Stop Chasing the "Why": Here's How Real People Actually Buy

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Stop Chasing the 'Why': Here's How Real People Actually Buy"

Podcast: Brain Driven Brands
Host: Sarah Levinger
Episode: 125
Date: December 18, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Sarah Levinger and co-host (Nate) tackle a core neuromarketing myth: the obsession with finding a single “why” behind customer purchases. Drawing on their experience with top e-commerce and consumer brands, they argue that real buying decisions are far more situational and multifaceted, shaped by emotions, context, and timing—not just motivation alone. The conversation blends actionable tactics, memorable anecdotes, and clear psychological insight for marketers aiming to build stronger, more resilient brands.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why the "Find the Why" Mantra Is Broken

• Background: The episode is inspired by Sarah’s viral tweet: “Finding the why might be the single worst thing we could have ever told marketers to do.”

• Sarah’s Argument: Marketers waste time hunting for a single universal motivation, missing the complexity of real customer behavior.

  • “There has to be one reason why people purchase from us. That's what I meant by that tweet.” (01:45)
  • Over-optimizing for a single “why” leads to tunnel vision and misguided strategies.

• Nate’s Insight: Even if you find the most popular “why,” eventually that pool runs out. Real longevity requires range:

  • “Even if you find your most popular why, there's a finite amount of people who have that why... you need to be able to sell things to people who don't think that one thing.” (03:13)

2. It’s Not "Why"—It’s "When": Situational & Emotional Context

• Customers have different reasons for buying the same product, depending on time, place, and mood.
  • “You could purchase one product for 17 different reasons at any one point... depending on the day, depending on the hour, depending on what you just experienced.” – Sarah (02:36)
• Memorable Example: Nate’s whiskey buying:
  • “When I am sad, angry, frustrated, I buy cheap whiskey... When I'm happy, I buy the nice stuff.” (04:22)
  • The same customer, same product, but motivations shift with emotional state and context.

3. The Illusion of a Single North Star

• Marketers often chase metrics and “magic bullets” that don't actually exist in human behavior.
  • “We start looking at one metric that that one just has to show us... that doesn't exist either. There is no one North Star anything.” – Sarah (06:09)
• Brand Takeaway: Brands should not aim to “own” a single meaning or idea—people’s perceptions and emotional responses are fluid and situation-dependent.

4. The Subjectivity of Brand Meaning

• Psychological Insight: We never actually experience a customer (or even loved ones) objectively—only our brain’s interpretation.
  • “You only experience them the way that your brain interprets them... your customers aren't experiencing your brand the same way every single time.” – Sarah (08:00)
• Brands mean different things to different people, even with identical products.
  • “Rolex to one guy means ten times more than the other.” – Nate (09:20)

5. Branding in the Age of AI & the Search for Authenticity

• With AI-generated marketing and “fake” content on the rise, the hunger for authentic brands is stronger than ever.
  • “I personally think that brands are going to become even more important because people are going to look for places to go to feel safe.” – Sarah (10:09)
• Recent Experience: The gap between AI-generated content (even with the best prompting) and human-written brand communication is still significant.
  • “All the humanity came back... all of that became clear and, like, I think it cut through a lot of words that just didn't need to be there and didn't speak to people's real emotions.” – Nate (11:46)

6. Tactical Approaches for Modern Marketers

• It Must Be Human Led: Deep customer understanding requires real human interaction.
  • “One, it's got to be human, led and created.” – Nate (11:59)
  • AI is “just not done yet,” and can't replace genuine connection.
• Get Closer to Customers: Go beyond digital metrics and actually spend time with your buyers.
  • “Go try to hang out with them. Put on a brand event... your brand is the least important thing in this customer's life... you need to learn the nuances about them.” – Nate (12:45)
• Segmentation by Emotion Over Demographics:
  • Sarah segments ads by “emotionally experienced avatars” (e.g., Optimizers) versus just age/gender.
  • “I structure all of my ad accounts these days to go after emotional avatars, not demographic ones.” (13:15)
  • The environment and situation drive behavior more than demographic buckets.
• Customer Journey Is Blended: Old models (top, middle, bottom funnel) are outdated—the path is nonlinear. Focus on observed behaviors and emotional states instead.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sarah:

