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Learning About Human Behavior from Google Trends: Part II

Posted on 05/05/2010 @ 10:35 AM

Mindy Hernandez, Founder, One Decision

This is the second and final post of a two-part series on Behavioral Economics insights from Google Trends by CFED Innovator-in-Residence Mindy Hernandez . Click Here to read Part I of the Blog.

Holidays Matter

Many organizations put an enormous amount of effort (often with very modest results) into encouraging people to purchase savings bonds at tax time reasoning that people have some extra cash to put into savings from tax refunds.

But perhaps new funds actually matter less than the feeling of giving that the holiday season creates. Perhaps efforts to encourage savings should be moved to mid-December.

People seem to buy flowers on Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, and jewelry around the December holidays…

And savings bonds around December holidays

Behavior Trends

Google Trends is interesting in many other ways.

1. You can see trends appear

This may tell you more about how your clients are faring in the recent recession and what kind of assistance they are seeking.

It’s interesting that while more people are clearly looking into food stamps, searches for “welfare” have barely changed and there seems to be only a modest increase searches for “unemployment insurance”.

This aligns with recent research that shows that while applications for food stamps have increased during the recession, there is, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report to Congress no clear association between the chage in the number of families receiving cash assistance in a state and its unemployment rate.

Is this because of time limits on welfare benefits? Stigma? Have many people kept their jobs only to have their hours cut, leaving them employed but unable to make ends meet, making food stamps a way to close the gap?

Public Assistance and the Recession

2. You can see some trends take off while others fade

And this might give you some insight on the best way to reach the people you care about. Of course, it all depends on the population you’re trying to reach- are your potential clients more likely to follow the ascending blue line or the declining red line, below?

Blogs and Newspapers

And then there are simply the surprising, head-scratching patterns that may look like a meaningful relationship but be purely coincidental. What could be the link here?

Communism and Terrorism

Want More?

• Dan Ariely wrote an interesting post on Google’s auto-complete feature with some funny and interesting findings about the difference in what men and women search for- it’s as gendered as you fear. 
  
• This cool tool lets you play with searches.
• Sometimes Google auto-complete feature has laugh-out-loud surprising suggestions. (Often because there is a trend or product or event we know nothing about.) See some of the best here.
• You can see a helpful video on how Google Insights works here.