Marketing and Human Behaviour: Why People Notice, Trust, Choose and Remember

Fiease Marketing Foundation Series — M02

Direct answer: Marketing works partly because buying decisions are made by people operating with limited attention, imperfect information, memory, emotion, social influence and uncertainty. Understanding those realities should help businesses make genuine value easier to notice, understand, remember, trust and buy — not manipulate customers into unsuitable decisions.

A customer is comparing two suppliers. Supplier A appears technically stronger. Supplier B is already familiar. The engineering team has used Supplier B before. Procurement knows the salesperson. Another factory in the group uses the brand. The product is already approved. The buyer understands the documentation. Switching suppliers would require testing and internal justification.

Who wins?

If purchasing were simply a spreadsheet in which every product attribute received an objective score, Supplier A might win. Real decisions are rarely that simple. People notice some information and ignore other information. They remember some brands and forget others. They interpret the same fact differently depending on context. They prefer familiar options in some situations. They worry about losses. They seek reassurance from colleagues. They avoid unnecessary mental effort. They experience uncertainty. And even in highly analytical B2B purchases, they still experience emotion.

That does not make customers foolish or irrational. It makes them human.

Is marketing really about psychology?

Partly. Marketing draws from economics, strategy, statistics, psychology, sociology, communication, design, technology and operations. Psychology matters because markets ultimately consist of people making choices.

Even when one company sells to another company, “the company” does not literally sit in a room and make a decision. People do: engineers, procurement managers, founders, finance leaders, users, consultants, plant managers and board members. Those people may operate under formal rules, but they still possess limited attention, memory, prior experience, fears, relationships and personal accountability.

Modern research on B2B customer journeys and buying centres treats organisational buying as a system involving multiple people, roles and interactions rather than one perfectly rational decision-maker. The useful management implication is simple: understand not just the target company, but the people and decisions inside it.

Are customers irrational?

Calling customers irrational is usually unhelpful. A better idea is bounded decision-making. People do not normally have unlimited information, unlimited time, unlimited attention, perfect forecasts or zero uncertainty. They simplify.

They rely on experience, recognition, trusted sources, familiar suppliers, recommendations, rules of thumb and manageable comparisons. Sometimes those shortcuts improve decisions. Sometimes they create bias.

Marketing should understand these shortcuts without treating customers as targets to exploit.

Don't B2B buyers make rational decisions?

They often make highly analytical decisions. But analytical does not mean emotion-free or psychology-free.

Imagine a procurement manager choosing a supplier for a mission-critical component. The analysis may include unit cost, quality data, delivery, technical capability, payment terms, certifications and vendor ratings. At the same time the buyer may think: What happens if this supplier fails? Will I be blamed? Can I defend this recommendation to management? Will operations accept the change? Do I trust their promises? Is staying with the incumbent safer?

Research on emotion and decision-making has moved well beyond the idea that emotion is simply noise interfering with rational thought. A major review in the Annual Review of Psychology describes emotions as pervasive influences on judgement and choice — sometimes helpful, sometimes harmful. The useful distinction is therefore not “rational versus emotional.” It is: How do analysis, emotion, memory, social influence and uncertainty interact in this decision?

Why do people notice some marketing and ignore the rest?

Because attention is scarce.

A business does not compete only with competitors. It competes with emails, WhatsApp, meetings, targets, family, suppliers, customers, social media, news, internal problems and thousands of other pieces of information.

The fact that a message was delivered does not mean it was processed.

This creates marketing’s first behavioural challenge: before someone can understand your value, they must notice something relevant enough to deserve attention.

What attracts attention?

There is no universal formula, but attention is more likely when information is relevant, distinctive, unexpected, connected to an existing goal or emotionally meaningful.

Consider a maintenance manager facing repeated mechanical-seal failure.

Generic headline:

Leading Industrial Pump Manufacturer Since 1987

Problem-connected headline:

Why Chemical-Transfer Pumps Keep Failing at the Mechanical Seal

The second headline is not automatically “better marketing.” But if seal failure is the buyer’s current problem, it has stronger contextual relevance.

A better question than “How do we make the ad eye-catching?” is: What is already occupying this customer's mind?

Does being different automatically win attention?

No. Difference can help something stand out, but meaningless difference is not enough. A bizarre colour, provocative headline or viral joke may attract attention and still create no commercial value.

