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.

Great! more ads

Now along with Radio guy(who advertises serious stuff) Radio Female( who pushes the sensitivity button) TV baby( who pushes the happy button) we have research into the buy button that allegedly will induce me to buy something before I even see it, sort of like the LotR Trilogy box platinum extended boxed set with gondor I ordered today.

futurama

Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?" Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.

Much better Futurama

Sorry, but this one is much more on topic. (Think about how one would create such a ball if you don't quite get why.)

Fry: I just saw something incredibly cool. A big floating ball that lit up with every colour of the rainbow, plus some new ones that were so beautiful I fell to my knees and cried.

Amy: Was it out in front of Discount Shoe Outlet?

Fry: Yeah.

Amy: They have a college kid wear that to attract customers.

Fry: Well I don't care if it was some dork in a costume. For one brief moment I felt the heartbeat of creation. And it was one with my own.

Amy: Big deal.

Bender: We all feel like that all the time. You don't hear us gassin' on about it.

3ACV15, "I Dated A Robot" [geocities.com]

Orwellian?

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.

Re:Orwellian?

would be better directed at a Huxleyan future.

Huxley? Why would I want a future based on the Cosby Show?

Re:Orwellian?

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.

Heh, most of your readers would be better directed at a dictionary. ;)

Incidentally, for those like myself who haven't heard of this term, here you go.
Don't say I never gave ya nothing.

(excerpted from here [polemics.us]) "What [Thomas] Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility"

Huxleyan!

I'm glad you're an Alpha, and can think of these smart things.

I'm a beta, so I'm happy leaving these smart thoughts to you.

Re:Huxleyan!

That's deltas, vagina-boy. Betas are clerical.

Re:Orwellian?

True.

The political landscape of the US was changed forever when Nixon's election commitee began using modern marketing techniques to sell their candidate like a packaged product.

This science has been elevated to an artform by the likes of Karl Rove, who has become quite adept at figuring out how to push some people's "VOTE" button. And worse still, he's figured out how to get people so disgusted and turned off, that they abstain from voting altogether, leading to the abysimal voter turnouts of the last several elections.

Re:Orwellian?

How true! I saw Brazil recently. I was amazed at the number of similarities with our present situation, a bureaucracy officially fighting "terrorists" but never really achieving it, closely controlling the citizens, and mostly caring about its own business and not giving sh1t about others. Clearly the work of a great and accurate visionnary.

Consumers against terrorism! -- That is the text of a sign carried by a protester in the movie, some gullible guy believing what TV shows him, so close to our reality!

More than a buy-button

I don't think a brain analysis is an effective way to determine consumer behaviour.

Our behaviour is most likely shaped by the environment and condition we're experiencing.

Truth to be told, any sports car will trigger my buy-button, but can I afford to buy it?

Re:More than a buy-button

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.

Neuroscience to determine buying 'buttons'

To make guys buy: Gorgeous women implying the purchase of a product makes said guy more attractive.

To make women buy: "Sale"

Re:Neuroscience to determine buying 'buttons'

It's funny how many people, men and women, will buy anything that is perceived to be a bargain, even if it is no bargain at all. That is why items that are stacked in a pyramid at the end of an aisle with a big price sign on them will sell better, even if there has been no reduction in price. Not too long ago I was buying contact lens saline and I noticed the bottles were available in a twin pack. Then I noticed individual bottles, which were priced at less than half of the twin pack price. Had I not looked, I would have thought the twin pack was a better deal and ended up paying a full dollar more. I'm sure people fall for this all the time, especially those who cannot do math in their heads.

Bah. It's an old idea, and it's pretty much...

True.

For a given value of true.

"People buy from emotion and justify with logic" has been around since the turn of the last century among a certain segment of the marketing people.

The new bit I suppose is to try to pinpoint the triggers more exactly, to reduce those unpleasant random variables like human free will and choice and stuff. It's so much easier if "They" can just model you on a mainframe, debit your account, and ship you whatever it is you're supposed to buy from them next, I suppose. Not that this is what they think they're aiming for, but I doubt the net effect will be any different.

This kind of thing...

This kind of thing has been around for a long time. The basis is a Behaviorist view of the world that says that given a certain stimulus, most of us (enough of us) will respond in a certain way. Marketing from that viewpoint becomes about pushing the right buttons, and finding better and better ways of pushing those buttons.

