The psychological 'pause' reshaping the customer journey

0:09Hello and welcome to this episode of The Walk Podcast. My name's Alex Brownsell and I'm the head of content for Walk Media. Marketers are in a hurry. They want to drive the click, drive the deal, secure a conversion as quickly as possible. A failure to usher buyers from discovery to purchase in the fewest possible steps is often seen as a failure of a kind. This misunderstands the consumer purchase journey, according to brand new research from Mindscope, a behavioural science consultancy in collaboration with TikTok. The study called the Alchemy of Consideration reveals that the psychological pause before a purchase is deliberate.

0:53it's an intelligent act of self-regulation and that brands are getting it wrong. Today I'm joined by some of the key architects behind the research. Lea Karam, CEO and founder of Mindscope, and Elias Bazil, regional head of business marketing at TikTok from ETA. But before we hear from Lea and Elias, here's a quick word from our sponsor. If you're listening to this podcast, you'll know that Walk is the home of leading effectiveness thinking. And now we're teaching you everything you need to know about the fundamentals of strategy. WALK Strategy Fundamentals is WALK's new digital course for junior or entry-level strategists.

1:31You'll learn from award-winning case studies and hear directly from top strategists and WALK's own experts, giving you the latest industry insights alongside proven practical frameworks. Sharpen up your skills to excel in 2026 with WALK Strategy Fundamentals. Available now at walk.com slash learning.

1:56hello both welcome to the walk podcast hello thank you so much for having us alec fantastic to have you here such an interesting piece of research on on a really important area for for marketing and marketing effectiveness before we get into the findings and some of the specifics of the report can we spend a little bit of time diagnosing the issue the issue behind why i guess you were motivated to look at this does marketing have a problem with the consideration phase um i don't know if we call this a problem per se but more of an inaccurate understanding of what consideration really means and does.

2:41There's this assumption as marketeers that people are processing information through a funnel and whether or not they're thinking, am I aware, should I be considering, am I now ready to purchase, when actually at any moment in time you could be just considering something. And so the way we see it is that there is the human aspect that we wanted to bring to the forefront and which is why collaborating with Deja and Mindscope specifically allows us to better diagnose the reality of the journey people are on and whether it's linear or not and how to best optimize that opportunity. So yeah, I don't know if it's a problem per se but maybe it's an unclear understanding that we wanted to clarify.

3:28It's something I think that has been looked at a little bit in the past. um walk we've covered research around the messy middle for instance um does i mean that that research is now gosh a good few years old you know does it feel like the way that media and and consumer behavior has evolved means that actually there was there's a need for fresh look at this yes so to build on elias's point so tiktok came to us with this inaccuracy i think the semantic is extremely accurate this inaccuracy within the funnel per se i'm using quotation marks because it's not about a funnel anymore the human mind really doesn't differentiate and as you just mentioned alex the messy middle you know we compare that a bit with the study because we looked at it from a modern lens it's the modern messy middle tiktok is diagnosing that phase and looking at the consumer moments that that that are quite human quite useful so we looked at it in depth and we wanted to really add this behavioral science angle to it because when there's inaccuracy, when there's a misunderstanding of intelligence and efficiency as well, when you look at the funnel, you look at short-term KPIs, you look at instant classification, this is not what we wanted to achieve.

4:41We wanted to be very psychological, understand the moments and you'll see when we obviously did dive into the studies, the moments that make that massive middle and also the lost opportunity that brands are actually going through at the moment. Once we correct this, once there's a behavioral correction to that inaccuracy, then we can support brands within that journey. So that was exactly what we set out to achieve when we received this brief and collaborated with TikTok. We called that the new massive middle when we started. We also debated the semantics behind the title, whether it should be alchemy of consideration or once we got deeper into the study, anatomy of consideration.

5:20Elias So it's like, should we call it anatomy of consideration? Because, you know, it creates that whole thing. And we were like, maybe we should. But then we were like, you know what? Let's start with alchemy. Let's tease this out. Let's start that conversation. And then once we kind of start putting it out there within the market, test things out as well, we can start developing this like anatomy ecosystem. So keep your eyes open for the anatomy of consideration too. But let's focus on those findings because I can't wait. Yeah, I was about to say, I love that you guys are already thinking about the sequel.

