Why the future of marketing is winning minds before the moment of choice

Picture this: Sarah mentions a new skincare routine to Maya over a coffee. Before the lattes even cool, the entire range of a modern, newly found skincare brand is in Maya’s cart.

She used her AI assistant for the verdict. She searched this brand on Shopee and the last nudge to purchase was the “limited time discount offer”.

Maya’s decision was powered by three core heuristics: 'Social proof', 'Authority' (AI-driven synthesis), and 'Urgency' at the last mile. Maya never heard of this brand and yet bought it.

Now imagine another skin care brand with a strong mental availability in this scenario. The journey could be slightly different. The brand with strong mental availability would have interfered at every stage.

Today, information is a commodity and less likely to be a competitive advantage, and the abundance may lead to choice paralysis. As information becomes frictionless, decision-making relies more on mental shortcuts, turning brands from bridge builders into the architects of instinct.

The gap: Brands are moving downstream while the challenge is upstream

Mental shortcuts become key, and yet advertisers are moving farther away from building mental availability. According to WARC’s "Future of media 2026", about 80% of global adspends are going towards the lower funnel.

In Malaysia, brands invest an average of 30% to 40% of their marketing budget on brand building, further highlighting the gap: businesses are investing downstream while consumers are deciding upstream through instinct and mental shortcuts.

The behavioural solution: Build instinctive salience

If we accept the model of fast, instinctive thinking, by Daniel Kahneman, we recognise that most decisions are made before the "research" even begins. The goal is mental availability, the probability that a buyer will notice, recognise, and think of your brand in a buying situation.

In an information-rich world, rational activation is an easily replicated commodity. Emotional brand building, therefore, has a greater impact on business, as evident in the works of Les Binet, Peter Field and The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute.

Navigating the change, the marketing disciplines must be underpinned by the principle of building stronger heuristics.

Introducing the "DECIDE" framework:

1. Distinctive asset prioritisation

Choose "Distinctiveness” over “Differentiation”.

Consumers don't need to know why you are different; they need to recognise you instantly. Brands with high Fluency (the ease with which they are recognised) are processed faster by the brain, reducing the cognitive load of the decision. Use high-reach media to hard-wire these assets into the collective consciousness.

foodpanda in Malaysia attempted to do this well with its distinctive pink and the mascot called, Pau-Pau. This helped it become a strong challenger brand in a market like Malaysia, which is dominated by Grab.

Ask yourself, if your brand name were removed from an ad, would a consumer still recognise it?

2. Emotional anchoring

Win the heart to bypass the research loop.

Stop selling features that an AI can summarise in a table and use storytelling to create an emotional bookmark. When a consumer feels an emotion, the brain tags that brand as safe or desirable, which reduces the perceived need for extensive secondary research.

Petronas Malaysia has consistently been using festive unity and shared heritage around Lunar New Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali, and Merdeka celebrations to foster leadership in the market. I call this “The Petronas effect” since Malaysians eagerly await their ads every year.

3. Cognitive ease

If it’s hard to think about, it’s hard to buy.

We live in the times of information overload. The buying decisions now involve more information, more options and less time which increases the cognitive load of consumers. Consumers need cognitive ease for faster decision making.

Established heuristics are the key to unlocking that ease. They are simple rules of thumb that help people interpret signals and make decisions quickly, without evaluating every piece of information from first principles. Brands can build these heuristics deliberately.

Take, for example, McDonald Malaysia’s 'ayam goreng' ('friend chicken'). The brand creates social proof by showing people having juicy, spicy, crispy fried chicken in their ads, which justifies choosing McDonald’s 'ayam goreng'.

Precise numbers feel more researched and trustworthy to the human brain. It’s called 'Precision effect'. Dettol uses is effectively with “Kills 99.9% germs” slogan in ads.

Few other examples of effects include 'Scarcity effect' (Limited period offer), 'Framing effect' (Subscription of $2 per day rather than $730 a year), 'Anchoring effect' (strike $100 and say now at $49) and a few such. My personal favourite is 'Rhyme as reason effect', and a great example from the past is ‘Be wise – Alkalise’.

4. Integrated mental availability

Creative, media and commerce must operate as one connected messaging system.

Integrate and coordinate your creatives and channels around a clear idea, a consistent set of themes and the same decision-making heuristic. Then determine how the medium and the moment shape it further.

A TV spot may establish the emotional world, social content may make it culturally participatory, search may clarify the proposition, and commerce media may provide the final proof or prompt. This is especially important in Malaysia and across Southeast Asia, where consumers move across TV, mobile, social, CTV, OTT, e-retail media and podcasts.

These channels do not simply replace one another; they fragment attention. The answer is not identical execution everywhere, but cohesion across communications so that every encounter builds the same mental structure.

Red Bull is a useful example: the quirkiness and energy of its advertising extend through Red Bull Racing, Red Bull TV and its stunts and events. Each expression fits its medium and moment, yet together they build a coherent set of associations that strengthens mental availability and supports instinctive choice.

5. Decision reinforcement

Carry the decision code through to the close.

Even the most AI-assisted consumer looks for a tiebreaker. Use commerce platforms to provide final nudges such as 'Social proof', e.g., 94% of users are happy with this purchase.

Or 'Authority bias', e.g., Doctor-recommended brand. Up to 51% of buyers are willing to switch from their preferred brand to a new one if that brand's proposition is framed with behavioural science signals such as social proof or authority, according to Google’s Messy Middle model.

6. Engineer authority for AI discovery

Make your brand easy for AI to understand, trust and recommend.

The hierarchy of trust is shifting. Nearly 24% of shoppers now trust AI-curated recommendations over traditional influencer endorsements, according to Capgemini Research Institute.

'Mental availability' must therefore extend to the AI layer itself. Brands need a clear information architecture: structured, consistent and high-quality product data; authoritative claims that can be substantiated; and coherent signals across owned, retail and third-party sources.

When AI agents can confidently identify what a brand offers, why it is credible and when it is relevant, they are more likely to surface it in the moments that shape consideration.

Win the instincts to win the market

Today’s consumer, armed with AI and instant connectivity, is their own master researcher. The key is to move upstream to the moment before the search bar is even clicked or the AI is even prompted.

As modern marketing principles suggest, people don't just buy goods; they buy the stories. Mental shortcuts make a complex world feel simple. Hence, we stop trying to win the argument and start trying to win the instinct.

This article was written by Chetan Muley, head of strategy at OMD Malaysia.