Your brand is on the tipping point as we move into a new era. Even in this time of world-shifting change, one thing will always matter: building your brand one memorable experience at a time.
Right now, AI feels like a world-shifting superpower that you’ve only recently discovered. However, the superpower you actually need to unlock is the ability to turn your audience into superfans—customers who create even more customers.
So, how do you do that?
Enter Brittany Hodak.
Brittany has worked with brands and personalities such as Walmart, Unilever, Amazon, Katy Perry, and Dolly Parton. She is no stranger to helping brands build legions of superfans.
What is her secret to turning customers into lifelong superfans?
If you want to learn Brittany’s approach, listen to this episode of The Unified Brand Podcast.
Brittany’s Links
Website – https://brittanyhodak.com
Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittanyhodak/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/brittanyhodak/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/BrittanyHodak/
X – https://twitter.com/brittanyhodak
Why Customers Really Buy: What Behavioural Science Can Teach Us About Building Brands People Choose
Why do customers choose one brand over another?
It’s one of the oldest questions in marketing, and despite decades of research, many businesses still answer it in remarkably similar ways.
They believe customers buy because they offer better quality, lower prices, superior service or more features than the competition. As a result, their marketing focuses on proving exactly that. Websites become lists of capabilities, brochures become catalogues of benefits, and sales presentations become exercises in comparison.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with communicating value. Customers need confidence that a product or service will do what it’s supposed to do.
The problem is that value alone rarely explains why one brand becomes indispensable while another becomes interchangeable.
Every industry has businesses offering similar services, comparable pricing and experienced teams. Yet some command premium prices, inspire fierce loyalty and become the obvious choice, while others find themselves competing on discounts and availability.
If buying decisions were entirely rational, that shouldn’t happen.
During a recent episode of the Unified Brand Podcast, I sat down with behavioural scientist and bestselling author Will Leach to explore exactly why people buy. With more than twenty-five years spent studying consumer psychology through leadership roles at PepsiCo, System1 Research and his own consultancy, Mindstate Group, Will has helped some of the world’s biggest brands understand what really influences purchasing decisions.
One comment from our conversation stood out more than any other.
“People make emotional decisions across the board… the vast majority of decisions are made at the non-conscious level.” — Will Leach
It’s a deceptively simple statement, yet it challenges much of what businesses have been taught about marketing.
If customers are making decisions emotionally before justifying them logically, then branding isn’t simply about communicating what you do. It’s about influencing how people perceive themselves when they choose you.
That shift in perspective changes everything.
We Like to Think We Buy Logically
Most of us believe we’re rational decision-makers.
Ask someone why they bought a particular car and they’ll often talk about fuel economy, reliability or safety. Ask why they chose one consultancy over another and they’ll mention expertise, experience or value for money.
These reasons feel logical because they’re the explanations our conscious mind gives after a decision has been made.
Behavioural science suggests something different is happening beneath the surface.
Long before we compare specifications or analyse pricing, our brains are making rapid judgements based on emotion, familiarity and perceived meaning. Psychologists refer to these as heuristics—mental shortcuts that help us make decisions quickly without analysing every available option.
If we had to consciously evaluate every decision we made each day, we’d never get anything done. Instead, our brains constantly simplify information, looking for signals that reduce uncertainty and help us decide with confidence.
Brands play a significant role in that process.
A strong brand acts as a shortcut.
It helps customers feel that they’re making the right decision before they’ve fully analysed the alternatives.
This explains why two businesses offering almost identical products can experience vastly different levels of success. Functionally, they may be similar. Psychologically, they’re worlds apart.
The Mistake Most Businesses Make
One of the recurring themes throughout my conversation with Will was how businesses tend to approach marketing from the inside out.
Leadership teams often begin by asking questions such as:
- What makes us different?
- What services do we offer?
- What features should we promote?
- What do we want customers to know?
They’re perfectly reasonable questions.
They’re also centred on the business rather than the customer.
As Will explained:
“Brands connect the most when they can talk to people’s goals—not their own goals, but their customers’ goals.”
That distinction is easy to overlook, but it has profound implications for brand strategy.
Many organisations spend months refining messaging around their capabilities without first understanding the ambitions, anxieties and aspirations of the people they’re trying to reach.
The result is predictable.
Every competitor claims exceptional service.
Every competitor promises quality.
Every competitor says they’re trusted experts.
Eventually, those messages lose all meaning because everyone is saying the same thing.
