Before the discovery of the nonconscious, people believed they had full access to their thoughts and feelings, or at least access enough to be able to express accurate observations about their internal mental states. In the process of deliberation, people simply query their own minds to determine what they’re thinking or feeling about something. Market […]
When we bind impressions with meanings and value, we create concepts or conceptualizations of those impressions. This process of conceptualizing is so fast and automatic that we barely realize it’s happening. But it’s incredibly important to how we interpret and respond to the world. Early psychologists used to think of conceptualization as just another part […]
“Common sense” tells the average non-scientist that our eyes and ears act like video recorders, creating an accurate recording of the world around us that we then access through memory when and where we need to. The feeling we all have in our conscious minds is that we pretty accurately perceive everything in the world […]
Much of the fear expressed by critics of neuromarketing seems to be based on an implicit assumption that consumers need to be protected from neuromarketing because they’re weak and passive and, therefore, easy dupes of wily and clever marketers. This is an ironic assessment, because if these critics took the time to understand the brain […]
Not surprisingly, we (the authors of Neuromarketing for Dummies) believe neuromarketing is here to stay — otherwise, we wouldn’t be writing this book! The main reason neuromarketing will endure, we believe, is because it isn’t just another clever concept developed by some consultant or academic. It’s a natural extension of a solid and established foundation […]
Rory Sutherland is an executive at the advertising and marketing firm Ogilvy, where he has developed a practice around behavioral economics called OgilvyChange. He gave an influential TED Talk in 2009 in which he argued that advertisers (and by extension, marketers) should not apologize for what they do but should celebrate the fact that they […]
Consumers are typically busy, and many of their purchases are not vitally important to them. They want to save money, time, and energy. They also want to get a good return on their investment when they buy. Neuromarketing allows marketers to address these goals more effectively. Brands provide a fast-track shortcut through the overwhelming maze […]
Having written about the potential dangers of neuromarketing, let’s spend a few posts discussing its potential benefits. Yes, there are potential benefits. Neuromarketing can be used by the public sector to develop more effective behavioral change programs and provide consumers with unprecedented insights into their own decision-making processes. It can be used by consumers to […]
(This is the third post in a series about neuromarketing criticisms. The first two posts are here and here.) People doing things that aren’t good for them is a serious personal and public policy problem, sometimes with tragic consequences. But it’s a problem that was with us long before the birth of neuromarketing, and it’s […]
(This is the second of three posts in a series about neuromarketing criticisms. The first post is here.) This concern is closely to the question from the previous post about mind-reading. If neuromarketers can read our minds, they can discover ways to manipulate us into buying things that we wouldn’t buy otherwise. In other words, […]
Five intuitive marketing principles marketers can start using today
In a recent article promoting my new book, Intuitive Marketing, I outlined some common mistakes marketers make when they try too hard to persuade consumers to buy their products and brands. That advice was necessarily negative—it described what not to do. Now I’d like to consider the opposite question: what are some positive ways marketers […]
The Mere Exposure Effect is Not a Silver Bullet for Marketers
Robert Zajonc first published his findings about the mere exposure effect in 1968. In an article titled “Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure,” he described a series of experimental findings that fundamentally challenged the psychological understanding of preferences accepted at the time. According to that understanding, preferences were a result of conscious thinking. Cognitions were believed […]
How Consistency, Reliability, and Trust Achieve Influence Without Persuasion
In the traditional model of persuasive marketing, the purpose of marketing is assumed to be the achievement of short-term transactional persuasion. In the newer model of intuitive marketing, the purpose of marketing is seen as something very different: the achievement of long-term influence through deep and authentic customer relationships. When adopting the intuitive marketing perspective, […]
What Do Replication Failures Tell Us About Priming?
Despite extensive evidence for priming in general and behavior priming in particular, there has emerged in recent years a backlash against this research, based largely on the publication of a number of replication failures of highly-cited priming studies.[1] Some observers have suggested these results are symptomatic of a deeper replication crisis (sometimes called a reproducibility […]
10 mistakes persuasive marketing makes (and intuitive marketing avoids)
My book, Intuitive Marketing, challenges a fundamental assumption of traditional marketing—that the purpose of marketing (and advertising) is to persuade. I knew when I started this project in late 2014 that two things were true: First, marketing and advertising were starting to bug me. They were becoming more disruptive and intrusive every day and marketers […]
Science under the hood 5: Implicit decisions, Reverse inference
This post is part of a series covering the 10 most important scientific principles underlying neuromarketing. Implicit decisions As we establish in Chapter 1 (“What Neuromarketing Is and Isn’t”) and elaborate on throughout this book, human brains are cognitive misers — thinking is hard and we try to avoid it if we can. A particularly […]
Science under the hood 4: Low attention processing, Implicit memory
This post is part of a series covering the 10 most important scientific principles underlying neuromarketing. Low attention processing Another counterintuitive finding that is important to neuromarketing is the discovery that attention may not be good for advertising effectiveness. Attention would seem to be a necessary condition for advertising effectiveness, but brain research has shown […]
Science under the hood 3: Misattribution, Nonconscious goal pursuit
This post is part of a series covering the 10 most important scientific principles underlying neuromarketing. Misattribution One of the things scientists have learned from studying System 1 and System 2 processes separately is that System 1 is sloppy. It makes connections and guides behavior based on simple associations, not logic. When System 1 makes […]
Science under the hood 2: Emotional “somatic markers,” Processing fluency
This post is part of a series covering the 10 most important scientific principles underlying neuromarketing. Emotional “somatic markers” Emotions operate at two levels in our mental lives: one conscious, the other non- conscious. Conscious emotions are what we usually call feelings. Nonconscious emotions are what psychologists call affective states, and they include emotional somatic […]
Science under the hood 1: System 1 and System 2, Priming
This post is part of a series covering the 10 most important scientific principles underlying neuromarketing. System 1 and System 2 Daniel Kahneman didn’t invent the System 1–System 2 model of brain processes, but his work over the last several decades has popularized it as one of the most useful overarching frameworks for understanding how […]