  • “Over-optimization causes us to go after just the most ridiculous things in marketing... That's not how humans work.” (01:49)
  • “Our personalities are not consistent across the board. We all have conflicting and at times hypocritical views and thoughts and actions.” (06:30)
  • “You cannot experience one person in one way all the time. Every single time.” (08:00)
  • “If you can identify lots and lots of different whens, you can expand out quite a lot instead of just going after that one.” (16:54)

• Nate:

  • “Even if you try to bucket them by motivation, there's probably like 14 different reasons. And in those 14, there's a million different ways each of them can manifest and be talked about and be experienced.” (03:50)
  • “Each [customer type] deserves an ad written just for them.” (15:14)
  • “Top, middle, and bottom of funnel are totally incomplete descriptions for, like, how we bucket customers.” (15:53)
  • “If you are launching a thousand ads a month all saying the same thing, then you're better off just launching like 10.” (17:09)

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Audience Q&A: Personal Examples of "When" and "Why"

• Nate: Whiskey buying behavior depends on mood (sad = cheap, happy = top shelf). (04:22)
• Sarah: Coffee as both treat and necessity; Starbucks chosen out of convenience during busy mornings, but buys specialty beans at home, proving environment and situation dictate purchase. (17:52–18:52)
  • “My logical reasoning... is like I go to Starbucks because I can get it within five minutes... but at home I will... So it. The environment changes my behavior.” – Sarah

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Actionable Takeaways for Marketers

• Stop searching for a single “why.” Instead, map out the multitude of “whens”—the situations, moods, and triggers that lead customers to buy.
• Replace demographic targeting with emotional avatar segmentation.
• Invest in real customer interaction (live events, research, DMs) to understand nuance.
• Accept and plan for complexity—there is no magic bullet, and the customer journey is messy.
• Use creative volume not to repeat one message, but to address different segments, moods, and contexts.

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Key Timestamps

• 01:06 – Sarah’s “why” tweet and the trouble with over-optimization
• 02:29 – Multiple “whys” and the importance of “when”
• 04:22 – Nate’s whiskey example: emotional state influencing purchase
• 08:00 – The subjectivity of brand/customer perception
• 10:09 – The growing importance of brand in the era of AI
• 11:46 – Human-written stories vs. AI-generated content
• 13:15 – Segmenting by emotional avatar and “whens”
• 15:14 – The limits of old funnel models and the rise of blended journeys
• 17:52 – Coffee as “when”-driven; environment-driven buying

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Final Thoughts

This episode dismantles the simplistic “find the why” marketing advice and offers a richer, more human perspective for building dynamic brands. Sarah and Nate’s playful, honest banter will leave marketers rethinking their research, segmentation, and creative strategies to better reflect how real buying decisions actually happen.

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Transcript

[A]

I had to go back and look. Actually, we. We actually go 100 episodes at a time, not 50. I was wrong. So we have a ways to go until we get to season four. Not that that matters or that you care, but that's what I'm looking at right now.

[B]

Welcome Back to episode 125 of Brain Driven Brands. We've been talking. We've been yapping for a while. Huh?

[A]

Yapping. When did we start this? 20. 24? 3. 23?

[B]

No, I think it's like a year and a half ago. I think it was like early 24.

[A]

We've been yapping for quite a long time. Shout out to everybody who's still listening to us. Yeah, yeah, thanks.

[B]

You've been here since episode one. Appreciate you. What are we talking about today?

[A]

I don't even know this was your topic. Actually, usually I bring the topics. This was my topic drive. So I was. Or yeah, you just like respond. So now you drive today.

[B]

All right, here's the topic for today's episode. Sarah tweeted something. Actually, let me take two minutes and find the tweet. Hold on. You tweeted finding the why might be the single worst thing we could have ever told marketers to do.

