How to Manufacture Desire
Type
the name of almost any successful consumer web company into your search bar and
add the word “addict” after it. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Try “Facebook addict” or
“Twitter addict” or even “Pinterest addict” and you’ll soon get a slew of
results from hooked users and observers deriding the narcotic-like properties
of these web sites. How is it that these companies, producing little more than
bits of code displayed on a screen, can seemingly control users’ minds? Why are
these sites so addictive and what does their power mean for the future of the
web?
First-to-Mind
Wins
A
company that forms strong user habits enjoys several benefits to its bottom
line. For one, this type of company creates associations with “internal
triggers” in users’ minds. That is to say, users come to the site without any
external prompting. Instead of relying on expensive marketing or worrying about
differentiation, habit-forming companies get users to cue themselves to action
by attaching their services to the users’ daily routines and emotions. A
cemented habit is when users subconsciously think, “I’m bored,” and instantly
Facebook comes to mind. They think, “I wonder what’s going on in the world?”
and before rational thought occurs, Twitter is the answer. The first-to-mind
solution wins.
Manufacturing
Desire
But how
do companies create a connection with the internal cues needed to form habits?
The answer: they manufacture desire. While fans of Mad Men are familiar with
how the ad industry once created consumer desire during Madison Avenue’s golden
era, those days are long gone. A multi-screen world, with ad-wary consumers and
a lack of ROI metrics, has rendered Don Draper’s big budget brainwashing
useless to all but the biggest brands. Instead, startups manufacture desire by
guiding users through a series of experiences designed to create habits. I call
these experiences “Hooks,” and the more often users run through them, the more
likely they are to self-trigger.
I wrote Hooked:
How to Build Habit-Forming Products to
help others understand what is at the heart of habit-forming
technology. The book highlights common patterns I observed in my career in the
video gaming and online advertising industries. While my model is generic
enough for a broad explanation of habit formation, I’ll focus on applications
in consumer Internet for this post.
Trigger
The
trigger is the actuator of a behavior—the spark plug in the engine. Triggers come in two types: external and internal.
Habit-forming technologies start by alerting users with external triggers like
an email, a link on a web site, or the app icon on a phone. By cycling continuously
through successive desire engines, users begin to form associations with
internal triggers, which become attached to existing behaviors and emotions.
Soon users are internally triggered every time they feel a certain way.
The internal trigger becomes part of their routine behavior and the habit
is formed.
Action
After the trigger comes the intended action. Here,
companies leverage two pulleys of human behavior—motivation and ability. To increase the odds of a user taking the intended action, the
behavior designer makes the action as easy as possible, while simultaneously
boosting the user’s motivation. This phase of the Hook draws upon the art and
science of usability design to ensure that the user acts the way the designer
intends.
Variable
Reward
What
separates Hooks from a plain vanilla feedback loop is their ability to create
wanting in the user. Feedback loops are all around us, but predictable ones
don’t create desire. The predictable response of your fridge light turning on
when you open the door doesn’t drive you to keep opening it again and again.
However, add some variability to the mix—say a different treat magically
appears in your fridge every time you open it—and voila, intrigue is created.
Variable schedules of reward are one of the most powerful tools that companies
use to hook users.
Investment
The
last phase of the Hook is where the user is asked to do bit of work. This phase
has two goals as far as the behavior engineer is concerned. The first is to
increase the odds that the user will make another pass through the Hook when
presented with the next trigger. Second, now that the user’s brain is swimming
in dopamine from the anticipation of reward in the previous phase, it’s time to
pay some bills. The investment generally comes in the form of asking the user
to give some combination of time, data, effort, social capital or money.
But
unlike a sales funnel, which has a set endpoint, the investment phase isn’t
about consumers opening up their wallets and moving on with their day. The
investment implies an action that improves the service for the next go-around.
These investments can be leveraged to make the trigger more engaging,
the action easier, and the reward more exciting with every pass through
the Hook.
Superpower
A
reader recently wrote to me, “If it can’t be used for evil, it’s not a
superpower.” He’s right. And under this definition, habit design is indeed a
superpower. If used for good, habits can enhance people’s lives with
entertaining and even healthful routines. If used to exploit, habits can turn
into wasteful addictions.
But,
like it or not, habit-forming technology is already here. The fact that we have
greater access to the web through our various devices also gives companies
greater access to us. As companies combine this greater access with the ability
to collect and process our data at higher speeds than ever before, we’re faced
with a future where everything becomes more addictive. This trinity of access,
data, and speed creates new opportunities for habit-forming technologies to
hook users. Companies need to know how to harness the power of Hooks to improve
peoples’ lives, while consumers need to understand the mechanics of behavior
engineering to protect themselves from unwanted manipulation.
What do
you think? Hooks are all around us. Where do you see them manufacturing desire
in your life?
Posted
by: Nir Eyal
http://www.actionablebooks.com/en-ca/blog/how-to-manufacture-desire/?utm_source=Actionable+Books+Weekly+Digest&utm_campaign=b60a87238e-10-4-2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3b05f78143-b60a87238e-405621049
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