Peter Noel Murray, PhD - Founder
During my academic career and for subsequent decades I have studied how emotions, feelings, and meanings shape human behavior.
My exposure to the question of “How Behavior Happens” began early in my business career when I worked as a marketing executive on national and international consumer brands - for companies which today (as a result of mergers and acquisitions over the years) are known as the Kraft Heinz Company and Colgate-Palmolive.
My experience taught me that the worldwide marketing community holds the view that the greatest influence on consumers’ purchase of their brands are the rational factors of product claims, product features, and data-driven arguments. In the context of this experience, I pursued doctoral and postdoc in psychology and neuroscience, focusing on how emotions, feelings, and meanings create and determine behavior.
While psychology and neuroscience answer the question of ‘how behavior happens’ - in the business world that question takes more specific forms, such as:
‘How does purchase ‘behavior happen’ for a new designer collection in luxury apparel categories?’
‘How does non-adherent ‘behavior happen’ by patients who have been prescribed medications?’
‘How does trial and purchase ‘behavior happen’ a new product in the food category?’
To gain a more in-depth understanding of ‘how behavior happens’, I embarked on a post-doc study program, in which I studied with several noted psychologists who were working at the intersection of psychology and neuroscience. With them, I developed the EFM methodology which was designed to capture the full range of emotions, feelings, and meanings that create and shape behavior.
For over twenty years I have been conducting EFM Discovery studies for leading US and international companies in categories that include: pharmaceuticals, advertising agencies, financial services, consumer products, publishing, retailers, electronics and technology, non-profit organizations, luxury categories, Insurance, telecommunications, travel, and political candidates.
Robert Perkins - President
Robert “Bob” Perkins merges a lifetime of pioneering data-driven innovation with deep insights into what really moves people: the emotional meanings beneath every decision. As President of EFM Research, Bob works closely with client executives to define their critical behavioral challenges, shaping consulting engagements that apply EFM insights, and ensuring that the firm’s offerings stay tightly aligned with the operational and strategic goals of client organizations.
Bob’s background is both left brain [statistics, business modeling] and right brained [President of Chiat/Day NY one of the most iconic agencies in advertising.] He and Peter Murray have worked together on a range of projects, with a special focus on discovering the emotional barriers to purchase. Bob served as CMO of Pizza Hut and head of Worldwide Marketing and Licensing for Calvin Klien. Two wildly different product categories and competitive sets, both founded on emotional realities.
Doing Strategic Consulting with Consensus Research, Bob guided clients on uncovering emotional purchase triggers in Asia, Europe, and the United States. He also collaborated on a decade-long national attitudes study with Pat Caddell and Scott Miller at Cambridge Survey Research. Bob has a Master of Arts from Texas Tech University and was an Instructor Pilot in the US AirForce.