[A]

Oh, boy. Yep, I did.

[B]

And as someone who currently pays Sarah to find the why for the brand I work for, it makes sense. I responded. What do you mean?

[A]

What are you talking about? Why do we pay you? I get it.

[B]

I thought that's what we were doing here and we talked about it for like two hours and I figured it out and we're going to distill that down to one 20 minute episode for y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

One, we learned that it's not really why, it's about when.

[A]

When.

[B]

Can you start with that and tell me about that difference?

[A]

Yes. Okay. So for anybody who saw this tweet and had to witness Sarah just thinking out loud and was like, what the hell are you talking about, Sarah? I personally think, and this is the reason why I posted this, I think finding the why was the single worst thing that we ever told marketers to do because it caused them to over optimize for a very specific thing. One thing in particular, which is there has to be one reason why people purchase from us. That's what I meant by that tweet. So anybody who came at me that was like, what are you talking about? This is the reason why. I personally believe that over optimization causes us to go after just the most ridiculous things in marketing because we start to put in tactics to try and find some sort of a north star that we are just sure is out there. That's not how humans work.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There are actually multiple whys that come into play. You could purchase one product for 17 different reasons at any one point in the week, depending on the day, depending on the hour, depending on what you just experienced, who was involved with it. There's multiple multiple whys that exist and they all, in my opinion, are attached to when. Right. Situations basically are what causes the why to come up. This is the reason why I posted that, because I was like, I don't think there is one true why. I don't believe there is one true why. And I think it's a bad thing for marketers to be taught that, especially at the beginning, because then you just go hunting through massive amounts of data trying to find out what that one why is. And you waste hundreds of hours every single week just trying to figure it out.

[B]

And then even if you nail it, even if you find your most popular why, there's a finite amount of people who have that why. Yeah, like that might work for a bit, but if you are trying to build a generational brand, you're going to need to be able to sell things. People who don't think that one thing.

[A]

Yes. Okay, so I would love to hear from you. Why did that trigger you so much? Like, why was that?

[B]

Like, because, like, it's what we've always thought.

[A]

Yeah, it's.

[B]

I think it's what we've thought since like early on in my career. I read start with why, which I still think, like there's lessons to learn there. But I do think we all like over index for like, what's the one thing? What's the magic bullet? What, what's the like one pill I can take to make this better? When the reality is like, your customers are all individuals and even if you try to bucket them by motivation, there's probably like 14 different reasons.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And in those 14, there's a million different ways each of them can manifest and be talked about and be experienced. So I think it's way more important to look at all of the reasons and try to focus on the most popular.

[A]

Whoa.

[B]

Ones. And the thing that really like brought it to life for me was my own purchasing behavior with whiskey. When I. When I am sad, sad, angry, frustrated, I buy cheap whiskey. I just want something. I want it to hit hard. When I'm happy, killing it, confident, feeling good. I buy the nice stuff, I buy the top shelf stuff, interesting. And it's like, oh, that's me buying the same thing, but my attitude towards it is completely different. And then my price sensitivity to it is completely different.

[A]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And this, this is what the core of it. Again, serious thinking out loud. So like people, I am still human. I'm trying to figure it out as we go. Half the reason I posted that was because it was, that was kind of what was in my head was like when I purchased stuff. It just depends on how I'm feeling, what I purchased, how much I purchased, what, you know, those type of things. But marketers, the behavior that I see from us is that we go digging. Let's pause for just a minute. This episode is brought to you by Motion, AKA the tool that finally showed me how Meta actually saw my ads with Andromeda, grouping creatives more aggressively than ever. Diversity isn't optional anymore. Motion's AI tagging breaks down every ad in your ad account and tells you which ones are distinct, which ones are being grouped, and where your next creative opportunities actually are. So go try the analyze this report AI task inside your Motion account to today and see it for yourself. Mention Brain driven brains. If you guys want to get 10 off your first three months, you can start your free 14 day trial@motion app.com that's motion app.com and now back to the show. If I can just get that one gem pulled out of this Reddit thread, then the whole business will explode and then I will become the best marketer on the planet.

