'Mad Men' Revisited: The Growth of Consumer Psychology

One of the reasons she earned that respect was because her profession, consumer psychology, uses scientific methods to get results. As portrayed in "Mad Men," the consumer psychologist was a relative novelty in the ad biz of the early '60s. When Faye consumers into the agency and inquired about how certain products affected their emotions, her work was initially laughed off as a waste of time by the "old boy network." Eventually, however, they realized how a deep psychological bond with a brand name can be just as or more powerful than any clever ad slogan.

Consumer psychology is an absorbing field of study that has grown by leaps and bounds beyond the basic methods used by Faye and her researchers. Today, it's an essential part of any company's marketing strategy. In a nutshell, consumer psychology is the branch of social psychology that focuses on the conscious and subconscious influences that prompt consumers to buy or not buy products. Specifically, it studies the emotional and cognitive behavior of consumers in response to various marketing stimuli, such as advertisements, packaging design, products, services and experiences.

Here are just a few of the modern methods that consumer psychologists use every day to determine the purchasing habits of customers:

• Focus-group testing: One of the most common and oldest methods of getting feedback is to gather a group of customers, either in person or online, and ask them questions about what they did or did not like about a particular product, brand, service or advertisement. Odds are, each of the ads for major brands that you watch on TV was tested with focus groups for multiple demographics to calculate how the viewers would respond.
   
• Random sampling: To find a sampling of public that truly represents a much larger population of consumers, psychologists will pick people at random and ask questions about their purchasing habits. The goal of random sampling is to help eliminate bias. In an infamous case of sampling bias, according the American Psychological Association, a poorly conceived voter poll from 1936 that failed to select a sufficiently random sample of the public erroneously predicted that President Roosevelt would lose the election that he won in a landslide.
   
• Direct observation: In some cases, a consumer psychologist will follow a subject through the course of a day to observe his or her purchasing habits. This can be done in an actual retail setting or in a controlled simulation environment. The psychologist researcher will also ask the subject questions about why a particular brand was chosen and what emotional responses were triggered by certain marketing messages.
   
• Eye movement tracking: Influencing consumers to read or watch an ad is always important; finding out what parts of the ad they're actually looking at is priceless. By using sophisticated sensors that can monitor a person's tiny eye movements, consumer psychologists will ask subjects to observe an advertisement, a series of packaging designs or a shelf of products and determine which visuals capture the most attention.

If you're interested in consumer psychology, you'll need comprehensive training in the scientific process, hypothesis testing, experimental design, and behavior evaluation. For many entry-level positions as a researcher, a bachelor's or master's degree in psychology with additional coursework in marketing or business managementis often sufficient. A Ph.D. is not always required to practice as a consumer psychologist, but those with doctoral degrees tends to have the best chances of finding work at the top research firms, according to the Society for Consumer Psychology.

When "Mad Men" returns for its fifth season, viewers will find out how Faye responds to Don's shocking news that he's engaged. Like the ad firm at the heart of its most popular show, AMC has learned how to build consumer expectations with plot cliffhangers and delayed gratification with the much-delayed return of the show. Faye may not be happy with Don's choices in the next episode, but you can bet that as a consumer psychologist, she'd be pleased with how well AMC has influenced millions of rabidly loyal and enthusiastic "Mad Men" viewers.

_{Sources: AMC, American Psychological Association, European Sensory Network.}