Nerd Alert: The Power of Priming in Marketing

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Marketing Architects – “Nerd Alert: The Power of Priming in Marketing”

Date: January 29, 2026
Host(s): Lena Jasper & Rob Demars
Theme: The overlooked but critical role of “priming” in consumer decisions—how brand exposure before the buying moment dramatically shapes purchase behavior, and how marketers can leverage this to drive better results.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Lena and Rob geek out over a deep dive into new marketing research, exploring the often invisible process of "priming"—the way brand cues influence future buying decisions, sometimes long before shopping even begins. Using recent data from a massive, global purchase journey study, they unpack how most purchase decisions are actually decided well before a consumer actively engages with marketing or seeks out a product, and discuss the implications for media strategy, brand-building, and performance marketing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Traditional Marketing Models Are Incomplete

(00:53–02:00)

• Lena introduces a white paper titled "How Humans Decide: What Drives Consumer Choice and How Brands Should Respond" by WPP Media and Oxford University.
• The paper expanded the classic model of “right audience, right message, enough attention” and instead highlights three decisive factors:
  • Brand priming: Life’s daily exposures subtly bias us toward some brands
  • Audience receptivity: Some people are simply more open to influence
  • Touchpoint influence: Not all channels/touchpoints are equally impactful

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2. The Priming Stage—Decisions Happen Before the Store

(02:10–05:00)

• Priming is when consumers aren’t actively shopping but are absorbing brand and category cues through media, conversations, or in-store visuals, which quietly bias them.
• The active stage is when a need is triggered and shopping begins, which can last seconds (for soda) or months (for cars).
• MEMORABLE QUOTE:
  • “They found 84% of purchases are primed. So people end up buying brands they were already biased towards before they even start shopping, which I feel like we should let that sink in. That's crazy.” – Lena (03:56)
• Across all categories—cars or toothpaste—shoppers usually consider fewer than three brands, typically the ones they already favor.

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3. Brand Loyalty and Mental Shortcuts

(01:09–01:35; 05:05–05:22)

• Rob explains his personal loyalty and how even new tech (e.g., Gemini assistant) is only slightly changing that pattern.
  • “Honestly, most of [my choices]...the decision is already made before I open my laptop.” – Rob (01:09)
  • “That initial instinct: I need to buy something. And you go to that semantic shortcut of what are you loyal to? And you start there.” – Rob (05:05)

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4. The Reality of Influence: Audience Receptivity

(05:22–07:00)

• On average, 23% of buyers are unreceptive to marketing—they’re nearly impossible to sway when actively shopping, so priming is essential.

• 10% are highly receptive and will be influenced by almost any touchpoint.

  • “I lack all form of self-control and should not be allowed near targeted media because I am just gonna... Yep, I'm gonna buy. I'm very impulsive.” – Rob (06:29)

• Strategic Insight:

  • The hard-to-move group, if primed early, is less likely to be captured by competitors later. Trying to reach unreceptive consumers only during the active stage is “vanishingly” ineffective.

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5. Not All Touchpoints Are Equal

(07:00–08:45)

• Picking the right touchpoints matters: choosing the “best” four channels versus four random ones doubles your influence (from 20% to 47%).
• Owned, shared, and earned touchpoints (like word of mouth and reviews) are about 3x more effective for “primed” consumers than paid media alone at the purchase stage.
  • Word of mouth: 48% relative influence
  • Reviews: 36%
  • Email & online ads: 17%
  • Outdoor: 12%
  • Radio/podcasts: 6%
• MEMORABLE QUOTE:
  • “They help turn bias into actual purchase. So things like word of mouth and reviews top the list.” – Lena (08:20)

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6. Practical Marketing Moves

(08:45–10:10)

• To outperform “average” results, marketers must:
  • Prioritize long-term brand priming—especially via brand-building channels like TV.
  • Design for category-specific receptivity—balance priming vs. conversion spends based on how influenceable your audience is in each category.
  • Integrate owned, shared, earned, & paid (OSEP) touchpoints. Don’t rely on paid alone; build influence through multiple channel types.
  • “If most purchases are decided before your customer starts shopping, then this brand building isn't just a nice to have, it's essential.” – Lena (09:15)

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7. Rob GPT Analogy: The Courtroom Drama

(09:10–09:40)

• Rob: “Think of consumer choice like a courtroom drama. By the time the trial starts, the jury has already heard months of gossip… That’s brand priming. Closing arguments and last minute evidence? That’s your performance media. If you spend all your time perfecting the closing speech but ignore the months of priming, you’re trying to win a case the jury quietly decided ages ago.”
• Lena: “We forget about the importance of priming in general in marketing. I think we get so right into...the funnel. But priming's use in the long game...may not pay off right away, but it's going to pay off.”