[B]

Yeah, it's not that easy. Guess.

[A]

Yes. And this is the reason why I posted it, because I was like, that doesn't exist. That's not real. No, it's not true. It's also not helpful at all because then you get these behaviors where we start looking at one metric that that one just has to show us. Yeah, that I found the key, I found the gem. And I'm like, that doesn't exist either. There is no one North Star anything.

[B]

Like, well, and I think this goes into some of our conversations about like, how to build a brand. Because when people think of a brand, they think that brand stands for one thing, they own one thing. But I think you should be building personalities into your company and you know, from everyone's own individual experience. Like, our personalities are not consistent across the board. We all have conflicting and at times hypocritical views and thoughts and actions. But that's okay. That's, that's still who we are. And I think brands need to start acknowledging that and acting more like that.

[A]

Yeah, well, and I think it's really interesting when you dig deeper into this and you start to think about the fact that we talked about this on a couple episodes ago. There's 8 billion some people on the planet, Right? All of Those people, allegedly 8 billion people on the planet, all those people are having their own.

[B]

Who counted? You're telling me someone counted?

[A]

Somebody?

[B]

We're not off by a billion. Come on.

[A]

We probably are, honestly. But there's a ton of people on this planet. Every single one of these people are having their own experience of the planet and of all the people that they're interacting with. I found this really interesting because I was listening to, like, one of my favorite people on TikTok, Psychologist. Of course, he was talking about the fact that because we all have our own experiences of the planet, you haven't ever experienced your spouse, your kids, your mom, your dad. You also have never experienced your customer exactly as they actually are. You only experience them the way that your brain interprets them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So this is the reason why I got so, like, oh, in on this tweet, because I was like, there is. You cannot experience one person in one way all the time. Every single time. Your customers aren't experiencing your brand the same way every single time they come in contact with it. Sometimes they're sad when they see an ad from you. Sometimes they're happy, sometimes they're frustrated, Sometimes they're bored or, like, checked out, whatever it is. So our job as marketers is to be consistent. Consistent if we can. Mostly because then it won't matter what day they come in on and. Or what emotion they're experiencing. While they're looking at your stuff, they will just come in and say, this feels the same every time I come in contact with it. So I trust it more. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

You said something super interesting there that I want to click into. You said, like, not your brand doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. And like, I. I think about that, like, relates for me to the watch industry a ton. Like someone that has, like, worked their whole lives and, like, done. Okay. And like, they're 50 and they bought themselves a Rolex and that's their only watch.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That means so much more to that guy than, like the 28 year old with a 15 watch collection. It was like, yeah, like, I have a Rolex and I have an AP and I have a Patek and a ton of other others. Like, doesn't really care about that one that much.

[A]

Yeah, very true.

[B]

Where it's like, could be identical Product for the identical price and the core, like, motivation could be similar. Yeah, but Rolex to one guy means ten times more than the other.

[A]

Yes, yes. And it's quite interesting because it's going to vary by customer, it's going to vary by age ranges, it's going to vary by a bunch of stuff. So I had somebody ask me the other day because he was like, I see all these guys building these AI agents and they're talking about, I just made a hundred thousand dollars this month with all these different, like, little AI things that I'm doing. And he was like, is branding dead? Is it gone?

[B]

Yeah. Right.

[A]

Is that not going to be something that we should try and build anymore? And I was like, I disagree with that entirely. I, I personally think that brands are going to become even more important because people are going to look for places to go to feel safe.

[B]

They're. They're going to look for their personality and their identity, and if you don't give them a chance to find it at your brand, you're going to miss out on.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I want to encourage everybody. This is the reason why we're talking about this today. Like, all those multiple wins, all those multiple whys, they're all going to have to go somewhere because that's what humans do. We search and seek, and that's how our brain is built. That's all the brain is built to do, seek out stuff. So over time, I think we're going to start to see this is like morphing into an AI conversation, but I think we're going to start to see people's reasons for going to brands start to shift back towards. I just want something real because nothing is real. And we're in this, like, chaotic, almost like vortex right now of we basically just took the whole table and like, tipped it upside down because of AI and how politics are going, all kinds of stuff. So people are going to look for it.

