Loneliness is a growing phenomenon
Let’s start this article with a fact: humans are deeply social creatures!
This means that we constantly need social relationships.
We can somehow compare it to a primary need such as hunger, sleep etc…
We are genetically predisposed to socialize and be in the company of others.
When we miss socialization (as experienced for example during the lockdown), we miss something deep and we are therefore naturally dissatisfied.
However, with the advent of the pandemic, the numerous isolations, the smart-working and distance learning that we have had to undergo during the last two years, loneliness is a feature that has made its way in many of us, especially teenagers, and is unfortunately growing rapidly.
In practice, although possibilities of meeting and aggregation are again possible, there are many people who prefer to continue to be on their own.
One might think that this “chronic” isolation is still due to the pandemic and the lockdown, but in reality it is a phenomenon that has been on the rise for years, even since 2010.
In the UK for example, a number of employees of companies have said that they feel alone when they are at work, at home or at the supermarket.
Also, for many of them, neighbors are complete strangers.
The Neuromarketing question: how does loneliness affect purchasing decisions?
This is undoubtedly the question that many neuromarketing experts have been asking themselves for a few years now. But let’s start with a figure:
It has been shown that TV advertisement of products used in the company of friends or in the family has little effect on lonely people.
That’s because they don’t identify…on the contrary, the social images of the commercials could arise inverse emotions, making the product advertised off-limit.
Therefore, if your target audience is at least for a fourth “solitary”, it is recommended to use other channels of advertisement.
In addition, people who live in solitude prefer to avoid crowded shopping malls and stay comfortably at home shopping for example on amazon.
Does loneliness lead to impulsive shopping?
According to Jing Alice Wang, Professor of Marketing at the University of Iowa is, the answer is yes.
Wang says that the lonelier it gets, the more people shop.
His research has established that loners are more materialistic than those who have an active social life.
Lonely people do not have the kind of relationship they want and therefore feel socially isolated.
They are concerned about what they do not have, and this leads them to make impulsive purchases.
On the other hand, people who feel satisfied with their social life have more self-control and are less inclined to impulsively purchase.
The purchase habits of lonely vs. social people
Unlike people with an active social life, those who feel alone are more likely to choose a product with less positive ratings.
In other words, they prefer to buy products that only the minority wants.
The perception of a solitary person is precisely that of being in a minority, as the product that just few buy.
As a result, they identify more with these products than with others.
But, there is one though! As we said above, this only applies when the product is used within its own four walls, and not in public.
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