Understanding Consumer Behavior with Joe Sauer of Songtradr

Jun 12

Joe Sauer is EVP of Marketing at Songtradr, the world's largest B2B music company on a mission to change the music industry for good.

In this episode of Let's Talk Limbic Sparks, Joe reveals how better understanding emotional and rational drivers of consumer behavior leads to brand preference. We talk about the importance of identifying both and why focusing on one without the other is insufficient, as so many of our decisions are a blend of the two.

Joe shares why he became a relentless observer of human behavior and how behavioral science research has become accessible for any brand leader to bring into their work. We also discuss the importance of multi-sensory marketing, including music and sound, and why connecting emotionally through brand storytelling is the most effective way to spark brand desire.

Key Takeaways and Soundbites:

“The biggest motivator in my life is the simple act of creation.”

“I ended up becoming this kind of relentless social observer. You know, I wanted to really understand quite deeply what what made some people or some things cool and others, boring or more pedestrian.”

“The biggest aha moment was was less of an epiphany and more of a growing awareness of the extent to which we're not really rational as human beings, but by the same token, we're not entirely irrational either. We are really the product of both of those thought processes.”

“Every decision has a different blend of rational and irrational influences. And if we're really going to understand consumer behavior, understand why we make the decisions we do, we have to understand each decision in its context, and really study rational drivers and irrational or emotional drivers separately, and then bring them together in a in a defensible way. If we really want to have a more profound and accurate understanding of behavior, understanding both of those domains is, is crucial.”

“I think that the core of why a lot of brands still neglect the power of emotion, because there's a sense of risk, this is something that's new novel, and let's let other companies figure it out, let's let it become mainstream before we adopt it...beyond that, though, it goes into maybe faulty perceptions about the cost and the time it takes to do these things.”

“The first way to create those Limbic Sparks is storytelling...brands have the opportunity, but they have to tell compelling stories. They can't simply talk at you, they have to engage you in a narrative. And that's something that is almost a truism in the advertising industry and yet still gets neglected.”

“One of the areas that Brands don't execute on these campaigns that don't work, which is crucial for the Limbic Spark to happen, and to actually be more than a spark to actually catch fire, you know, brand desire, is authenticity.”

“If you're going to be successful, you have to be genuine and honest, your communications have to really truly represent the brand.”

“Never stop being curious and asking why.”

Here are some fun facts about Joe…

Joe is an award-winning researcher and marketing strategist focused on understanding the implicit and explicit drivers of human behavior. He has built high-impact research organizations and developed ground-breaking methodologies from both the client and agency sides of the research table. With Sentient Decision Science, he works with senior client executives across product development, brand management, and marketing communications to drive strategic choice and action. Joe is an in-demand speaker with a reputation for innovation and thought leadership, presenting regularly at industry conferences and client events on topics ranging from behavioral science & neuro-marketing, business model innovation, and the effective exploitation of emerging technologies.