Your customers are lying to you
They don’t mean to. But right now, in focus groups and surveys, consumers are making promises they won’t keep. They’re pledging to buy sustainable products, switch to ethical brands, and pay premium prices for quality products. And you’re making million-dollar decisions based on what they say.
The reality? The gap between what consumers say and what they actually do isn’t just growing—it’s become a chasm that’s swallowing marketing budgets whole. This disconnect, known as the “say-do-gap,” is challenging for marketers, researchers, and business leaders. Whether in sustainability, brand loyalty, or product adoption, the gap has only widened in recent years.
Traditional methods like surveys and focus groups still have their place. Still, they fail to capture the complexity of real-world decision-making—costing businesses billions annually in misaligned strategies and failed initiatives.
Why is the say-do-gap growing?
Several forces are widening this gap, making traditional insights less predictive and increasingly unreliable:
- Social desirability bias in the digital age: Consumers are hyper-aware of how they present themselves—not just on social media, but also in surveys, product reviews, and focus groups. The desire to align with social values like sustainability or ethical consumption often leads to exaggerated claims. This is particularly evident among Gen-Z consumers, where 65% express a desire to shop sustainably, yet economic pressures and social media trends drive them toward fast fashion. The gap between aspirational values and actual behavior reveals how deeply social desirability influences consumer behavior.
But social pressure is just the beginning. Even when consumers genuinely want to follow through on their stated intentions, they face a more fundamental challenge.
- Choice complexity and decision fatigue: Consumers are overwhelmed with options, leading to impulse-driven decisions that go against what they say or thought they were going to do. As behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman explains, the brain defaults to fast, intuitive “System 1” thinking, which dominates real-world choices. Yet, traditional research assumes rational, deliberate “System 2” decision-making—leaving brands with inaccurate data and an incomplete view of consumer behavior.
- Economic pressures vs. ethical intentions: Economic pressures have exposed how easily stated preferences can break down. Harvard Business Review found that while 65% of consumers say they want to buy from purpose-driven brands that support sustainability, only 26% actually do so. This isn’t just about price sensitivity—it’s a fundamental gap between what consumers say and how they actually behave when faced with real financial trade-offs.
- Hyper-Personalized Marketing Disrupts Intentions: The rise of AI-driven marketing has made consumer behavior even harder to predict. Algorithmic recommendations and hyper-personalized ads shape in-the-moment decisions in ways consumers can’t always predict or self-report. These tools prioritize convenience, often steering consumers away from what they say or think they really want. Traditional research methods fail to capture how deeply real-time, tailored experiences influence behavior—leaving brands with a distorted view of what really drives purchasing decisions.
Why current tactics fall short
Traditional market research relies heavily on what consumers say they’ll do. But real decisions unfold in a complex web of context, subconscious influences, and immediate incentives that no survey can fully capture.
Here’s why this leads to flawed insights:
Surveys and focus groups: When researchers ask consumers about future behavior, they’re measuring assumption, not intention. The consumer who claims they’ll pay more for sustainable products isn’t describing their shopping cart—they’re describing their ideal self. This gap between aspiration and action leads to costly marketing missteps.
A/B testing and clickstream data: These methods show what happened but miss the critical why behind consumer choices. This leads brands to misinterpret motivations and build strategies on incomplete insights.
Purchase data and loyalty programs: Historical data tells a limiting story. It can’t predict emerging behaviors, capture the full context of decision-making, or identify the preference shifts that signal future trends. Brands often mistake past patterns for future preferences, doubling down on strategies that are already becoming obsolete.
A better way forward: bridging the say-do-gap
To capture true consumer intent, brands, and insights teams must rethink their approach. Here’s how:
- Track behavior, not just opinions: Ads consumers claim to love may fail to activate emotional response centers in the brain, which can predict real-world ad failure. Nielson’s research showed that direct response surveys often mislead, as consumers struggle to accurately verbalize their emotions. Their study, combining EEG, biometrics, and eye-tracking found that high-engagement ads drove a 23% sales increase by capturing true emotional responses—measuring actual brain activity instead of relying on what consumers say they feel.
- Blend stated and observed preferences with AI: Spotify doesn’t just ask users what music they like, —it watches what they actually play, skip, and repeat. This approach shows how AI-powered analytics can merge multiple data streams—survey responses, real-world purchase patterns, social media behavior, and web tracking—to uncover inconsistencies between stated preferences and actual behavior. The result? Recommendations people use, not just say they’ll use.
- Shift from asking to simulating: P&G moved away from traditional focus groups in favor of digital twin modeling to test product launches before full rollout. By creating virtual shopping simulations, gamified preference testing, and digital twin environments, they observe how people behave in realistic settings without the constraints of traditional research. This shift from hypothetical questions to simulated environments has minimized their reliance on self-reported data.
- Test real-world trade-offs: Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign sparked an increase in sales, showing that even minimalist consumers make impulse purchases when faced with scarcity. By forcing trade-offs in price, convenience, or effort, brands can capture genuine preferences. When real stakes are involved, consumers show us their true behavior,—not just intentions.
The future: from market research to market reality
The say-do- gap isn’t just a research problem—it’s a business risk. Brands relying on self-reported data will struggle to predict demand, optimize messaging, and drive behavior change. But for those who can bridge the gap, it’s a competitive advantage. The next era of market research must move beyond what people say to what they actually do—leveraging AI, behavioral science, and real-world experimentation.
At Orchard, we go beyond traditional research environments into digital spaces where real decisions happen. By treating digital platforms as living laboratories, we capture authentic consumer behavior that helps brands make decisions based on market reality, not just market research.