at the end of each cleaning routine.”

A Cue – Mothers often felt satisfaction after a completing a household chore such as washing clothes or vacuuming a room. They associated this cue with a “clean” smell, which is followed by an effortless routine.

A Routine – The act of spraying Febreze was the routine that followed this cue. This creates product use, directly relating to increased sales. Over time, routines are carried out with decreased brain activity, a characteristic of habits.

A Reward – The reward from using Febreze was a fresh smell that consumers associated with cleanliness. P&G designed the product with increased amounts of perfume for its successful re-launch. 

Oreo habit loop.

For more info on Oreo: http://www.slideshare.net/bigedk33/oreo-preso-slidesharefinal

Indian brands are not far behind..

Hallmark relies on the ritual of card giving on holidays and special occasions to sustain its brand. Conspiracy theorists claim that Hallmark “invented” holidays such as Valentines and Mother’s Day and Father’s Day so consumers would have more occasions for sending cards.

I.E. THEY CREATED A CUE WHERE NONE EXISTED.

To read more on habits

■ Keystone habits : Keystone habit is a habit that has the power to lead to the development of multiple good habits. They start a chain effect in your life that produces a number of positive outcomes. http://jamesclear.com/keystone-habits

■ http://www.npr.org/2012/03/05/147192599/habits-how-they-form-and-how-to-break-them

■ The book: Power Of Habit – Charles Duhigg http://charlesduhigg.com/the-power-of-habit/

Or watch a few videos if you are low on time and attention span…

How Target uses habits in its storesHow the Military Uses the Science of HabitsHow to Break Habits