Marketing needs relevant distinctiveness: enough difference to be noticed, but connected to something the target customer values.

This is why attention without relevance often produces vanity metrics. A video can generate one million views and almost no qualified demand. It succeeded as entertainment, not necessarily as marketing.

What happens after attention?

Perception begins. People do not passively record information exactly as a company sends it. They interpret it.

Consider the statement: “We have operated for 50 years.” One buyer reads “experienced.” Another reads “stable.” Another reads “traditional.” Another reads “possibly outdated.” Same fact, different interpretation.

Meaning depends on prior beliefs, category expectations, context, competitive alternatives and experience. Marketing therefore does not merely send information. It participates in meaning formation.

Why is clarity so important?

Because understanding requires mental effort.

Psychologists use the term processing fluency to describe the subjective ease with which information is processed. Research reviews show that linguistic simplicity, visual clarity, familiarity and other forms of fluency can influence judgement. That does not mean simple statements are automatically believed or that complex products should be oversimplified. It means unnecessary cognitive friction can damage communication.

Compare:

Our comprehensive, digitally integrated operational optimisation ecosystem provides synergistic cross-functional intelligence.

with:

See where work is getting delayed, why it is happening and who needs to fix it.

The second sentence may not contain less substance. It simply makes the first layer of meaning easier to process.

But what if the product is genuinely complex?

Simplify the explanation, not the truth.

A pharmaceutical manufacturer evaluating equipment may need materials data, validation documents, technical drawings, compliance details and installation requirements. Removing necessary detail would make marketing worse.

A better approach is layered information:

1. Problem: What does this solve?

2. Outcome: Why does that matter?

3. Mechanism: How does it work?

4. Evidence: Why should I believe it?

5. Technical detail: Can it meet my exact requirement?

The expert can go deeper. The non-expert can still understand the commercial meaning.

Why do people remember some brands and forget others?

Memory is selective, and buying may happen long after first exposure. A potential customer can encounter your company today and need your product eighteen months later.

The question therefore is not only “Did people see our communication?” It is also: What will they remember when the buying situation occurs?

The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute describes mental availability as the probability that buyers notice, recognise or think of a brand in buying situations. Its work on Category Entry Points argues that situational cues — problems, motives, contexts and purchase situations — can retrieve brands from memory.

For Fiease, the useful memory is not simply “I know the name Fiease.” It is “When my business is profitable but cash is tight, Fiease is one of the firms I think of.”

What is a Category Entry Point?

A Category Entry Point is a cue connected to entering a buying situation.

For finance advisory, potential cues include:

• “we are profitable but cash is tight,”

• “we do not trust our monthly numbers,”

• “receivables are getting out of control,”

• “we are preparing for fundraising.”

For industrial pumps:

• “our pump keeps failing,”

• “we are adding a new process line,”

• “energy consumption is too high,”

• “our current supplier is not responding.”

Marketing becomes stronger when the brand is connected to real buying situations rather than generic awareness.

Is awareness enough?

No. A person can recognise a company yet fail to think of it when a specific need arises.

Ask someone: “Have you heard of ABC Industrial?” They answer yes.

Then ask: “Who would you call if you needed a pump for a difficult corrosive application?” ABC never appears.

Recognition exists. Useful mental availability does not.

A strong brand connects itself to situations in which the category becomes relevant.

Why does repetition matter?

Because memory decays and familiarity develops over time.

The mere exposure effect is one of the best-known findings in psychology: repeated exposure can, under some conditions, increase familiarity and evaluation. A 2017 meta-analysis covering 81 articles found an overall relationship while also showing that the effect is not unlimited and can follow an inverted-U pattern. More repetition is not endlessly better.

The marketing lesson should therefore be modest: Repeated, coherent exposure can help a brand become familiar. Familiarity can reduce the disadvantage of being unknown. It does not mean bombarding customers until they surrender.

Overexposure can irritate. Repetition of a confusing message builds confusion. Repeated bad experiences build negative familiarity.

Why can familiarity feel safer?

Because the unknown contains uncertainty.

A buyer may prefer an incumbent supplier even while admitting a challenger looks stronger. The incumbent is known. The customer knows how delivery works, who answers the phone, how quality issues are handled and what normally goes wrong. The new supplier contains unknowns.

