Book Buyology

Why People Buy What They Buy: The Promise of Neuromarketing

Every day you see, hear, read and sometimes smell countless messages that are trying to persuade you to buy...and you forget most of them immediately. These messages were designed to influence your behavior. Why don’t they work? And why do some messages stick better than others? Asking people directly doesn’t help, because they really don’t know. They may try to offer conscious explanations for their purchasing choices, but, in reality, a complex array of subconscious thoughts and feelings drive buying decisions.

“Neuromarketing isn’t the answer to everything. As a young science, it’s limited by our still incomplete understanding of the human brain.”

For a long time, researchers who wanted to explain and influence consumer behavior were limited to “quantitative and qualitative” study methods. Now, “neuromarketing,” which uses brain scans, offers the new possibility of learning what’s really happening inside people’s heads and why they act as they do. Some fear that this approach threatens individual freedom; others see it as just one more tool which, like any other, people can use either ethically or unethically.

“To fully engage us emotionally, companies are discovering, they’d be better off not just inundating us with logos, but pumping fragrances into our nostrils and music into our ears as well.”

The most extensive neuromarketing study to date focused on smoking. It clearly showed the method’s inherent possibilities. Cigarette packs are marked with direct warnings that smoking is dangerous. Portuguese packs warn, “Fumar Mata,” (Smoking kills). The message is clear. On a rational level, people understand the risk; how could they not? But, then, why do they smoke? This pivotal neuromarketing study used a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanner to track what happens in smokers’ brains when they read these warnings. They found that the warnings triggered the nucleus accumbens, the brain’s “craving spot.” So, the well-crafted messages did nothing to deter people from smoking, but instead “encouraged” the urge for a cigarette. Smokers may have felt bad about wanting cigarettes after reading the warnings, but they still wanted them.

“Why do we often respond more favorably to ‘real’ or ‘ordinary’ people in print and TV ads? In large part, it’s tied to our desire for authenticity.”

This represents a larger reality: People aren’t rational and don’t make decisions on a rational basis. People’s brains are on “autopilot” some 85% of the time. They make decisions based on emotions, habit, superstition, ritual and impulse. That’s why product development is so risky. Most market research can’t reach the reasons people buy one thing and not another, so firms launch products blindly. In the U.S., 80% of new products fail within a few months. In Japan, it’s 97%. The brands that survive are the ones that engage consumers emotionally and build links to their subconscious drives.

Product Placement

In 1965, consumers had a 34% recall of TV ads. By 1990, recall was down to 8%, due to the sheer number of commercials. It doesn’t help that few ads are really original. An ad for one car blends into the next, until viewers don’t remember anything special about either one. People also forget ads for more subtle reasons. Coke, Cingular and Ford advertised on American Idol, but they didn’t get the same returns. Tests after the show indicated that viewers remembered Coke’s ad a lot, Cingular’s ad a little bit and Ford’s ads not at all. In fact, viewer response to Ford’s ads dropped after the show. Why? The reactions varied because of the advertisers’ different methods. Ford bought traditional commercials. Viewers classified them as ads and filtered them out mentally. Coke integrated its image, product and even color (“Coke-red”) into the show, appearing everywhere viewers looked. It became part of the story. Because Coke wove itself into the show’s narrative, viewers associated it emotionally with music, aspiration and stardom.

“Everything we observe (or read about) someone else doing, we do as well – in our minds.”

The Role of Mirror Neurons When you see a hot fad move through a group of people, blame their “mirror neurons.” Science has learned that people’s brains echo one another’s actions, even if they see these actions on TV or just read about them. That is why people grin when they notice someone else who is delighted and flinch when they observe someone else getting hurt. This neurological echo carries over into other brain functions and judgments as well. When people you perceive as ethical suffer, you tend to feel more empathy for them than you’d feel for people you see as unethical. You’re likelier to recall people who smile and to judge the service they give you more highly, regardless of its actual quality. You’re also more apt to buy something if the product somehow seems linked to who you are or want to be.

“Sounds trigger strong associations and emotions, and can exert a powerful influence on our behavior.”

Going Beyond the Rational Subliminal advertising, which hides messages in ads by making them too small or brief to see, or by pitching sound too quietly for conscious perception, was introduced in 1957. In the face of great claims for its effectiveness, an almost immediate backlash decried it as deceptive and manipulative. Studies soon showed that subliminal advertising did not produce the claimed boost in sales. Perhaps as a result, no government ever banned it, though it apparently can nudge people toward certain preferences.

“Subliminal advertising has even been shown to influence how much we are willing to pay for a product.”

Today, critics accuse many advertisers – and performers – of incorporating subliminal messages in their presentations. The most common subliminal hints are sexual. Subliminal ads are most effective when they integrate their implied messages into the background. Cigarette companies – banned in the U.S. from making explicit claims about their products in ads – have become adept at subliminal advertising, linking specific color schemes and emotional associations with particular brands. Lab tests showed that successfully branded color and image presentations actually triggered more cravings in smokers’ brains than explicit ads. In other words, regulations against advertising the specific pleasures of cigarette smoking may actually work in its favor.

“Practically every brand category...plays on fear, either directly or indirectly.”

Rituals are another way people connect emotionally with brands. Some rituals are conscious creations, such as serving Corona beer with a lime, and some rituals are side effects of capitalizing on a product’s innate qualities, for example the way Guinness beer pours slowly. People rely on rituals to give them a sense of control in times of crisis or stress. Specific rituals differ markedly, but people everywhere engage in the same sorts of routines: They begin the day in standard ways, they prepare for romantic or sexual encounters, and they celebrate communal unity with food. Likewise, while specific superstitions vary, people everywhere are superstitious. Each culture has numbers, colors and shapes that carry emotional associations. For marketing purposes, try to associate your product with a cherished, positive ritual or belief. To make your brand “stickier,” integrate it into an existing ritual or create a new ritual for it. People will come to depend on it and, perhaps, even collect it obsessively.