5:48but yeah let's get into the let's get into the the first i mean if if you don't mind i think maybe why we netted out at alchemy could be it could be a good indication of where we're taking this and the way we thought about it from one perspective if you were to take like maybe a textbook definition of alchemy being like the transformation of matter from one thing to another and we're like this is actually exactly what's happening like you're transforming a moment or a mindset or a feeling from being at a certain part of your decision-making process and taking it to the next level. And maybe the other side to it is a bit of a jab to ourselves and the industry where alchemy feels a bit like magic or feels like a topic that you don't really see or know how to talk about.

6:36And so we wanted to look at it and maybe a non-magical, magical way. And so this is where the the alchemy ended up uh being locked in between leia and myself and and as we go further yes the construct and the anatomy of decision making all of that is what mindscope will definitely develop further yeah it will become at the moment we've got all of those great findings and those great insights and what we are set out to do as well is develop it and make it very tangible with tiktok um using a lot of the tools that they've got a lot of the psychological findings that we have and put them to application.

7:13So from anatomy, sorry, from alchemy to anatomy, that's the plan. Well, just quickly then, before we get into the findings, could you give us a bit of an overview of how you approached it from a methodology standpoint? Yeah, that was really fascinating because whenever we kick off briefs at Mindscope, and Elias is very familiar with this, we ask one question, you know, what do you want to achieve at the end of the day? And when we had conversations with Elias and the team, they did tell us that they wanted in-situ behaviors. They wanted consideration diaries. They wanted real-life experiences.

7:50They wanted Vox Pops. So we decided to take a very deep ethnographic route. So we started by recruiting 50 participants across five different continents. So we had Latin America. We had MENA. We had APAC. we had North America and we had Europe. And we had five verticals within that as well. So we looked at five markets, North America, Latin America, MENA, Europe, and APAC. And we looked at five verticals, finance, travel, fashion, tech, and FMCG. And that was fascinating, actually, because we ended up having about 428 videos. We created this whole consideration journey to understand and get real in-situ behaviors within a moment of consideration.

8:40Now, again, it's qualitative. So we aggregated those to understand the main themes that came out. So you'll see within the release, you know, when we launched the research, we built a qualitative dashboard that identifies the top themes that came out. And obviously, we'll talk about the themes. It ranges from, you know, moments of pauses. It ranges from moments of like wanting to validate your decision. saving and bookmarking so we had those moments that were really aggregated and when we were going to go further into applying those learnings for brands we have such fascinating behavioral nuances per market per vertical and a universal truth across so we decided to do this very deep qualitative study to start with this ethnographic study so tiktok and ourselves now have about 420 plus videos that we can then obviously use.

9:31It's opt-in as well. So all the participants were really excited to participate. Now, obviously, we layer data, we layer research. So we wanted to validate some findings and look at whether or not there were some outliers. So we did a quant survey across 3 ,000 people across those regions to understand the themes that were actually coming out most but also better understand what were the similarities from quant and qual research by doing this whole integration as you know where mine's scope so we added our behavioral science and economics layer across so the whole interpretation of data was behavioral science powered great we have data anyone can have data right the way we design things the way we interpret things was very behavioral science led so i'd say we've got the three that like the three kind of the three elements that were within this ecosystem.

10:21Some ethnography work that was never really done before and that was quite deep. The quantitative work to really validate things and understand what really comes out and what we can actually scale, what signals can we scale. And then the behavioral science bit where we interpreted the research and built the white paper based on our deep understanding of psychology and human behavior. So let's get into the findings then, let's get into the meat the research um identifies that there are different types of pauses behavioral pauses um i guess yeah what are they how did you identify them what do they mean they were fascinating because no one ever looked deeply into a pause and if you listened a bit to a recent work and thought leadership there's a lot of uh me being on stage and my team echoing this The fact that what people pause on in this current economy and in this like choice overload ecosystem is much more important than what people click on because they got to pause.