This is why trust becomes especially important in B2B purchasing. Research on industrial supplier selection shows that trust can matter before a contract is signed and can operate at interpersonal, organisational and network levels. A buyer may ask simultaneously: Do I trust this salesperson? Do I trust the company? Do other credible organisations trust them?

What actually creates trust?

Not the sentence “you can trust us.” Trust is built through evidence and consistent behaviour.

Useful trust signals include:

• technical competence,

• clear documentation,

• consistent claims,

• references,

• certifications where relevant,

• transparent limitations,

• reliable delivery,

• accessible experts,

• professional communication,

• credible warranties,

• responsive service.

A particularly powerful trust signal is the willingness to say, “This product is not suitable for that application.” A business that refuses an unsuitable sale can demonstrate that its advice is not purely transactional.

What is the difference between a claim and evidence?

Claim: “Our pumps are extremely reliable.”

Evidence: documented operating history in comparable applications, relevant testing, failure data and reference installations.

Claim: “We understand your industry.”

Evidence: people who can intelligently discuss the buyer’s process, constraints and technical context.

Good marketing converts adjectives into reasons to believe.

Does social proof really influence buyers?

Yes, but social influence should not be reduced to website testimonials.

A 2023 systematic review describes social influence as an important stream in consumer behaviour research. In B2B markets, social influence can operate through peer recommendations, reference customers, approved-vendor lists, consultants, distributors, professional networks, case studies, group-company experience and senior-management preferences.

Imagine two suppliers.

Supplier A says: “Our product performs exceptionally.”

Supplier B says: “You can speak to the maintenance head at another plant using this configuration.”

Supplier B is providing information that can reduce uncertainty.

Is a testimonial always good evidence?

No. Evidence quality matters.

Weak testimonial: “Amazing company. Great service.”

Stronger evidence: a named, verifiable customer explains the application, problem, implementation and result.

Even then, one case does not guarantee that every customer will achieve the same outcome. Ethical marketing should distinguish evidence of capability, example and guarantee.

Why are people reluctant to switch?

Because change creates possible gains and possible losses.

Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory showed that people evaluate outcomes relative to reference points and that losses can carry substantial psychological weight. Marketers often see only the potential gain: “Our software will improve reporting.” The customer also sees implementation time, training, migration risk, loss of familiar workflows and career exposure if the project fails.

This explains why demonstrating a better solution may not be sufficient. The business has to answer two questions: Why change? and How can change be made acceptably safe?

Is this why customers stay with inferior suppliers?

Sometimes, but do not use psychology to explain away rational switching costs. Staying may make economic sense because changing supplier can require qualification, tooling, integration, training, inventory transition or operational risk.

Behavioural inertia and real economic switching costs can coexist. The challenger must understand both.

What is status quo bias?

Status quo bias describes situations in which people prefer maintaining the current state. In marketing, that means the largest competitor is not always another brand. It can be:

• doing nothing,

• repairing the old machine,

• renewing the current vendor,

• using Excel for another year,

• delaying the project,

• living with the current problem.

A good commercial case therefore sometimes needs to compare the cost of change with the cost of not changing. That comparison must be factual. Manufactured fear is not legitimate marketing.

What is loss aversion and how should marketers use it?

Carefully. Suppose a manufacturer says, “Our machine can save ₹5 lakh per year.” That is a gain frame. Another message says, “The current process is costing approximately ₹5 lakh per year in avoidable energy.” That is a loss frame.

The underlying economics may be similar; the psychological framing differs. Marketers should not turn this into simplistic rules such as “losses are always exactly twice as powerful.” Context matters and universal numeric multipliers are often repeated without adequate evidence.

The useful principle is simply that customers consider both what they may gain and what they may lose.

Do emotions influence expensive B2B purchases?

Yes, though the emotions may look different from lifestyle advertising.

Relevant B2B emotions include confidence, anxiety, relief, professional pride, frustration, fear of failure and desire for control.

A CFO evaluating a forecasting system may value “better forecasting” functionally. Emotionally, the value may be: “I no longer enter a board meeting unsure whether the cash forecast is reliable.”

A plant head choosing a critical supplier may value the feeling: “If something fails at 2 a.m., these people will respond.”

That is not irrational sentimentality. It is confidence under uncertainty.

Does fear work in marketing?