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “My enthusiasm is writing checks my judgment cannot cash, Lena.” – Rob, joking about his eagerness for marketing nerdiness (00:35)
• “84% of purchases are primed...In most categories, shoppers will consider fewer than three brands...” – Lena (03:56)
• “Performance marketing is often just helping them confirm the choice they already want to make. It's not creating brand preference from scratch.” – Lena (05:22)
• “Channels, they're all interchangeable, as long as the reach is there—that's not a thing.” – Lena (08:00)
• "If you spend all your time perfecting the closing speech but ignore the months of priming, you're trying to win a case the jury quietly decided ages ago." – Rob (09:27)

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Final Takeaways

• The vast majority of purchase decisions arise from subconscious, long-term priming—not quick-response marketing or clever conversion tactics.
• Marketers should lean into brand-building for priming, use touchpoints wisely, understand their audience’s influenceability, and strategically integrate paid, owned, shared, and earned channels.
• If you skip investing in priming, you’re letting the verdict on your brand be delivered by default, long before you ever get to make your big argument.

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Recommended For:
Anyone in marketing, brand management, or media planning who wants evidence-based insights on why “brand awareness” pays off, and how to stop misplacing credit on last-click channels.

(Find the research paper and further resources linked in the episode notes.)

Transcript

[A]

Nerd Alert. Learning is important, right?

[B]

Yes, exactly. But a bunch of nerds.

[A]

Nerd alert.

[B]

That's right. Marketing Architects. Hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions. I'm Lena Jasper on the marketing team here at Marketing Architects, and I'm joined by my co host, Rob demars, the chief product architect of misfits and machines.

[A]

Hello.

[B]

Hello. We're back with your weekly Nerd Alert. Every week I take a deep dive into academic marketing research and translate its complex ideas into simple, understandable language for Rob, and of course, for all of you. Are you ready to nerd out, Rob?

[A]

My enthusiasm is writing checks my judgment cannot cash. Elena.

[B]

All right, let's get into it. As always, we'll link the research we cover in the episode notes. This week I read a white paper titled how humans decide what drives consumer choice and how brands should respond. This is from WPP Media and the said business school, Oxford University marketing faculty, published in October of 2025. So recent one here. Rob, before we get too far into the paper, when you buy something, how many of your choices are already made before you even start shopping?

[A]

Honestly, most of them. I am extremely brand loyal. So in the sense that the decision is already made before I open my laptop, that kind of happens for me. That said, lately I've added a new voice into my decision making process, Gemini. And it's basically become like my shopping partner where I've outsourced not only my memory now to Gemini, but also my judgment.

[B]

So maybe that's changed a little bit now.

[A]

It has. It has kind of shifted. Yeah.

[B]

Okay. That'd be interesting to look into that. Like in the years to come, does that change things? So I'll share the exact percentage later on of how many choices are made before we start shopping. I will say that you are not really an outlier here as far as.

[A]

All right.

[B]

Yeah. Having already mind. Yes. So that's what this paper looks at. How do shopping decisions actually happen? The authors argue that the usual equation, which is you'll reach the right audience with the right message and enough attention, is incomplete. They say if we really want to understand brand growth, we have to understand how humans actually make decisions. And that means looking at three things. First, brand priming. These are all the experiences that quietly bias people toward a brand long before they start shopping. Second, audience receptivity. This is how open different people are to being influenced by marketing. And third, touchpoint influence. These are the real uneven different channels and touch points and how they change our Behavior. And when you put those together, a lot of standard media rules start to look lazy. So let's talk about what they actually did. This isn't a small lab study. They looked at a database of 1.2 million consumer purchase journeys across more than 200 categories in 47 countries collected over a decade. So statistically significant, I would say yes. Each journey tracks what someone bought most recently in a category, which brands they considered, and which touch points influence them along the way. From that, they map the journey into two big stages. First is the priming stage. This is everyday life, and people are not shopping. But we're constantly exposed to category and brand cues in media and stores and in conversations. Those exposures quietly build bias that we have towards certain brands. And there's the active stage. Once a need of ours is triggered, we're actively moving towards a purchase. This might happen in seconds if it's deciding on a soda, or in months or years if it's deciding on something like a car. Speaking of the priming stage, Rob, when you think about all the ads and brand queues you see in a day, how many of those do you think actually register to you?

[A]

Wow. You know, there's so many flying at us all the time. So I'm going to go with maybe 5%, but that's still a lot because if I ate 5% of a white Castle crave case, that would be a lot more than my doctor would recommend. So I think, you know, we're consuming a lot and 5% would be a good amount.

[B]

Yeah. So they, they don't share the percentage in this paper. I'm guessing that'd be pretty hard to calculate from people. Actually, maybe there is a paper around that. I asked that question because the priming stage is so important. But like you're saying, it's hard to have someone notice you and have them remember you in that stage because we're being bombarded with all these different advertising messages. But we have to become better at this stage because here's the first big punchline of this report. They found 84% of purchases are primed. So people end up buying brands they were already biased towards before they even start shopping, which I feel like we should let that sink in. That's crazy. That's a really high percentage of people that have already decided to purchase a certain brand before they ever even start searching for it. In most categories, shoppers will consider fewer than three brands and then usually pick the one they're most biased towards. And this is crazy. This holds across both high Ticket items like cars and everyday items like toothpaste. And the share of prime shoppers never fell below 70%. So, Rob, are you surprised by that? By both how high that is and then the fact that it didn't differ significantly between different categories?

