Marketing as a Consumer-Behavior Accelerant
Follow emerging behavior, then add the scalable marketing layer
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 96%
This mental model treats marketing as a force that accelerates an underlying change in consumer behavior rather than creating that behavior from nothing. A new tool first enables people to communicate, transact, discover, or organize differently for their own reasons. Once that behavior becomes meaningful, marketers add a layer that uses the same mechanism to reach larger groups, personalize messages, or coordinate demand. The framework therefore tells marketers to study organic use before designing campaigns, identify what old behavior is being replaced, and determine whether the new interaction creates durable value. Scaling comes only after that evidence exists. The model also warns that aggressive marketing can eventually overwhelm the channel, so acceleration must remain compatible with the user experience that made the behavior attractive.
Origin
Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain during Kieran's explanation of how email behavior preceded email marketing and how Web3 may create new audience interactions.
Core principles
- 01Consumer behavior changes before marketing scales it
- 02New communication tools begin with organic use cases
- 03Marketing adds reach and repetition to established behavior
- 04Each technology era creates new audience connections
- 05Platforms constrain marketers after markets consolidate
How to run it
- 1
Observe organic behavior
Study what people are already doing with the emerging technology before promotional use becomes dominant.
Pro tip Focus on repeated actions rather than public excitement about the technology.
Watch out Speculative attention is not the same as a durable behavioral shift.
- 2
Identify the displaced habit
Determine which older communication, transaction, or community behavior the new tool replaces or improves.
Pro tip Describe the change as a before-and-after user journey.
Watch out If no meaningful behavior changes, the channel may be only a novelty.
- 3
Locate the marketing layer
Find where a brand can add relevant information, access, coordination, or value using the emerging behavior.
Pro tip Design for the context users have already established.
Watch out Do not force conventional mass promotion onto a channel built for intimate interaction.
- 4
Scale the connection
Use the channel to reach more appropriate people or deliver more contextual communication while preserving its core utility.
Pro tip Increase volume only as targeting and permission quality improve.
Watch out Unchecked scale can turn a useful channel into spam.
- 5
Protect the behavior
Monitor whether marketing activity is degrading trust, usefulness, or participation in the underlying channel.
Pro tip Track opt-outs, engagement quality, and user complaints alongside reach.
Watch out Destroying the user experience also destroys the long-term marketing opportunity.
In the wild
People first adopt email as a faster way to communicate online instead of relying on physical letters. Marketers later recognize the behavior and add systems that send useful messages to many recipients. As volume grows, indiscriminate promotion creates spam and forces inbox providers to redesign their interfaces and filtering.
→ The example demonstrates both marketing's accelerating effect and the danger of overwhelming the behavior being scaled.
People begin using wallets as persistent identities containing visible transaction and ownership histories. A marketer then groups users around relevant wallet activity and sends contextual information based on demonstrated interests rather than broad demographic assumptions.
→ The marketer creates a new audience connection grounded in an emerging consumer behavior.
Common mistakes
Inventing behavior from a campaign
Promotion cannot sustainably accelerate a behavior that users have no independent reason to adopt.
Scaling before understanding context
Applying mass-distribution tactics too early can make communication irrelevant and damage the emerging channel.
Accelerating into spam
Volume that outpaces permission and relevance eventually forces users or platforms to block the channel.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for marketers evaluating new technologies, communication channels, and community platforms before broad adoption.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for mature channels where user behavior and marketing conventions are already stable and well understood.
From the transcript
“Marketing is an accelerant of changes in consumer behavior.”
“And marketing then is then an accelerant of that consumer behavior change because it actually adds the marketing layer on top of it”
“Every every era brings in new ways for marketers to connect with their audience.”
From the episode
Is Web 3 Coming?