Research – and the Lack of it – Around Digital Marketing Psychology

As psychology became an accepted member of the scientific community, it was only natural that its applications were applied to a broad range of fields – including advertising and marketing. These professions are, after all, exercises in understanding and influencing human behavior.

Enter digital marketing, a specialized modern offshoot of a relatively modern profession. Digital marketers are collecting massive amounts of big data every hour of every day – and it’s all insight into human behavior. In the early days of consumer psychology, data was collected through surveys, focus groups, and media monitoring. Not exactly unbiased, uninfluenced contexts to try and make determinations about natural human behavior. But now that we have all of this pure, digital marketing data, we’ll have tons of research being published yearly about consumer psychology in the current digital environment.

…Right?

A published paper by Andrew T. Stephen, who’s a L’Oreal Professor of Marketing at Oxford, identifies the five main fields of research into digital marketing psychology, and critiques the most notable contributions in each. These areas are:

·      Consumer digital culture

·      Responses to digital advertising

·      Effects of digital environments on consumer behavior

·      Mobile environments

·      Online word of mouth

It’s a fascinating introduction for someone who wants to become acquainted with this branch of research; it’s also disheartening for anyone who is looking for more advanced research to delve into. Mobile and digital advertising are important aspects of digital marketing, but beyond these two examples there is no substantive research on specific channels and strategies.

In his conclusion, Stephen points out how the research in this field is failing to keep up with current trends. For example, he could find no research at all on consumer behavior around privacy implications. This would be an area that’s easily tested, and could have immense implications for webmasters and digital marketers.

In one of my blog posts, I discuss the ways in which digital marketers can tap into other fields of study to add new data to their toolbox. But this was anecdotal personal observation, not rigorous scientific evaluation. In a growing industry with more money for R&D than most academics, and more data available than just about any other professional field, it’s sad that research has fallen so far behind.

Maybe larger companies that invest in research are keeping it sealed and outside of the public academic arena. That would be proprietary and understandable. But in an age where there are so many thought leaders and specialized authorities, as a community a larger emphasis needs to be placed on producing scientifically-sound data on this already-ubiquitous field.