I read an interesting article in the 07/16/07 issue of Advertising Age. The article, “Behavior Defines Consumers” by Tom Neveril of Storybrand Consulting, appeared in the CMO Strategy section of the publication.

While essentially a research-related article, I found it valuable for marketers in general to consider what Neveril writes in the context of marketing communications. He writes that it is common in his field to find dissonance between what people tell you about themselves (and what they do) and what they actually do.

He proposes that in order to cut through all the “clutter” of a description of what a person thinks about the brand or their desire and intent to purchase it, for example, we can discover the real person by focusing on actual behavior. “Actions do speak louder than words,” he writes.

The article goes on to recommend three practical approaches to gathering behavior data, defined by the elapsed time between the behavior and its recording. The best approach, he concludes, it recording the behavior as it happens, which is usually associated with ethnographic research. The reason it’s the best approach is because the researcher doesn’t need to rely on the consumer’s memory, but rather the data are recorded in real time.

In the end, Neveril reminds us that past behavior remains the best (albeit imperfect) predictor of future behavior. He writes “if you want to know how your customers will behave in the future, don’t ask for more of their opinions; just take a look at their behavior.”

I submit that direct marketers have known and leveraged this for generations. In direct marketing, it doesn’t much matter if a consumer claims to have that elusive “purchase intent” or if they are in the “consideration stage” of the purchase process. What does matter is if the consumer takes a measurable action.

Only when the consumer exhibits a behavior can a direct marketer safely measure and predict future actions. Think of it this way. Instead of asking a bunch of consumers if they’re interested in Brand X, let’s measure how many respond to an offer for more information about Brand X. In the first case, we’d know what consumers said about their interest in the brand. In the second case, we’d know consumers actively got off their butts and acted by saying “hey, I’m interested, please send me more information.”

I would argue that more valuable is the second instance where there is actual hard (quantifiable) data about hand-raisers. That’s one of the beauties of direct marketing. There’s little need to do research in the traditional sense of the word. We just test in market with real environmental variables in place. What works we keep, what doesn’t we don’t.

Paraphrasing Neveril, to know what’s going to happen, just do what direct marketers do and look at what’s happened before to determine what will happen in the future. When that’s not available, don’t ask consumers what they think they’d do. Make them an offer and see what they actually do.