Fear can attract attention, but fear-based marketing can easily become unethical or ineffective.

The correct distinction is between risk communication and fear manipulation.

Risk communication accurately explains consequences. Fear manipulation exaggerates consequences to pressure action.

If a weak cybersecurity process genuinely creates exposure, explaining the risk can improve a decision. Inventing catastrophe merely to create urgency undermines trust.

Why do people prefer easier-to-understand options?

Because cognitive effort is a real cost.

Imagine three proposals.

Proposal A contains 90 pages of generic corporate history.

Proposal B contains 50 pages of unexplained technical specifications.

Proposal C begins with the customer’s problem, proposed solution, assumptions, economic implications, implementation, risks and evidence, with technical appendices behind it.

Even if the underlying offer is similar, Proposal C reduces the customer’s work.

Buying effort is part of customer experience.

Does more choice help customers?

Sometimes. Sometimes not.

Early “choice overload” research became famous for showing situations where very large assortments reduced action. Later research has been more nuanced. A 2015 meta-analysis covering 99 observations found that overload depends on factors such as choice-set complexity, decision difficulty, preference uncertainty and the decision goal.

So the correct marketing rule is not “always show only three options.” It is: When a decision is difficult, make comparison easier.

How can a business reduce decision complexity?

Structure the choice.

A software company with twenty plans can organise them around customer situations instead of forcing buyers to decode internal product codes.

An industrial manufacturer can begin with application, operating condition, capacity and material requirement before showing detailed product variants.

Marketing therefore acts partly as decision architecture: it does not remove necessary complexity; it helps the customer navigate it.

Do habits matter?

Yes. Habit reduces effort.

A procurement team may reorder from the same supplier. An accountant may continue with the same software. A distributor may call the same manufacturer. Repetition does not necessarily mean deep loyalty; it can mean the current option is easy and good enough.

For challengers, this makes trial important. Samples, pilots, demonstrations and low-risk entry products can lower the behavioural and operational barrier to change.

What role does identity play?

People make choices partly in relation to how they see themselves and their organisation.

Examples include:

• “We are a quality-first manufacturer.”

• “I am a financially disciplined founder.”

• “Our company uses proven technology, not experiments.”

• “We support Indian suppliers where technically viable.”

• “I want my team to see me as data-driven.”

These beliefs influence how offers are interpreted. Marketing should understand identity without turning people into stereotypes.

Does status matter in B2B?

Yes. Status is not limited to luxury goods.

Professional credibility can matter. A senior executive may favour a consulting firm whose reputation makes the decision easier to defend. An engineer may prefer a technology respected by peers. A company may use a certification because customers expect it.

The ethical lesson is not “make people insecure.” It is to understand what a decision communicates socially as well as functionally.

Why does context matter so much?

Because the same message can mean different things in different situations.

“Reduce inventory” sounds attractive to a company with slow-moving stock and dangerous to one suffering stockouts.

“Premium engineering” may reassure a mission-critical process buyer and seem unnecessary in a low-risk commodity application.

Meaning depends on the situation. This is why good marketing begins less often with “What do we want to say?” and more often with “What situation is the customer in when this message appears?”

How do decisions change when several stakeholders are involved?

They become a consensus problem as well as a product-evaluation problem.

Consider a ₹1-crore automation system.

Production wants output. Maintenance wants reliability. IT wants integration and security. Procurement wants commercial terms. Finance wants economic justification. Management wants strategic confidence.

The same offer creates different questions for different stakeholders.

Marketing therefore needs to understand who participates, when they enter, what each person values, what they fear and what evidence they require.

Does every stakeholder need a different message?

Often they need a different translation of the same underlying proposition.

Suppose the central value is reducing unplanned failure.

Engineering may need failure mechanisms and design evidence. Operations may need uptime and maintenance implications. Finance may need downtime economics. Procurement may need supplier credibility and lifecycle value.

One value proposition. Several stakeholder lenses.

Why do B2B deals stall even when the product is liked?

Because product preference and buying confidence are not the same thing.

A technical champion can love the solution while finance cannot justify it, procurement fears supplier risk or operations does not want implementation responsibility. The buying group must become comfortable enough collectively to move.

Recent B2B research and practitioner work increasingly focuses on group consensus and buying confidence for this reason.

Marketing therefore should help customers buy, not merely help sellers sell.