“Ritual and superstition can exert a potent influence on how and what we buy.”

Winning brands surpass superstition. In fact, the most successful brands share a lot with religion. Religions create “a sense of belonging,” a feeling you may get when you see someone else wearing a brand you cherish. Religions and brands create an “us versus them mentality” of insiders and outsiders. Religions proclaim “a clear vision,” as do firms like Apple. Religions and successful corporate visions both endeavor to “inspire wonder.” Brands and religions evoke intense, specific sensory associations. Sacred stories are at the heart of every religion, and great brands use stories, too. Places of worship “celebrate a sense of grandeur,” but so do luxury hotels and flagship stores.

“In an unsettled, fast-moving world, we’re all searching for stability and familiarity, and product rituals give us an illusion of comfort and belonging.”

Each major religion has symbols that evoke intense emotion; corporate logos provoke strong attachments as well. Religions explain the known world, but they have at their heart a sense of mystery and the unknown. In the corporate world, this takes the form of secret formulas (Coca-Cola’s recipe), names without obvious meanings (Sony’s Trinitron) and secret ingredients. (They can even be imaginary: Unilever claimed its shampoos contained the “X9 Factor”; customers had no clue what that was, but they were enraged when Unilever took the nonexistent additive off its label.) The final link between religion and brands comes from neuromarketing. The brains of Carmelite nuns who were asked to think about intense religious experiences “registered the exact same patterns of activity” as the brains of a separate group of people who were responding to “powerful brands.”

The Body’s Role in Decisions

When you shop, “subconscious conversations” about what to buy are, in effect, going on in your head. The selection process is rarely conscious or rational. Often, you are responding to “somatic markers,” which are like “bookmarks” in your brain where a dense cluster of experiences and associations are fused to specific responses. These associative markers help you narrow your choices, even in specific social situations. People start forming somatic markers when they are young, but keep forming them throughout their lives.

“If people are willing to pay sums large and small for things – like dirt and water – that they believe have religious or spiritual significance, then clearly spirituality and branding are inextricably linked.”

Advertisers work hard to create these markers by linking phrases, images, music or warm feelings with their products. Often commercials create these connections in ways that have little to do with the product’s quality, but that focus instead on making a vivid, intense impression. Take Blendertec. Each week, the firm’s Web site offers new short videos of its blenders reducing all kinds of things to dust: “Bic lighters. A tiki torch...Three hockey pucks. Even an Apple iPhone.” Other advertisers shape somatic markers by using humor, playing on consumers’ fears or promoting cute mascots (the Energizer Bunny).

“Is it the sex that is selling or the controversy? Evidence points to the latter.”

Mammoth neon ads are everywhere you look in New York City’s Times Square. However, these images are so common there that they overstimulate viewers, making them less likely to recall any individual sign. Marketers mount this visual barrage because they believe that sight is the most powerful sense. While sight is important, it isn’t as dominant as people assume. In fact, smell is the “most primal, the most deeply rooted” sense. To take advantage of its potency, some companies use packaging designed to release evocative aromas, which can lead to associated thoughts and actions.

“Every one of us ascribes greater value to the things we perceive – rationally or not – to be in some way special.”

Using an integrated combination of sensory stimuli is the most powerful way to engage the senses in marketing. Pairing sight and sound, or sight and smell, has a much greater impact than visual stimuli alone. However, if you link sight and smell, but fail to integrate them appropriately, the jarring combination will work against you. It will trigger the area of the brain that registers “aversion and repulsion.”

“Our national obsession with buying and consuming is just going to escalate, as marketers become better and better at targeting our subconscious wishes and desires.”

Color, touch and sound also evoke expectations and emotional associations, and, thus, guide purchases. Over a two-week period, a supermarket alternated French and German background music. On French days, it sold more French wine. On German days, people bought more German wine. Attempts to cash in on these associations can backfire. A jingle that’s too common becomes irritating.

Sex Appeal

The authors of the 2005 book Sex in Advertising estimated that 20% “of all advertising uses overt sexual content.” This content has become more extreme. Ads that seemed racy or even shocking 30 years ago now seem conservative. Do extreme sexual pitches sell products? Research says no. Explicit images draw viewers’ eyes, sliding their attention away from the product. Researchers called this “the Vampire Effect,” because in tests the sexual imagery “was sucking attention from...the ad.” Some sexual ads work, but not primarily because of the sex. Sales of Calvin Klein jeans went up in the wake of sexually explicit commercials, but only due to the controversy generated by public backlash against the ads, not because of the sexuality of the ads themselves.

Related techniques, like using exceptionally beautiful models, also have limited, ambiguous success. If viewers see the woman in an ad as wholesome and loving, they respond more favorably to the product. Likewise, showing people who seem realistic generates higher viewer identification. Viewers may want to be as attractive as the people in glamorous ads, but they are more likely to see themselves as potential users of a product if the models seem more like them.

Neuromarketing and the Future

Properly used neuromarketing can help companies predict which products will succeed or fail. Laboratory researchers who monitored viewers’ brain responses to sample television shows found that they could predict accurately which programs would do well. In fact, brain scans were more accurate than people’s own predictions about which shows they would like. Such prescreenings could help companies avoid wasting resources on products people don’t actually want, and could help them offer people products they really do wish to buy.

Neuromarketing will provoke other changes; it is just getting started. Science and marketing will continue to interact fruitfully. You’ll see more effective branding, and more “24-hour human brands,” like Paris Hilton. Neuromarketing will enable marketers to mount more skillful ads in a continuing sales push, but the increased understanding it generates will give consumers more tools as well.