October 2006

Why do spokespeople in ads who aren't professional actors do so badly most of the time? No doubt we've all seen the ads featuring the owner or sales manager of the local car dealer, or the guy who owns the furniture outlet, that seem…

This is one of those experiments that must have raised a few eyebrows during the approval process... "Let's get this straight, you are going to show subjects invisible pictures of naked people and see if they unconsciously remember seeing…

Every human culture has developed some kind of art, and scientists puzzling over art's appeal are proposing a neuroscience-based explanation. Vilayanur Ramachandran of the University of San Diego's Center for Brain and Cognition, along…

I'm still catching up on the reading I missed during my extended trip (and posting hiatus) a few weeks ago, and one of the more interesting things I've run across is an article in the UK's Times Online, Why say no to free money? It's…

One of the most successful sectors in the travel industry has been cruising. Megalines like Carnival and others are building ever-bigger ships to handle the increased traffic and offer more amenities. There's no doubt that a good part of…

Last May, we posted Food Ads: How Brains Respond, which discussed research showing that images of food triggered a response in the brain’s reward centers. Now, as reported in the Seattle Times in Chocolate: Love at first bite or sight,…

The Prague Post, a popular English-language weekly in the Czech Republic, ran both an article, Picking Your Brain, and an opinion piece, On the brains (and ethics) of neuroplanning, on the topic of neuromarketing. The former covers the…

Using fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging, to create colorful maps of brain activity has pervaded almost every area of neuroscience research, not to mention the fledgling field of neuromarketing. Conventional fMRI, though, has…

There's a neuromarketing lesson in extended warranties. If you have purchased any kind of electronic product in the last few years, you were almost certainly offered an opportunity to extend the product's warranty. Despite the fact that…