How can marketing reduce perceived risk?

Not by pretending risk does not exist. Reduce avoidable uncertainty.

Useful mechanisms include:

• clear specifications,

• reference customers,

• trials,

• samples,

• pilots,

• transparent methodology,

• implementation plans,

• warranties where sensible,

• service commitments,

• documentation,

• accessible experts.

The higher the perceived risk, the more important credible evidence becomes.

Is a famous brand automatically trusted?

No. Familiarity, reputation and trust are related but distinct.

A buyer can know a brand and distrust it. An unknown supplier can become trusted through evidence and direct experience.

A useful distinction is:

Awareness: Do I know you?

Trust: Am I willing to depend on you?

Different questions.

Is remembering a slogan important?

Sometimes, but remembering the brand in the right context is more commercially useful.

If everyone remembers “ABC — Engineering Tomorrow” but nobody knows when to consider ABC, memorability has not done enough work.

The stronger outcome is: when a customer experiences repeated pump failure, ABC is one of the first specialist suppliers retrieved from memory.

How do brands become memorable?

No single formula exists, but useful mechanisms include consistent identity, distinctive assets, repeated exposure, clear associations, connection to buying situations, stories, emotion and customer experience.

Consistency matters because memory structures develop over time. Rebranding repeatedly or changing the central message every month can destroy accumulated recognition.

Creativity matters. Continuity matters too.

Does emotion improve memory?

Emotion can influence attention and memory, but the relationship is complex. The simplistic instruction “make people emotional and they will remember” is unreliable.

A useful principle is that meaningful, emotionally relevant information can receive deeper attention than neutral information. But the emotion needs to support the desired association. A hilarious industrial advertisement that everyone remembers while nobody remembers the advertiser may have failed commercially.

Can humour work in B2B?

Of course. B2B buyers are still people.

The question is whether humour helps attention, memory, understanding or likability without damaging credibility. A cybersecurity firm, machinery manufacturer or accounting advisory can use humour. The style should fit the audience, category, brand and message.

What are heuristics or decision shortcuts?

A heuristic is a simplified rule used to make judgement easier.

Examples:

• “I recognise this brand.”

• “My colleague uses it.”

• “This supplier is already approved.”

• “They are the market leader.”

• “This warranty is stronger.”

• “These people seem to understand our industry.”

Heuristics are not automatically errors. A recommendation from a knowledgeable peer can contain real information. Approved suppliers may genuinely be lower risk. Problems arise when the shortcut produces a misleading inference.

Marketing should make legitimate decision signals visible rather than fabricate them.

How should businesses use behavioural science ethically?

Fiease should draw a firm line between two approaches.

Manipulative approach: How can we exploit a bias so someone purchases something unsuitable?

Decision-support approach: How can we make genuine value easier to notice, understand, evaluate and act upon?

The second is the appropriate approach.

Practical rules:

1. Never fabricate evidence.

2. Do not hide material information.

3. Reduce unnecessary complexity.

4. Respect suitability.

5. Use urgency only when urgency is real.

6. Explain risk proportionately.

7. Make comparison easier.

The American Marketing Association’s ethics guidance similarly emphasises honesty, responsibility, transparency and trust.

Hypothetical example: why the technically better pump loses

Consider two fictional suppliers.

Supplier A: new challenger, excellent engineering, lower lifecycle cost.

Supplier B: incumbent, slightly weaker on paper, local service, approved vendor, known salesperson, several reference installations.

Supplier A’s management says, “Our pump is objectively better. Customers should switch.” But they do not.

Barrier 1: Attention

Many plants do not know Supplier A.

Marketing response: Build visibility around relevant applications and buying situations.

Barrier 2: Memory

Even buyers who have encountered Supplier A do not think of it when a failure occurs.

Response: Consistently connect the brand to the problems it solves.

Barrier 3: Understanding

Supplier A communicates technical features rather than consequences.

Response: Translate design and materials into maintenance, energy, uptime and lifecycle implications.

Barrier 4: Trust

Customers have little evidence.

Response: Document applications, publish methodology, build references and enable technical evaluation.

Barrier 5: Social proof

Nobody in the peer group uses the company.

Response: Build credible reference installations and industry relationships.

Barrier 6: Loss aversion

Changing supplier creates perceived downside.

Response: Reduce transition risk through pilots, samples, validation support and service commitments.