Your opinion on how good or evil this kind of thing is may come from how much you agree with that viewpoint. Can marketers refine their science to such a point where you have almost no choice but to buy what they tell you?

Depending on which side of the coin you fall on, this is all either smoke & mirrors, or cutting-edge research that will eventually rule the world.

Here's a workaround

Memorize THIS. [buynothingday.co.uk] Think of nothing else! WOOOEEEEEEOOOOOOOO.

Let's not overreact...

This is hardly a new thing. Marketing firms have been using psychology as a tool for developing more effective ads since the stone age. Neuroscience is just an extension of what they know about what people respond to, I don't think it's any reason to be concerned.

In the end, you either have control over your urges, wants, and needs, or you don't. You either are in control of yourself or you're not. If you're not, then you've probably accrued all sorts of gadgets, toys, and things you don't really need. And doubtless you have/had sex with anyone that got you remotely excited. Actually, that doesn't sound so bad...

Really, though, we are either in control of our faculties or we are not. If we're not, then we're just animals with no will. If we are, then this is no more concerning then someone plucking your heart strings to sell insurance. I highly doubt there is some subversive way they can force us to buy against our will using some sort of deep-seated neurological button. A shopping spree isn't exactly a survival mechanism.

on the plus side...

One aspect of marketing/advertising/design is ergonomics and human factors [wikipedia.org], which helps advertisers structure their materials in the most logical fashion for the way people process information. Just look at any cover of Cosmopolitan [cosmopolitan.com] and you'll see the end result of years of studies of the scanning people do when they see a document. Important elements seem to jump out at you without you even realizing it, and if you have time you can read the smaller text under each element to find out more. Cosmo, ironically, probably has one of the best-designed magazine covers. Color, layout, subject matter ("SEX" or related words are the lead/top priority item on every cover) and other design elements are used to great effect. The end result is that you look at the magazine, your eye traverses multiple times across the impossibly beautiful woman whose style (if you're a woman) you want to emulate and you then want to buy it, or you don't want to buy it because you don't really read Cosmo. This is why they sell them in checkout lines-- they're an impulse item for non-subscribers. Same thing with Maxim, Playboy, and other glossy magazines.

Compare a well-designed magazine cover like Cosmo with an ugly or poorly designed cover like TV Guide or Hot Rod magazine and you'll see who has the best understanding of human factors. Cosmo is pleasant to look at, "Guns" magazine really isn't, even if you are an enthusiast.

I for one welcome our new human factor-embracing overlords-- as long as they don't beam ads into my head.

Are commercials effective?

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'.

If these companies

Put a metric shitload of money in my bank account they would find my buy button pretty quickly.

Not more advertising, LESS advertising

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...

Re:Subliminal messaging?

That's an urban legend. See Snopes [snopes.com].

Quote:
You see, Vicary lied about the results of his experiment. When he was challenged to repeat the test by the president of the Psychological Corporation, Dr. Henry Link, Vicary's duplication of his original experiment produced no significant increase in popcorn or Coca-Cola sales. Eventually Vicary confessed that he had falsified the data from his first experiments, and some critics have since expressed doubts that he actually conducted his infamous Ft. Lee experiment at all.

Re:Subliminal messaging?

Recent experiments have shown that subliminal messaging works, but the effect wears off after a second or so.

One experiment consisted of a subject sitting in front of a computer screen. The screen would blink briefly (about 1/100 of a second) and then show a list of words. The subject would then pick a word randomly. It turns out that if one of the words was displayed during the blink, the subject would almost always pick that one, but if no word was shown, if a word not in the list was shown, or if the delay between the blink and the list showing up is more than a second, word selection is random.

Re:interesting, but doesn't seem groundbreaking...

They chose a drink plus what it conjured up to their medial prefrontal cortex, namely the strong brand identity of Coca-Cola, he said.

Heh.

I used to drink Coke, until I thought, 'Hang on, what's this doing to my teeth?'

So I switched to Diet Coke. Until I thought, 'Hang on, if I want to drink a fizzy brown liquid that tastes like battery acid, I can buy own-brand cola from the supermarket for a quarter of the price.'

So I switched to that. Until I thought, 'Hang on! Why am I drinking stuff that tastes like battery acid at all?'

Wow, was the cola industry pissed!

(I also stopped eating at fast food joints about six months ago. Man, if another billion or so people do the same, those evil megacorps are *really* in trouble, huh?)