11:23They got to really engage with you as a brand. So doing this research really was really interesting because actually there are types of pauses and those are inherently very human. One of them was desire versus need testing. Is it something that I want or is it something that I need? There's a behavioral theory. I love this theory from the University of Michigan that looks at liking versus wanting. And those are two different things. You want first and then you like or you can like something and not want it. That was really interesting because when you go further into this, then you can help a brand respect the desire versus respect the need.

11:55The desire comes from one thing inherently. The need comes from liking it more and then a functional attribute that sits below it. So we went deeper into that type of pause. There's another one, the second one, we're just saying two now because you want people to read the white paper. I'm a behavioral scientist, do what you preach. The second one was making sure that there was this value alignment. We're all social animals, we know that, so we engage with each other within the world of society. And obviously we have a value system from it, but we also have this cognitive dissonance where we want to really portray our values.

12:28so whenever there was a value gap that they stated or a value gap that we also were able to quantify then the pause was major because it became so personal and so personally personally like like taken so that's where we also saw creators playing a massive role because creators if you see yourself in this person then it matches your values so creators can help within that process so i'll stop i'll stop now but read the white paper um to find out more yeah absolutely well yeah please do it's um i think i guess what's interesting um alice maybe from your perspective is then how those pauses maybe manifest themselves in in content consumption habits on platforms like you know if um financial services is probably quite a good example it's not necessarily that we're always all in the market for a loan or for a credit card but um brands will be active you know the whole time um trying to build up that salience that consideration um how do you see users behaving and and did you can you kind of see that pause manifesting almost in some of the content behaviors yeah of course i think when mindscope articulated the pause um it was quite an interesting observation it's one of those things where like it sounds super obvious, but when you hear it, you're like, if it's that obvious, why didn't we look at it before or unpack it previously?

14:01Chances are all of us spend the majority of our time in that pause. You're not always looking to buy something and you're not always looking to discover something. Majority of the time you're in a pause. And that pause is not a bad space to be in. It's not like your brain dead in that period. It just happens to be a period where you're going through the mental process and in the white paper, you would understand the archetypes within that pause. So I would not reveal too much right now, but looking at it in a way where people are actively and intentionally trying to reduce barriers and trying to reduce anxieties around decisions they want to take.

14:48And that's what's coming to life a lot. And this is why TikTok has been an incredible platform. And we've seen actually research done previously in Lea's older life, the impact we have on reducing buyer's remorse, which is the most critical part of content consumption, the ability to act with confidence on the information that you've processed from our platform. And that's the power of a single video. Like you're on a video, you could be aware of something. A comment on that video might make you question it a bit further. You click to discover a bit further, get on a search. And then suddenly a single video has allowed you to know about it and kind of process how you want to feel.

15:36Do you need to act now? Not necessarily. We're not robotic. and I guess building a bit on that, it's really important for us to accept that when people are looking at this information, they're not asking themselves, what was the intention of the marketeer behind that campaign? That's not how it happened. Did they just want me to know? So should I just know and go home right now? Do they really want me to buy? You know, like, so consumers aren't thinking that deeply. And I'm almost quoting Mark Ritson, who was on stage with our GM, who kept saying, no one's thinking that much about your brand as you are.

16:23And so kind of what you said about the importance of the salience part of it, that's what's happening in that pause. And we're seeing that the more brands are salient within that moment, which Byron Sharp calls, by the way, mental availability and not, it's not awareness, it's just availability. The more we're salient, the more we're seeing a higher propensity to act and we're finding bigger conversions later down the line. If that gives a bit more clarity from a platform perspective. To add to that point as well, I mean, Mark's point, obviously I really align with it. As you know, I always say the human mind doesn't differentiate.

17:02That's really something that's quite deep and inherently powerful in behavioral science. And yeah, what we found out and what was really interesting about this study is, to build on Elias's point, is actually brands tend to force it in that moment. They tend to force a narrative. They try to push a strategy. And that's where they lose the customer. That's when you don't respect the pause. that's when you try and target them in ways that really interrupts their journey. And this is kind of when you said problem, you know, obviously it's an inaccuracy, but then the problem sits below this. There's a problem within that inaccuracy, the fact that brands interrupt that journey, they interrupt the consideration phase.