Differentiation doesn’t come from describing yourself more eloquently.
It comes from understanding your customer more deeply.
Customers Don’t Buy Products. They Buy Progress.
One of the most powerful frameworks Will shared during our conversation comes from Goal Theory, which suggests that every decision we make is driven by an underlying goal.
At first glance, those goals seem obvious.
Customers want better value.
Better quality.
Better service.
Greater convenience.
These are what behavioural scientists describe as functional goals, and they’re where most businesses focus their marketing.
There’s nothing wrong with that.
Functional benefits matter.
Customers need to know your solution works.
The challenge is that functionality rarely creates loyalty on its own.
As Will pointed out:
“The vast majority of brands talk to people’s functional goals.”
Which means most brands end up sounding remarkably similar.
Think about the last five websites you visited while researching a purchase.
How many promised exceptional customer service?
How many described themselves as innovative?
How many claimed to be trusted experts?
It’s difficult to remember because the language has become interchangeable.
Customers expect competence.
They don’t build emotional connections with it.
The Difference Between Functional, Emotional and Aspirational Goals
Where behavioural science becomes particularly interesting is what happens beneath those functional needs.
According to Will, there are three interconnected levels of customer goals, and each one represents a deeper understanding of why people buy.
The first level is functional. This is where customers focus on practical outcomes such as quality, speed, reliability or value for money.
The second level is emotional.
Here, the question changes from “What does this product do?” to “How does this make me feel?”
This is where brands begin to differentiate themselves.
Customers don’t hire an accountant simply because they want accurate tax returns.
They want confidence that everything is under control.
They don’t invest in cybersecurity software because they enjoy technology.
They want peace of mind.
They don’t choose a premium coffee because it contains different ingredients.
They choose it because it represents comfort, routine or a small daily reward.
Those emotional outcomes often matter far more than the functional ones.
As marketers, we frequently become preoccupied with features because they’re easier to explain.
Customers, however, remember how a brand makes them feel.
Will used Disney as an example of a business that has mastered emotional positioning.
Disney doesn’t simply provide entertainment.
It promises wonder.
Shared memories.
Family connection.
Magic.
Similarly, Coca-Cola has spent decades associating itself with optimism, celebration and togetherness rather than focusing on what’s inside the bottle.
The product may be the vehicle, but emotion is the destination.
The World’s Strongest Brands Sell Identity
The third level of Goal Theory is where truly iconic brands distinguish themselves.
Rather than helping customers solve a problem or experience an emotion, they help customers become the person they aspire to be.
This is what Will describes as aspirational goals.
It’s one of the reasons brands like Harley-Davidson and Nike occupy such unique positions in people’s minds.
As Will explained during our interview:
“Harley-Davidson sells the idea that an accountant can become a really rough and gruff weekend barbarian.”
The motorcycle isn’t really the product.
Identity is.
Freedom is.
Belonging is.
The same principle applies to Nike.
Nike has never built its brand around rubber soles or breathable fabrics.
Its marketing consistently reinforces a much bigger idea.
Achievement.
Discipline.
Personal transformation.
The famous slogan Just Do It isn’t a product benefit.
It’s an invitation to become someone who acts despite uncertainty.
That’s why the campaign has endured for decades.
It’s speaking to identity rather than functionality.
This is perhaps the most important lesson behavioural science offers brand leaders.
Customers rarely aspire to own products.
They aspire to become someone.
The product simply helps them get there.
What This Means for Brand Positioning
At Elements, we often describe positioning as occupying a meaningful place in the customer’s mind rather than simply claiming to be different.
Behavioural science strengthens that idea considerably.
If customers are constantly asking themselves—consciously or subconsciously—“Who does this help me become?”, then effective positioning isn’t about describing your business.
It’s about articulating the transformation your business enables.
This is where many organisations unintentionally undersell themselves.
They describe the service.
The methodology.
The deliverables.
Meanwhile, the customer is searching for something much deeper.
They’re searching for certainty.
Confidence.
Recognition.
Growth.
Status.
Freedom.
Belonging.
Your service is simply the mechanism that helps them achieve those things.
The brands that recognise this stop competing on specifications alone and begin competing on meaning.
That is considerably harder to copy.
Looking Beyond What Customers Say
If understanding customer goals is the first step, the next challenge is uncovering them.
That’s where many businesses inadvertently limit themselves.
