NeuroMarketing: 95% Of Consumer Decision-Making Occurs Subconsciously

[KittyWampus]

Neuromarketing: Smart Marketing Or Jedi Mind Control Trick?

By Priya Shah - Wed, 06/01/2005 - 11:07am.

In the international bestseller "Blink," Malcolm Gladwell explains why our decisions to choose brands, select a mate, sue our doctor or make choices that decide Presidential elections, aren't as simple as they seem. Why we often let unconscious biases affect our opinions about people who are taller or have a different skin colour. And why we find it even harder to explain them when asked.

I consider "Blink" essential reading for all marketers. I mean, which true-blooded marketer wouldn't love to know how the workings of their customer's brain will affect whether their new packaging is going to work or fail? Or why their new website is converting far fewer visitors than the old one? Of course we would.

But is it really possible to understand why people choose Budweiser over Coors? George W. over John Kerry? Coke over Pepsi?

No one really knows for sure. And asking people why doesn't necessarily give the right answers. Why? Because most of us really haven't a clue as to why we make those choices.

But new research is beginning to shine a light on the mysterious workings of the neural processes behind those snap decisions.

Known as "neuromarketing," this controversial science could one day lead to new advertising strategies that directly stimulate hard-wired mental reflexes rather than appealing to fuzzy consumer attitudes, according to an article in Wired News. http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,67597,00.html

In Blink, Gladwell also shows how sometimes the sort of data that marketers rely on, - such as market research and focus groups - can fail miserably because they don't always predict actual consumer behaviour, as Coca-Cola discovered during the New Coke fiasco.

95% of consumer decision-making occurs subconsciously, according to research from Harvard University, cited in an article in Time. That's a hell of a lot of decisions we have little or no conscious control over. http://www.time.com/time/insidebiz/article/0,9171,1101040308-596161,00.html&e=9707

It also cited research that seems to have solved that eternal mystery - why people prefer Coke over Pepsi. The answer lies in how people identify with brands. Although consumers preferred Pepsi's taste they choose Coke because they identified with its brand better.

A branch of cognitive neuroscience, neuromarketing relies heavily on the ability to visualise how the brain sees choices and takes decisions, using brain scans and a process called functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI. fMRI measures the level of oxygen in the blood and tells scientists which parts of the brain are most active. http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65775,00.html

According to the Wired article, this research even recently revealed the differences in the brains of Democrats and Republicans.


http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2005/06/01/neuromarketing-smart-marketing-or-jedi-mind-control-trick

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Neuro is the new Quantum

Nano-, Holo-, e-, i-, and cyber- are all still in use, but neuro is Teh Sexxi.

--p!

[MedleyMisty]

2. Gladwell has a newer book out

in which he makes the shocking and earth-shattering discovery that environmental advantages do in fact have an effect on a person's chances for success. As in "Gee, I wish I could sit on my ass and write books about really obvious things that anyone with a working brain stem can see but since I wasn't born to rich parents and didn't marry into money, I have to spend my time being a slave instead so I can afford to eat and have shelter."

As for this post, though - I have to admit I still don't get it. Maybe in connection with relatively small things like Coke and Pepsi, but larger and more expensive things like cars? And terribly important things like politics and who you choose to spend your life with? And in fact the Coke and Pepsi thing is not really that small a thing - I admit that I do drink them when I go out to eat pizza or fast food. And god, the fast food isn't a little thing either. I know that all of my choices are empty and that by pretty much just existing in the US I am indirectly responsible for a shit ton of suffering and death. But I think that we can at least strive to make the least damaging choice. And no, I'm not perfect at it (see above eating fast food and drinking soft drinks occasionally) but I am trying.

I don't know - I read another book about it, Predictable Irrationality. It made me bash my head against the wall, both because it was written for mentally challenged four year olds and I could not handle the constant repetition and insulting of my intelligence (seriously, one page would have an example and then the very next page would have the same example dressed up in a different way and then at the end of the second example it'd be like "Gotcha! Betcha didn't notice that I just explained the same thing over and over and over and over until you wanted to kill yourself!") and because my brain did not work the way the authors said everyone's brain worked - I'm sorry, but I just can't see judging my self-worth by how much material crap and green paper I have relative to other people's pointless collections of crap and paper, and the word "Free!" doesn't make me go into spasms.

It is becoming increasingly clear why I am a hermit and why it never works when I try to interact with other humans besides my husband on a level deeper than stupid shallow shit - actually I don't even make it that far and just stick to the social grease like "How are you doing? How was your holiday? Have a good weekend!" and then get away as fast as I can to my beautiful books and computer.

[MedleyMisty]

3. Bumping - interesting topic

[Odin2005]

4. This is why the Capitalist meme that humans are "rational economic actors" is a lie.

And they knew it was a lie since the 1920s. It was in the 20s when the business elites started actively using the advertising industry as a form of psychological manipulation in order to create demand and thus create artificial scarcity. The thing the Capitalist elite fears most is a lack of scarcity, and they feared that if they did not create artificial demand a lack of scarcity would lead to the end of capitalism and thus their power. Consumerism is all about making people wasteful in order to save capitalism from being made obsolete by technology.

Yet people are still taught in Econ101 that people are "rational economic actors" and that wants and needs are "infinite," both are lies. This is because low-level economics courses are to a large extent for indoctrinating people into being Free Market Fundamentalists.