17:40Whilst we found out that that consideration phase is one of the most psychologically rich moments within that process, if not the most psychologically rich moment that brands are not capitalizing on. And on the contrary, they're forcing a narrative during that process. Yeah, I think the reason I use the word problem is because I think there's a feeling among maybe some marketers that the pause equals uncertainty, which equals a negative, effectively. Oh, but I haven't won them over already with my ads or with my content. Yeah, I mean, most of our marketing briefs actually, as you both know, probably turn into organizational briefs as well, because, I mean, we're human beings, right?

18:26Everyone seeks instant gratification in everything. You know, that's how we're wired, you know. So wanting to see those results, wanting to see those short term KPIs, you know, you feel satisfied in the moment. But actually, we need to train us as marketers, we need to train the marketing industry to think more long term. We're in a moment now where there's something in behavioral science that we call the social capital theory. So bonding ties versus bridging ties. Social media built those bridging ties, but it has failed to build those bonding ties, meaning that the attention economy has added fuel to the fire.

19:01You know, if you optimize for like short term outcomes, then we optimize ourselves into sameness within the industry. If you think about it as a relational economy, then you create those like longer connections, that compounding effect, that cultural infrastructure. And it's within that consideration phase that that cultural infrastructure happens because you're not forcing a narrative. You earn your place as a brand in the mind of consumers. You earn your place within their journey, their process, but also the habits that they instill in their everyday lives. you you earn your place when they save you when they bookmark you when they want to go back to you when they speak about you to their friends so it's this whole thing it's a whole industry thing so what you just mentioned about yes great people want and as marketers we want those actual term outcomes it's an organizational problem but also there are ways to solve it and that that that work it's the first of many you know we want to do the anatomy stuff and prove it you know showcase more because we have a lot of proof points we want to showcase more is more to make it to bring it from that magical, as Elias, you put it so beautifully, from that magical alchemy to something tangible that becomes second nature to the industry.

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20:49let's get into the the consideration phase and and some of the the thinking that you you you've kind of set out in this study um it describes four forces acting together at at once can you tell us a little bit about those forces how they combine how they have sort of worked together and and to what effect um yeah and i can start i mean those forces that we've identified i honestly they're quite intuitive but as elias said some things just don't get mapped out and you need to really understand the consumer to put it with their perspective um because obviously human impact equals commercial impact so we looked we found four forces and we looked deeper and there was one force that took over so the four forces are uh social you know obviously it's kind of you know developing those bonds that i just spoke about that's that's fundamental it's cognitive i'm a behavioral scientist after all we talk a lot about cognition cognitive uh contextual so the environment the moment i mean i'm not going to go deep into the state of the world but a lot of this affects that the consideration phase obviously as as we all know we we tease a bit of that sweat in the white paper um and then there's also this kind of emotional phase so we are also obviously irrational beings and it was really interesting when we went deep because usually we see emotions uh take over social cognitive and contextual because again we are irrational people you know we're driven by emotions but for the first time ever even at mindscope in in our studies we saw that context was number one in all the markets and across the market so contextual the contextual force had veto power over all the forces we found that all things fail including emotions and cognition and social so it's like social interactions if the context itself the environment itself fails so you need to create an environment with your odds is that fits them that goes back to the point where you should enforce a narrative on them and overwhelm them with all of it but you should create an environment that works for them and respect the market they're in we saw a lot of cultural nuances the verticals they're in as well in APAC for example in the tech ecosystem it goes back to the point that if they are within a certain brand they stay with that brand with their phone with their watch with everything else in Europe They're a bit more price sensitive, also very skeptical to advertising.

23:07So we need to be more gentle with them. You know, so all of those things are very, very, very important. And all of those things are quite contextual. So that was a big, big insight that we found in this research. And, you know, the contextual angle was quite interesting. I feel the viewing context of TikTok in particular has time and time again delivered on satisfying the need of the user, which is why you come back to the platform time and time again to validate certain things or to discover a bit more or to get the perspectives that resonate with you and your value system more. And so we felt that this viewing environment has created a very healthy context for you to process brand information in a way that is more accepting and in a way that allows you to want to act upon that information.