Barrier 7: Status quo

The current supplier is “good enough.”

Response: Quantify the genuine cost of the current problem where possible.

Barrier 8: Availability

Supplier B has local inventory. Supplier A does not.

Response: This is not a communication problem. Distribution must improve.

Barrier 9: Internal consensus

Engineering likes Supplier A. Procurement prefers Supplier B.

Response: Provide stakeholder-specific evidence while keeping one consistent core proposition.

The problem was not “customers are irrational.” Supplier A had not made itself sufficiently noticeable, understandable, credible, safe and accessible to buy.

The Fiease Behavioural Decision Path

This is a Fiease synthesis, not an academic theory. It turns behavioural research into six practical management questions.

Stage	Question	Typical barriers
Notice	Will the right person pay attention?	Low relevance, clutter, weak distinctiveness
Understand	Can they make sense of the value?	Jargon, complexity, feature dumping
Remember	Will the brand come to mind later?	Inconsistency, weak memory cues
Believe	Why should they trust the claim?	Weak proof, low credibility
Feel safe enough	What risk prevents action?	Switching risk, career risk, uncertainty
Act	Is taking the next step easy?	Poor availability, friction, slow sales response

A company can have strong awareness but low trust, strong trust but poor availability, strong product value but weak memory, or strong interest but high switching risk. The purpose of the framework is to identify the real barrier.

How can a business research customer behaviour?

Do not begin with a list of behavioural biases. Begin with customers.

Useful methods include:

• customer interviews,

• lost-deal interviews,

• sales-call analysis,

• search-query analysis,

• website behaviour,

• support tickets,

• distributor feedback,

• objection tracking,

• win/loss analysis.

Ask:

• What happened before you began looking?

• Which suppliers did you first consider and why?

• Who else became involved?

• What worried you?

• What information did you need?

• What nearly stopped the purchase?

• Why did you trust one supplier more?

• What delayed the decision?

• What eventually made action feel justified?

Those questions reveal actual decision behaviour.

What should marketers stop asking?

Stop asking only, “What message do we want to send?” Ask, “What does the customer need to understand?”

Stop asking only, “How do we persuade them?” Ask, “What uncertainty prevents a good decision?”

Stop asking only, “How do we go viral?” Ask, “What should the right customer remember?”

Stop asking only, “How do we create urgency?” Ask, “Is there a genuine cost of waiting?”

Stop asking, “Which psychology trick should we use?” Ask: How does this decision actually happen?

What does good behavioural marketing look like?

It respects the customer. It recognises that attention is limited. It makes complex value understandable. It creates useful memories. It builds trust through evidence. It acknowledges risk. It reduces unnecessary buying friction. It understands stakeholder differences. It uses emotion without pretending analysis does not matter.

Most importantly, it uses behavioural understanding to improve communication and choice — not to deceive.

The final principle

People do not enter markets as perfectly rational calculators, and they are not mindless consumers waiting to be manipulated. They are people trying to make acceptable decisions with limited time, attention, information, memory and certainty.

They notice selectively. They interpret through context. They rely on memory. They use familiarity. They look for evidence. They observe other people. They worry about losses. They experience emotion. They avoid unnecessary effort. They sometimes prefer the familiar. They often need internal consensus.

Good marketing works with these realities by making genuine value:

easier to notice,

easier to understand,

easier to remember,

easier to believe,

safer to evaluate,

and easier to buy.

That is where marketing meets human behaviour.

Research references and further reading

1. Lerner et al. — Emotion and Decision Making, Annual Review of Psychology — https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115043

2. Kahneman & Tversky — Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk — https://www.jstor.org/stable/1914185

3. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute — B2B Reports — https://marketingscience.info/b2b-reports/

4. Ehrenberg-Bass Institute — Category Entry Points in a B2B World — https://marketingscience.info/b2b-reports/

5. Montoya et al. — A Re-examination of the Mere Exposure Effect, Psychological Bulletin, 2017 — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28263645/

6. Chernev, Böckenholt & Goodman — Choice Overload: A Conceptual Review and Meta-analysis, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2015 — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2014.08.002

7. Industrial Marketing Management — research on trust in industrial supplier selection — https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019850118308095

8. American Marketing Association — Marketing Ethics — https://www.ama.org/marketing-ethics/