They invest in customer surveys, feedback forms and post-project reviews, yet still struggle to understand what truly drives buying decisions. The issue isn’t that they’re talking to customers. It’s that they’re often asking questions that only reveal the surface of the decision.
Ask someone why they chose your business and you’ll usually hear answers such as:
“You offered good value.”
“You seemed more experienced.”
“Your reviews were better.”
“You responded quickly.”
All of these answers are useful, but behavioural science suggests they’re often explanations rather than causes.
As Will observed during our discussion:
“That’s not what they want. That’s what they say they want.”
It’s a subtle but incredibly important distinction.
Human beings are remarkably good at creating logical explanations for decisions that were initially driven by emotion. By the time we’re asked why we bought something, our conscious brain has already constructed a rational narrative that feels entirely believable.
That doesn’t mean customers are misleading us.
It simply means they aren’t always aware of the subconscious processes that influenced the decision in the first place.
This is one of the reasons behavioural scientists have moved beyond relying exclusively on traditional surveys. Understanding why someone buys often requires a different type of conversation altogether.
Why Stories Reveal More Than Surveys
One of the most fascinating aspects of behavioural research is the use of what psychologists call projective techniques.
Rather than asking direct questions, researchers encourage people to tell stories, react to imagery or describe experiences. These techniques allow people to express emotions and motivations that they may struggle to articulate through conventional questioning.
As Will explained:
“When people tell you stories about their life and how your brand interacts with it, they’re actually giving you a lot of great tells into how they see your brand.”
This is something I’ve seen repeatedly in branding projects.
Ask a client why they chose their current supplier and you’ll often receive a fairly predictable answer.
Ask them to describe the moment they realised they needed help, however, and the conversation changes completely.
Suddenly they’re talking about feeling overwhelmed.
Concerned.
Frustrated.
Ambitious.
Excited.
The emotional context begins to emerge.
That’s where the real insight lives.
Brand strategy isn’t built on demographics alone.
It’s built on understanding the emotional journey customers are already on before they ever encounter your business.
When you understand that journey, your messaging naturally becomes more relevant because it reflects the customer’s reality rather than your own assumptions.
Small Changes Can Have a Big Psychological Impact
One of the examples Will shared during our conversation perfectly illustrates how subtle behavioural changes can produce significant commercial results.
While working at PepsiCo, his team wanted to increase sales of bundled products—a soft drink and a packet of crisps sold together at a discounted price.
Initially, the promotion was straightforward.
Buy both together for one low price.
It performed reasonably well, but not exceptionally.
Behavioural research suggested something interesting.
Customers subconsciously associated slightly more guilt with buying sugary drinks than they did with buying crisps. The products hadn’t changed. The price hadn’t changed. The discount hadn’t changed.
Only the way the offer was framed changed.
Instead of promoting the bundle itself, the messaging focused on discounting the drink.
The effect was surprisingly powerful.
Sales increased by around 20%.
Nothing about the economics had changed.
What changed was the emotional meaning attached to the purchase.
Rather than feeling guilty about buying a sugary drink, customers now felt they were making a smarter decision.
It’s a reminder that people don’t respond to products alone.
They respond to context.
Meaning.
Perception.
In branding, how something is presented can be every bit as important as what is being presented.
The Cognitive Shortcuts That Shape Buying Behaviour
Behavioural science has identified dozens of mental shortcuts—known as heuristics—that help people make decisions quickly.
We rely on them every day because analysing every decision from first principles would be exhausting.
Understanding a handful of these principles can significantly improve how brands communicate.
Scarcity
People naturally assign greater value to things they believe are limited.
Whether it’s a limited edition product, a registration deadline or a hotel with only two rooms remaining, scarcity creates urgency because our brains interpret rarity as importance.
The key, however, is authenticity.
Artificial scarcity may create short-term results, but it quickly erodes trust if customers realise it’s manufactured.
Social Proof
Human beings are social creatures.
When we’re uncertain, we instinctively look to others for guidance.
That’s why testimonials, client logos, Google reviews and case studies continue to influence buying decisions so strongly.
People often aren’t looking for the best decision.
They’re looking for reassurance that they’re making a safe decision.
Seeing that hundreds—or even thousands—of others have already chosen a business reduces perceived risk.
It’s why social proof remains one of the most powerful forms of persuasion available to marketers.
Familiarity
Perhaps one of the most overlooked principles in branding is simple familiarity.
Psychologists call this the mere exposure effect.