24:01And it's exactly why the same piece of content in different contexts has a big impact. I used this example with Lea the other day on if the content was the word bear and I gave it to you in the context of camping, we'd be terrified. and if I'd give it to you in the context of a zoo you'd be excited and in one instance you run away and the other you run towards and that's and so context was so rich as a topic to unpack and something we felt extremely confident about as a platform because we know that the context within which users are consuming content on TikTok is very positive and is very rewarding which made it a perfect platform for brands to really deliver the messages that they wanted to land with their user base.

24:58So yeah, I think all forces matter and I think there's some sort of balance. Context obviously took the helm in this instance, but all forces have played a part in shaping decision making. not to be too long-winded in my answer but I feel I'd like to go back to the point you made about the challenge and the problem and why we refer to it and maybe a part of it is self-created by us as a media industry where we were so happy with this programmatic capability maybe over 10 years ago and where everything is measurable and tracked and so what consideration became back then is target and retarget and retarget and keep changing the ad within which you're retargeting until it lands and that's not really what what consideration is meant to be it's not a targeting and retargeting of someone who has unfortunately clicked like at some point you get people to a point where they regret that they gave you one more second because yeah because now you're in that bucket who's gonna see their ad for the next year you know so So and for us, we worked a lot because our consideration product was not there from the get go.

26:18It's a new product that we had released when we approached Leia and Mindscope. And it was built on two systems. One, which is called TikTok Market Scope. It's our proprietary tool that allows you to understand where users are along the funnel within your category and where their headspace is at. what is influencing the most, what creators are resonating with them the most. And based on that understanding, we pick up around 13, a bit over 13 unique signals that create our consideration ad, which is targeting them at the right moment in time, not a retargeting approach. And so maybe that's a solution to that problem, which is understanding that consideration isn't repetition with different creatives.

27:11It's an identification of that moment in time and knowing what levers are accurate to pull on to really influence you positively and not make you want to reject what you're being exposed to. Well, that leads me very nicely onto sort of my final question, really, which is for brands that, you know, marketers that read this report, what are the you know the pieces of advice that the practical steps that they can take to start getting better at the consideration phase this is a really good question because i keep saying stop trying to measure new things with old models uh it goes back to that point about we look great like we we retarget we consider consideration like a part of the equation that we can just pass by and just just just test and learn throughout but actually because it's such a psychologically rich pause we need to make sure that we respect that pause respecting that pause means going back to the second main insight in this research which is the contextual understanding of it so going back to that bear example do you create a psychologically safe environment a relevant environment you build resonance also you know how tiktok is now it's built it's built with creators it's built for GDC content, you get them to participate within their interests and within the verticals that they want to be in.

28:31So I'd say think about your vertical and you'll see about 25 behavioral interventions that we'll be teasing out over time. It's not in the white paper, it's built for, we built one intervention per vertical per market, looking deep into the contextual elements within that moment. So understand your vertical, understand the market you play in, the global universal truth that sit across the vertical that you play in, study that consideration phase as if you were in the mind of your consumer. They really don't differentiate. They just want to feel seen. They want to feel psychologically safe to engage with you and they want to be given a choice.

29:07So look at your vertical, look at the market, make sure that you don't retarget for the sake of it because then it would, to go back to that point around interruption, it would interrupt the experience. That should actually be an amazing discovery experience. we are human beings that want to discover we want to create more than consume as well so being in that moment where you give them a choice to discover and make the journey so seamless as a brand it's it's perfect it's it's it's very magical to go back to that alchemy part so make sure that you understand that they want to discover you they want to engage with you otherwise in this overloaded ecosystem they wouldn't give you like the time of days the fact that they do the fact that they pause is already a win so once they do you have your community you're close to them don't shout at them don't don't don't just make sure that you respect that and that you understand the market you play in but also the context assets around it yeah i to add on those maybe again by the way i i hate to to approach things as if like we were preaching or we're teaching marketeers have their own context within which they're operating we also know the challenges that marketeers are facing and justifying their spend which is why this last click had taken so much importance because it's the best way to talk to a CFO.

