The Hierarchy of Thought and Its Use for Marketing

 The mind is an amazing entity and researchers don't have all the answers when it comes to understanding the complexity of our internal environment. In the world of marketing, having a basic sense of cognitive science helps us to understand how such things like thought categorization can lead to real dollars in corporate pockets. Science isn't passive, its more active and can be used to solve all types of problems of which some we can see and some we are not even aware (I have a DBA so I'm applied in science and like to see how things function in their natural environments. This is why I advocate for greater university-industry-government coordination on key areas of development. Studies like this may not seem important but can be useful in innovative thought, attracting innovative thinkers, designing websites that lead to tangible results, attracting investors, etc. We exist and function more in digital world and online thought processes count.)

Thought categorization allows us to ponder the way in which people process information and recall that information for use and utility. When advertising to potential customers you will want to know how they interpret information on your website and in turn the reasoning/networks used to motivate a purchase (i.e. a purchase prediction). With a proper site you can not only attract the right kind of people with pre-existing interest but also move them down a line of thinking that leads to an eventual purchase.

Our neocortex is a computational structured prediction machine that uses conceptual thought and common sense reasoning to make decisions (Williams, 2019). We constantly take in information from our surroundings and then move toward greater awareness of life, ourselves and the world around us. This is why humans adapt to master new challenges and incorporate new knowledge into their mental banks.

There is going to be variability in terms of awareness between different peoples. This is why we have different kinds of advertisements focused on attracting certain people from various backgrounds. Different people will see different things in their environment based on their personal make up and level of development. For example, there could also be issues as they relate to intelligence and perception. If one is not exposed, doesn't have the intelligence to understand, the biological sensory equipment to pick recognize details in their environment, or is so rooted in false assumptions they may not see their environment accurately. 

As of yet we are not stagnant creatures. One can improve their ability to understand their environment, increase the ways in which they categories information, and improve the pathways for information recall. The brain is like a muscle and the more we use it, the stronger it becomes. Perception is also a learned and the more we reflect on our environment, the wider and deeper our perception becomes. We can be active or passive about our environmental mastery. You can tell the difference between goal directed behaviors (i.e. in need a new pair of socks) and non specific goal directed (i.e. I feel like I want to buy something today.)

What does all that have to do with marketing?

Our world is full of different marketing and information pieces that compete for our cognitive attention. That attention allows the ideas to penetrate a hierarchy of thought and activate associated networks. For example, you might think of red, then an apple, then your aunt's apple cider because the apple construct was associated with your aunt. Perhaps something as small as a single word or image (an associated image can be placed) pushed the association down one path such as aunt's apple cider versus the apple pie you had at a friends house last Thanksgiving. 

We create advertisements to tap into some of our inner experiences, emotions, symbolisms and feelings to produce a psychological and physical response. This is one reasons why some advertisements appeal to different ages and demographics. Thinking of how different advertisements appeal to teenagers and some appeal to more seasoned adults based on messages, imagery, symbolism and meaning. When we add further information that attracts cognitive style and personality we have deeper Neuromarketing through psychographics (The tools are different then the process). 

How do categories help marketing?

When one becomes familiar with the hierarchy of different symbols, values, and perceptions of groups and customers they can improve ROI on marketing activities through focused campaigns. This is one reason why marketers slice and carve the market. It is also why marketing has fundamentally changed in the online world. There will be the possibility of create ever so slight differences in marketing to activate specific neural networks (i.e. As a side point, this is why we want to protect data, break it into smaller storage databases, not collect some types of data and encrypt the information we already have. The era of Wild West on data is coming to a close because its powerful. There is too much important stuff out there.)

Bloom, B.S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives. Vol. 1: Cognitive domain. New York: David Mckay Company, Inc.

Daniel Williams (2019) Hierarchical minds and the perception/cognition distinction, Inquiry, DOI: 10.1080/0020174X.2019.1610045