The more often we’re exposed to something, the more positively we tend to feel about it.
This doesn’t mean repeatedly shouting the same sales message.
It means consistently showing up with valuable insights, useful content and recognisable branding.
Trust is rarely built through a single campaign.
It’s built through repeated positive experiences over time.
That’s one of the reasons content marketing, thought leadership and consistent brand identity remain such valuable long-term investments.
Every interaction strengthens a mental association.
Eventually, familiarity becomes trust.
Three Questions Every Business Should Ask Its Customers
Towards the end of our conversation, Will shared one of the simplest—and most valuable—frameworks in behavioural marketing.
Rather than asking customers why they chose your business and stopping there, he suggested asking three progressively deeper questions.
The first is straightforward:
What’s most important to you when choosing a company like ours?
This uncovers functional goals.
Customers might talk about expertise, value, responsiveness or quality.
Useful information, certainly—but only the beginning.
The second question goes deeper.
If you received all of those things, how would that make you feel?
Now the conversation begins to shift.
Instead of talking about services, customers begin talking about emotions.
Confident.
Secure.
Supported.
Optimistic.
In control.
These emotional outcomes are often where the strongest brand positioning begins to emerge.
Finally comes the question that many businesses never think to ask.
If you consistently felt like that, what would it allow you to become?
It’s an incredibly powerful question because it uncovers aspiration rather than satisfaction.
People rarely aspire to better bookkeeping.
They aspire to becoming confident business owners.
They don’t aspire to legal documents.
They aspire to protecting their family or growing their company with confidence.
They don’t aspire to better branding.
They aspire to building businesses that customers remember, trust and recommend.
As Will explained:
“If you can get to what your customer wants to be on their best day, you’ve figured out where your brand fits.”
That’s the point where branding moves beyond communication and begins to influence identity.
Behavioural Science Reinforces Great Brand Strategy
One of the reasons I found this conversation so compelling is that it reinforced something we’ve long believed at Elements.
Branding isn’t about creating a better logo.
It isn’t about choosing colours or writing clever taglines.
Those things matter, but they’re expressions of strategy rather than the strategy itself.
The real work begins much earlier.
It starts with understanding the people you’re trying to serve.
What are they trying to achieve?
What anxieties keep them awake at night?
What future are they trying to create?
How do they want to be seen?
Answer those questions well and almost every branding decision becomes easier.
Your positioning becomes clearer.
Your messaging becomes more compelling.
Your content becomes more relevant.
Even your visual identity begins to carry more meaning because it’s built on genuine psychological insight rather than personal preference.
The strongest brands don’t simply communicate who they are.
They reflect who their customers want to become.
The Future of Behavioural Marketing
Towards the end of our conversation, I asked Will what he sees on the horizon for behavioural science.
His answer wasn’t about another psychological framework or a new marketing model.
It was artificial intelligence.
Not AI as a content generation tool, but AI as a way of understanding customers more deeply than ever before.
Will described how his company, Mindstate Group, is developing emotionally intelligent customer personas—digital representations of audiences built around behavioural science rather than simple demographics. Instead of asking, “What would our customer say?”, these models aim to answer a more valuable question:
“How would our customer think?”
It’s a fascinating shift.
For years, businesses have relied on surveys, interviews and historical data to make marketing decisions. Increasingly, AI may help marketers test messaging, explore ideas and evaluate creative work through the lens of customer psychology before campaigns ever go live.
As exciting as that sounds, I don’t believe technology changes the fundamental challenge.
It simply gives us better tools.
The businesses that will benefit most from AI won’t necessarily be those creating the most content or automating the most processes. They’ll be the organisations that already have a deep understanding of their audience and use AI to amplify that understanding.
Technology can accelerate insight.
It can’t replace empathy.
Behavioural Science Doesn’t Replace Brand Strategy—It Strengthens It
Throughout my conversation with Will, one thing became increasingly clear.
Behavioural science isn’t an alternative to good brand strategy.
It’s evidence that good brand strategy works.
At Elements, we often talk about building brands from the inside out. Before choosing colours, writing messaging or designing a website, we focus on understanding the business, its audience and the position it should occupy in the market.
Behavioural science provides another lens through which to view that work.
It reminds us that brands don’t exist simply to communicate information.
They exist to reduce uncertainty.
To create familiarity.
To inspire confidence.
To help customers feel that choosing one business over another is the right decision—not just logically, but emotionally.