[B]

Well, I think a great example of this is the exercise we did this week with taking that email that was written by AI, Adapt the brand I work for. And like, I think our prompting is like, top tier, like, best of the best out there. Like, it starts with a ton of customer research from you. We provide a ton of brand context. And like, I, like, I think the AI did the best it could, but it was so clear when I took 20 minutes to rewrite some parts of that, that all the humanity came back, all the ambiguous, like, maybe people do have a different reason to be here. All of that became clear and, like, I think it cut through a lot of words that just didn't need to be there and didn't speak to people's real emotions.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, so tactically then, because somebody, like, we can talk about the fact that, like, oh, yeah, there's multiple wins, multiple whys. What are we supposed to do with this then? As marketers, how are we supposed to put this into a strategy? I have an idea, but I want to hear yours.

[B]

Yeah. One, it's got to be human, led and created.

[A]

Yeah, I would agree with that.

[B]

I just think. I think AI is just not done yet. I think that's, like, the most accurate description I can give of current AI. It's just not ready yet. Put it back in the oven for a little. Like, it'll be fine.

[A]

I don't know if it'll ever be ready, honestly.

[B]

Well, I don't know either. Piss off the AI guys. But, like, it's undercooked right now.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So I think it's got to be human led. And then I think you need to get to know your customers on a level deeper than you ever have. And, like, to me, the best thing is, like, literally go try to hang out with them. Put on a brand of event, because right now you are only viewing your customers through the lens of how they look at you.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

How they look, feel, and think and act when it's related to your thing. But, like, your brand is the least important thing in this customer's life. They have a family, they have a job. They have 27 other brands that they shop at consistently. And you need to learn the nuances about them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Before you're able to go craft campaigns. And I think, like, I'd agree with that. That to me, if I could give, like, one tactic. Throw an event for your brand. Hang out with people that buy your products. Yeah.

[A]

I've seen a lot of brands doing this these days where they basically just. It's like a giveaway where you can come hang out with the brand for, like, a day. I love this. I think it's really interesting. I think it's also, like, good reciprocity between customers and brand. Tactically, how do we start to talk into the wins? I structure all of my ad accounts these days to go after emotional avatars, not demographic ones. Now, caveat to that. That doesn't mean that I don't look at age or I don't look at gender. Like, if you're selling something specifically for men, obviously to push or however you might have pockets of people that are Buying gifts for men, that's a completely different conversation, different kind of strategy. I segment all of my avatars out, though, by universally experienced emotions. So one of our avatars might be optimizers. People who are constantly looking to level up just teeny, tiny little things in their Life to get 1% better every day. Optimizers exist in every single industry. And their wins, they're. They're like, you know, specific situations that they're hitting that would cause them to search for my product are pretty consistent. Those don't change like a ton. So segmentation is important, but what you're segmenting is also pretty important because like we said, there's no North Star here. So you can start to make massive amounts of ads as long as you can identify all these little ones.

[B]

Yeah. And I think for me, I'm working on this for Adapt right now is like, we are just generally too broad with how we bucket customers and audiences. Like, like I'm saying, we as marketers in general, like, I think we say, like, oh, it's cold traffic, or it's a warm audience. And so. Well, hold on. Like, within that warm audience, there's someone who's tried similar products before and they haven't worked. There's someone who've tried other products and they like them. There's someone who is looking for one but has never tried it. There's someone that knows they have a. A problem but isn't sure what the solution is yet. Like, we would all call that people who are in market and ready to buy y. But it's like, well, each one of them deserves an ad written just for them.

