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More on Neuroscience and Marketing
SLiK812 writes "The NYTimes is running a
story
about how marketing companies are using neuroscience to determine how to reach a consumer's buy button more efficiently. A quote from the article, 'At issue is whether marketers can exploit advances in brain science to make more effective commercials. Is there a "buy button" in the brain? Some corporations have teamed up with neuroscientists to find out. Recent experiments in so-called neuromarketing have explored reactions to movie trailers, choices about automobiles, the appeal of a pretty face and gut reactions to political campaign advertising, as well as the power of brand loyalty.' Some groups have branded this as Orwellian. I pretty sure I saw the child of this tactic in Futurama somewhere." There's a related story in the The Independent. We've had previous stories on using MRI scans to market products.
Folks, it's not Orwellian unless it is backed by a totalitarian state. Most of your fears would be better directed at a Huxleyan future.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
It seems that in many cases these studies are confirming long-held beliefs rather than breaking new ground. E.g.,:
The study showed that some people did not choose a drink based on taste alone, Dr. Montague said. They chose a drink plus what it conjured up to their medial prefrontal cortex, namely the strong brand identity of Coca-Cola, he said.
I was pretty confident in that conclusion without the fMRI.
"Imagine a stealthy hand reaching into your pocket. For the rest of eternity."
Really, before trying to make their commercials more effective, perhaps they should find out if their commercials are effective.
I'm not saying marketing doesn't work.. Obviously people need to know about you and your product if you're going to sell anything.
But, from what I understand.. there's a lot of theories at the bottom of today's marketing that don't make sense to me.
For instance, marketing generally tries to target young people. Not because they are consumers, but on the theory that consumption patterns like brand loyalty are set at a young age, and kept through life.
Now.. how can they possibly know that? If they're studying middle-aged people now, then they're learning that the advertising of the 70's was effective. Then. And quite a lot has changed in both advertising and how people relate to it since then.
So really.. it seems to me to be a good question whether neuroscience will help much, because the critical attitude of science seems to go straight out the window once something becomes a 'marketing theory'.
The more those bastards try to make me want to buy stuff, the less stuff I want to buy. When I do buy, I buy the stuff that doesn't flood my life with annoying ads.
Its not like companies haven't done reaserch on this before. There are many many subtle tactics used in commercials nowadays. The most obvious one is how everything is priced at 19.95 instead of 20$, because we subconsiously think that we are getting a bargain out of it. There is a whole department in most corperations devoted to this kind of stuff (Public Relations). This just makes it easier for companies to pick up more of those little subtleties, so instead of having to have a focus group you just have a CAT scan.
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I wonder if I am the only one who feels he has been watching less ads in the last few years than ever before in my life. I now own a HD-based videorecorder that allows me to skip ads. What's more I feel my TV-consumption is at an alltime low due to crappy programming and the PC as a competitor. Although I find myself in need of a Robo-Cola from time to time. ;-)
Online I use Firefox with Adblock so I hardly read any ads on the web, ever.
I switched to Linux three years ago and my daily dose of desktop advertising (ICQ, Splashscreens, branded bootscreens) went down to zero.
While I am on the outside (beware) I am mostly reading books or listening to commercial-break-free MP3 music (during subway rides or on the bus) and when I am out at night I try to avoid "the hip joint (TM)" where all those guerilla-marketing groups show up. I prefer small, subculture clubs with decent pricing and good music (including hot AND smart girls).
So, I guess I am much less under the commercial thumb then I was back in 1995...
Nice to see that some of the mods don't bother reading the linked ads in the original message before downrating posts. My post was A) not off-topic and B) not trolling. Apparently irony is lost at times around here, but I'm not surprised.
To elaborate, there is nothing all that surprising about this for those of us who study politics, since modern politics is really about brand-marketing. Candidates are packaged and presented in ways designed to appeal to us on a gut level rather than with regard to their actual policy positions.