[A]

I guess I'm not just given my own experience, that of being so brand loyal, I can see how people are going in. It's like that initial instinct, I need to buy something. And you go to that semantic shortcut of what are you loyal to? And you start there.

[B]

Or like, even if you're not completely loyal to a brand, but just what comes to your brain the fastest. Yeah, good point. So this paper, they're pretty blunt when they talk about priming buyers. They don't arrive at the lower funnel neutral. They come in carrying a strong brand bias. And performance marketing is often just helping them confirm the choice they already want to make. It's not creating brand preference from scratch. So you should be very skeptical if you're attributing a lot of your sales results to lower funnel channels because a chance that actually persuaded someone is low. They probably already had a brand in mind once they got there and clicked on an ad. They also looked at receptivity. Basically, how influenceable are we? Rob thinks he's very influenceable by advertising. And some consumers are. They're highly receptive. They'll be swayed by almost any touch point. Others are deeply unreceptive and almost nothing moves them. On average, about 23% of category buyers are unreceptive. So those people are just going to be hard to influence with any channel. Another 10% are extremely receptive and will react to almost everything. So, Rob, was I right in saying that you are more receptive to advertising than the average person? I feel like you've said that on the show before.

[A]

I lack all form of self control and should not be allowed near targeted media because I am just gonna. Yep, I'm gonna buy. I'm very impulsive.

[B]

Yeah, every marketer's dream. Well, here's a twist. The unreceptive group, people other than Rob is strategically attractive because if you manage to prime them, they're less likely to be stolen at the active stage. But.

[A]

Oh, sure, right.

[B]

But if you're targeting them for the first time in that active stage, the paper calls the chances of influencing them vanishingly small. Finally, they look at touchpoint influence. So not all touch points are created equal. Their impact depends on category and context. When they compare choosing four random touch points versus your four best performing touch points in the active stage, the chance of influence in a decision jumps from 20 to 47%. So if people tell you, yeah, channels, they're all interchangeable, as long as the reach is there, that's not a thing. Some channels work better than others. And then my favorite part, when a prime consumer hits the active stage, own shared and earned touchpoints are nearly three times more powerful than paid alone. Thought that was really interesting. They help turn bias into actual purchase. So things like word of mouth and reviews top the list. Word of mouth Recommendations carry about 48% relative influence. Reviews are 36%. Email is 17%, and that's compared to 17% for online ads, 12% for outdoor, and 6% for radio and podcasts. So what can we do with all this? The authors argue that the standard media rules only deliver average performance because they treat consumers and channels as if they're all the same. So instead we need a little bit of a different approach built around three moves. First, prioritize long term brand priming. Not surprising. If most purchases are decided before your customer starts shopping, then this brand building isn't just a nice to have, it's essential. So things like TV are going to shine here. Then number two, design for category specific receptivity. Don't assume your audience is equally influenceable across everything you sell. Some categories will have more unreceptive buyers, others will be full of easy to move switchers. So that should affect how aggressively you invest in priming versus conversion, how much creative distinctiveness you need and where you put your dollars. And finally, plan for some own channels as well, not just paid. So this paper calls for integrated plans with owned, shared, earned and paid. They even use this acronym, osep. This would be where influence is part of the planning, not just reach. So paid media, including tv. It does a lot of your brand building heavy lifting. But if you can have some own shared and earned touchpoints to help close the loop, that can be very helpful when people are ready to act. Time for a Rob GPT Think of consumer choice like a courtroom drama. By the time the trial starts, the jury has already heard months of gossip, news stories and side conversations about the defendant. That's brand priming, closing arguments and last minute evidence. That's your performance media. If you spend all your time perfecting the closing speech but ignore the months of priming, you're trying to win a case. The jury quietly decided ages ago that Rob GPT is a little suspicious. I don't know if I can endorse trying to sway a jury before the trial. It's a little bit of a weird one.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Anyways, what'd you think of that one?

[A]

Yeah, no, I just. I think we. We forget about the importance of priming in general in marketing. I think we get so right into the. Into the buying, into the funnel. But there's just so much work to be done in priming and priming's use in kind of the long game in terms of that priming may not pay off right away, but it's going to pay off.

[B]

Agreed. Yeah. Over and over again. There's so many studies, research. It's just so important that you're making sure your brand is top of mind all the time is really. The more you can do that, the better. That's it for this episode of the Marketing Architects. We'd like to thank Taylor De Los Reyes for producing the show. You can connect with us on LinkedIn and if you like the podcast, please leave us a review. Now go forth and build great marketing marketing Architects.