30:23You showcase last click. That's where attribution is coming from. You can justify spending more on that specific audience. So this is kind of like my disclaimer, like although we have answers, we're also aware that certain circumstances force marketeers to behave in specific ways that serve their business first and foremost, not serve our business and consumers. But if I were to break it down into three things, the first one and I don't want to take credit for it but I'll give credit to a friend and a colleague named Joe who worked on the research with Leia's team the way we were starting to debate it with clients and roundtables he drew a ladder with only the last step and the entire conversation is what good is this ladder if there's only the last step every step until you get there is superbly important or you're never getting to that step that gets you to where you're getting to.

31:20And the first thing is to be comfortable that there are steps that people will take and will go on and it's only natural. So the first thing is accepting that part in your marketing approach. The second one is not over-indexing purely on the media positioning of consideration. There's a creative implication, which Leah hints at a lot, and the findings in that report per vertical are quite insightful to better understand how can the learnings allow me to shape my creative content and how I'm delivering my creative message, not only where. Where seems to be the one we can talk about the more specifically as media platforms, but how is it coming to life?

32:07Who's delivering that message are quite critical in how it ends up being received. So that would be the second part that I would encourage marketeers to look at. And the third one is being okay with things taking time and knowing that working on the long term does not mean at all that the short term is being ignored or neglected. why are we so caught up on thinking that long term means I'm never going to see any result until a year later and short term means I'm getting immediate results this isn't a real reality you know I almost believe there's we're operating in a continuous term one that's building for the long run and trying to deliver results on the short run and when you start to think like that your strategy changes and you start to deliver content with this in a bothism intention of it's gonna build my brand and gonna get them closer to making a purchase and that's gonna happen over time but nothing is being ignored so yeah these would be like my takes they're not lessons or like a playbook to follow but this is what the research has been telling us and this is what users have been showcasing with this lovely research that is essentially VoxPop-based and qualitative and then validated through proper quantification so that we're not just bringing quality without showing that it's applicable across a broader audience as well.

33:47To go back to that point as well, just as a final note around performance outcomes and brand outcomes, you know, we've been preaching the fact that it shouldn't always be black and white, right? Two things can be true at once and over exactly the work that we've done as well we've seen that you know like brand outcomes have a ripple effect on performance outcomes and we've seen that across the spectrum of our clients because today in today's economy brands are not as differentiated as they used to be we used to take so many risks five ten years ago and had less tools at our disposal at the moment we've got all the tools that we need there's a tool that is launched on every monday but they all they all look the same you know uh i had to uh say a bold statement to end this but but it's actually true uh so at the end of the day if that happens that you need this humanization you need this real understanding of people and this real understanding of psychology so once you understand the the the the the realities of brand and performance in today's marketing world once you understand that actually brand outcomes lead to performance outcomes you realize that all of that technology that you're trying to push and push and push and all of the things that you're trying to build all of the kind of mistaking of people are mistaking potentially and i say that quite a lot they're mistaking efficiency for intelligence so all of that all of those kind of little mistakes lead to uh this this this kind of perception that brand and performance should sit in two different worlds so you either over invest in tools or you do that to go back to your point around our uncertainty you do that to be certain to have something that you can look at that keeps you afloat but actually nothing is more certain than human behavior human behavior hasn't changed that much you know the tools have changed the formats have changed the vessel of deliveries have changed but we still want connection belonging safety creativity entertainment so if you understand that then it gives you a compass and what we see in our work is the fact that if you keep that psychological layer across brand and you keep building brand because they're being very not differentiated at all, very similar and commoditized at the moment, then you can better understand what was the equation to build that brand to then get the best performance outcome.

36:02So invest less in those undifferentiated certain, quotation marks again, tools, and more into the understanding of your audience and consumers to then lead that technological shift. Yeah, I think that's so spot on. Well, I mean, anybody that's read the multiplier effects report by WALK will know that we are 100 % in agreement. Thank you both very much for coming in and for talking about the report. Where can readers find the full white paper? So you can go to the MyScope website, the white paper, the qualitative dashboard and the quant results as well. Well, I recommend everyone go take a look.

36:40We also have a summary piece on the WALK website with some of the key findings. I'm afraid that is all we have time for today remember you can subscribe to The Walk Podcast on your favourite podcasting platform and if you really liked it go on and leave us a review until next time thanks for listening