This is magnified by the role of political parties, since a candidates political party is in fact a brand. Over 60% of the electorate still consider themselves members of one of the two major parties. Most party members will vote for candidates of their party, regardless of what that candidate says or does. This holds even though most of those claiming party membership don't even know what the party stands for.
In political campaigns, the cognitive effects of this are readily apparent by listening to how people react to the different candidates. Those with stronger partisan identification will filter the 'news' in such a way that it more neatly fits their biases - ergo 'Coke tastes sweeter'.
Truth to be told, any sports car will trigger my buy-button, but can I afford to buy it?
"Thanks to our low introductory APR, you can!"
"Thought you couldn't own a Benz? Think again!"
"Let BMW Certified Preowned vehicles find you the car of your dreams...at a practical price!"
This is a science-- note that in the radio ads they never tell you what the APR is unless it's "zero percent" or close to it. They make you want the item with positive images and thoughts and they defer the "bad news" as long as possible until the very end of the transaction, after you've decided you want the item so even if you know you probably can't afford it, someone will "work with you" (with you, not on you, lol) to establish a sense of rapport that will make you think you're getting a good deal. Even if you back out, there's some hapless sucker who won't. Despite decades of study and improved learning techniques, human nature hasn't changed all that much.
Maybe my own consumer behavior is not normal, but the more I see something aggressively marketed, the more I am convinced I don't need it. If the item provided great value and was a good deal, people would be lining up to buy it on their own and advertising wouldn't really be necessary. Relentless advertising and sales efforts are only needed to override peoples' logical thought processes to get them to make an impulsive buy decision before they can come to their senses and talk themselves out of it.
Hey, gimme a break, I read BNW five years ago! Uh-oh, looks like my conditioning is starting to fail! Guess I'm up for another round of indoctrination!
There is no fixed target. It is a cat-and-mouse game. If they did find a particular pattern that triggered buying, eventually people would grow overly accustomed to it and tune out, requiring something new.
Generally a successful ad will create more of the same or more like it, making people grow weary of that technique or pattern.
The first Macintosh ad was unique for its time, but the concept has been copied too often. Big Brother is sales-people, big corporations, lawyers, etc. in various variations on the theme.
Their research might work on a cave-man who wondered into town, but not those overwelmed by ads.
Table-ized A.I.
Advertising should not be deductable as a business expense. It should come directly out of the bottom line. That would reduce ad clutter.
Like the answer isn't already obvious: fear.
Playing on fear hits on the second level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, safety. This has to be satisfied before love, self-esteem, or self-actualization. Targetting this hits us at the mammalian level, even below the monkey. Only raw physical drives come before this. This is why SUV's are selling so well. Car buyers have been convinced that SUV's are safer. In fact, they're not--their center of gravity is too high for their wheel base, and their size and weight makes them less maneuverable, making accidents more likely and more deadly when they happen. But the perception, fostered by advertising, has made them a runaway success.
This also explains why politics has been so warped since 9/11. All those alerts are scaring the hell out of people who haven't applied a little statistical perspective and realized that even in 2001, your chances of being killed by a terrorist were less than being killed by lightning. By the same reasoning, we should all stop travelling in cars because your chance of dying in a car crash is several orders of magnitude greater. But rationality doesn't even get a chance at this level.
It also explains why Democrats are more frightened by footing of 9/11 than Republicans. Republicans actually think Bush is doing a good job against terrorism, while Democrats are aware that the invasion in Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism, and may make the problem worse by aggravating Islamic paranoia. In other words, Democrats see 9/11 as a threat which has not yet been dealt with properly.
Understanding the role of fear in people's choices explains a lot of things: the War on Drugs (fear of gangs), McCarthyism (fear of Communism), Fundamentalism (fear of uncertainty), and knee-jerk patriotism (fear of foreigners.) Whenever you see people acting like lemurs, it's a pretty good indication that this is what's happening. And the best advertisement of this is the 6:00 news, where no news is good news, and the entire program is spent on statistical anomalies.
Advertising just rides on the coattails of bad journalism.