[A]

Well, it's getting more and more complicated. I know that we're going, like, down a rabbit hole in this episode, but I like these conversations because this is like, what we should be thinking about as marketers is what is in market, what is out of market. Yep. What is a top of funnel versus mid funnel versus bottom of funnel? How do you segment those and how can you tell what markers exist within those customer types? Is somebody who's been following me for a year but hasn't ever purchased. Is that top of funnel still? Or is that like a year is a long time to follow somebody? Is that mid funnel? Like, where are they?

[B]

I think top, middle, and bottom of funnel are totally incomplete descriptions for, like, how we bucket customers.

[A]

Yes, there's. It's so blended now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You can't really definitively say you used to be able to, especially when, like, we had a lot more control over, like, the in platform metrics and like tactical segmentation, we don't have it anymore. So I, I tend to start going after, not necessarily which phase of the funnel they're in, but what kind of behavior they're exhibiting. This is where teap comes in. So if you've ever heard Sarah talk about teapot, somebody at the trigger phase is somebody who's like, you've never really experienced this. You're just starting the journey. I can basically just trigger you based upon problem, pain, point, solution. Somebody who's in an exploration phase is just looking at stuff, trying to figure out like tire kickers, basically what's in the industry, what's available, and so on and so forth. So, yeah, there's lots of different ways that you could look at this as marketers, but in general, I would say if you can identify lots and lots of different wins, you can expand out quite a lot instead of just going after that one. So.

[B]

Yeah, well, and, and this is the only way that I ever see, like creative volume becoming the right way is if you have all of these core messages dialed in.

[A]

Yeah. If you've identified them, then yeah.

[B]

If you are launching a thousand ads a month all saying the same thing, then you're better off just launching like 10.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But if you are using customer research and insights to like actually grow your tam to expand the pool of people that you can sell to, then. Yeah, make sure you're making ads for each of them.

[A]

Yes. Oh, man, this is so good. Okay, anything else that you want to like?

[B]

This was a banger episode.

[A]

Okay. This is deep dive. This is good thinking. So, yeah, hopefully if you guys like this episode, let us know if you want to dive deeper into the wind. Because I'm like, now I'm just on it. I can't stop thinking about it.

[B]

So anyway, give me. Before we. We go, I gave the whiskey example for me. What is one for you?

[A]

Oh, coffee. Coffee consumables, I've noticed, have a shit ton of ones inside of them.

[B]

You're big on treat, right?

[A]

Yes. Oh, but my coffee is my treat in the morning. It's also like, if I don't have my coffee ritual.

[B]

By the way, your coffee has more caffeine and sugar than my Red Bull does, so I don't want to hear it.

[A]

It's so bad for me, but I don't even care. I am unashamed. I am a Starbucks girly. I apologize to all of the BBC. Coffee bread. I'm so sorry. It's 100% at convenience. That's My logical reasoning, that's not my emotional one. So that's my logical reasoning for this is like I go to Starbucks because I can get it within five minutes on the way to taking my kids to school. And that's all I have is five minutes. So I, I have practiced practical reasons for it, but at home I will. I run a ton of DVC brands because I have like a whole bean coffee roaster thing. So it. The environment changes my behavior. Yeah. So yeah, I buy a lot different brands when I come home, but I have tons of them. I have like 18 different coffee brands.

[B]

Oh, the environment.

[A]

It'S like a big one.

[B]

You know that I would never pay $11 for 1 ounce bottle of whiskey, but when I'm on a plane, I'm like, I have six of them. It's a good deal.

[A]

Done. Bring them. Just keep a funnily. When? Guys, when would you buy this? All right, all right, I digress. We'll dive deeper into this as we go along throughout the year.

[B]

But thanks for listening to brain driven brands. If you want to do this kind of work, hire Sarah. I don't get a kickback for it, unfortunately, but go hire her. It's good work.

[A]

Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Appreciate you guys listening. If you want to follow me, I'm aralevinger. Anywhere you consume content, he is natelagos. If you like this show and if you like this episode, go ahead and like subscribe. Share with a friend. Drop us a review when you have a minute. We would appreciate it. Otherwise, have a great week. We'll see you next time.