That’s why the strongest brands rarely compete on features alone.
Features can be copied.
Pricing can be undercut.
Technology eventually catches up.
Meaning is much harder to imitate.
When a business owns a distinctive position in the minds of its audience, every marketing activity becomes more effective because it’s reinforcing an existing belief rather than trying to create one from scratch.
That’s the difference between attracting attention and earning preference.
So, Why Do Customers Really Buy?
After an hour speaking with one of the world’s leading behavioural scientists, the answer feels surprisingly simple.
People buy products that solve problems.
But they choose brands that help them become the person they want to be.
That aspiration may be obvious or subtle.
A business owner doesn’t just want accounting software—they want confidence in their numbers.
A parent doesn’t simply buy life insurance—they buy peace of mind.
A growing company doesn’t invest in branding because it wants a better logo. It invests because it wants to be recognised, trusted and chosen in a crowded market.
The product or service is rarely the end goal.
It’s the bridge between where customers are today and where they want to be tomorrow.
That’s why the most successful brands don’t begin by asking:
“What do we sell?”
They ask:
“What transformation do we help create?”
Everything else flows from there.
Questions Every Brand Leader Should Be Asking
Before reviewing your website, launching your next campaign or rewriting your messaging, take a step back and ask yourself:
- Are we communicating features, or are we communicating outcomes?
- Do we understand what our customers are trying to achieve beyond the immediate purchase?
- How do we want people to feel after interacting with our brand?
- If our customers succeed because of us, who do they become?
- Does our positioning reflect that transformation, or are we simply describing our services?
These aren’t marketing questions.
They’re strategic questions.
Answer them well, and every aspect of your brand—from your messaging and website to your content and customer experience—becomes clearer and more compelling.
Key Takeaways
If you’re only communicating what your business does, you’re leaving value on the table.
Behavioural science shows us that customers don’t make decisions in the neat, logical way many businesses assume. They weigh emotion alongside evidence, identity alongside functionality and aspiration alongside practicality.
The brands that thrive understand this.
They don’t simply explain their products.
They explain the future those products make possible.
As Will Leach put it:
“Brands connect the most when they can talk to people’s goals—not their own goals, but their customers’ goals.”
Perhaps that’s the biggest lesson of all.
Strong brands aren’t built by talking more about yourself.
They’re built by understanding your customers so deeply that they begin to see themselves in your story.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do customers buy emotionally rather than logically?
Behavioural science shows that emotion plays a significant role in decision-making because it helps people process information quickly and reduce uncertainty. Logic is still important, but it often serves to justify choices that have already been influenced by trust, identity, confidence or aspiration.
What is behavioural science in marketing?
Behavioural science combines psychology, behavioural economics and decision-making research to help businesses understand why people buy. Rather than focusing solely on demographics or features, it explores the emotional and cognitive factors that influence customer behaviour.
How can behavioural science improve branding?
Behavioural science helps brands uncover the motivations that sit beneath customer decisions. By understanding not only what customers want but also how they want to feel and who they want to become, businesses can create positioning and messaging that resonates more deeply.
What is emotional branding?
Emotional branding is the practice of creating positive emotional associations with a brand. Instead of focusing purely on product features, emotional branding builds trust, connection and loyalty by aligning with customers’ values, aspirations and identity.
Why is brand positioning so important?
Strong positioning helps customers understand why your business matters before they begin comparing alternatives. It creates mental shortcuts that reduce uncertainty and makes your business easier to remember, trust and choose.
How can businesses better understand customer motivations?
Start by moving beyond transactional questions. Ask customers what matters to them, how achieving those outcomes makes them feel and what those feelings allow them to become. These conversations often reveal motivations that traditional surveys overlook.
Ready to Build a Brand That Customers Choose?
Understanding why people buy is only the first step.
The real opportunity lies in translating those insights into a brand strategy that differentiates your business, connects with the right audience and creates lasting commercial value.
At Elements, we help ambitious businesses uncover what makes them genuinely different, define a position their competitors can’t easily replicate and build brands that people don’t simply recognise—they remember, trust and choose.
If you’re ready to move beyond competing on price, features or familiarity, explore our insights on brand strategy, or book a Brand Clarity Session to discover how behavioural thinking and strategic positioning can transform your brand.
What's Your Brand Ceiling?
Take the 4-minute Brand Power Assessment and find out what's capping your growth, before it costs you the next deal.
