Neuromarketing

The Power of “New”

Marketers know there are potent words in advertising, like “Free” and “New.” Neuroscientists have now determined that the appeal of “new” is hard-wired into our brains. Novelty activates our brain’s reward center, which may have been an evolutionary advantage to our ancestors as they encountered new food sources or other elements of survival. [...]

Will Obama’s “Fight The Smears” Backfire?

A few weeks ago, Barack Obama’s campaign announced a new website, Fight the Smears, ostensibly to provide quick facts when negative rumors or allegations about Obama crop up. Many believe that a factor in John Kerry’s loss to George W. Bush was that he failed to counter negative “swift boat” allegations about his combat [...]

Bikinis, Babes, and Buying

Scantily clad women have been used to sell products to men for decades, and likely for millennia in one form or another. There’s little doubt that the typical male brain is wired to respond to attractive females in revealing attire. But is this a cheap attention-getting trick that has no real impact on [...]

Two Neuromarketing Challenges

Slate science writer Daniel Engber finds the concept of neuromarketing dubious, and in particular has a problem with FKF Applied Research. FKF has been particularly successful in getting highly visible press coverage of its interpretations of fMRI brain scans. That the conclusions reached are sometimes obvious and sometimes contradictory doesn’t seem to bother [...]

Proof That Neuromarketing is the Work of the Devil

Although neuro-alarmists have suggested it, I’ve finally obtained proof that neuromarketing is the work of the Devil:

Link here.

HUMMER: Split-Brain Branding

The last few weeks have had plenty of news about the Hummer brand. The biggest news, of course, is that General Motors announced that they were putting the Hummer line up for review and possible divestment. Just a day or so earlier, Hummer continued its history-making off road run when Team [...]

Jeffrey Goldberg’s Brain

Ever wonder what goes on inside a journalist’s head when he thinks about politics, television shows, or his boss? An article in The Atlantic, My Amygdala, My Self, tells us that and more. The intro to the piece notes that correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg was “intrigued and alarmed” by the new concept of neuromarketing, [...]

Coffee Smell Is All You Need

I’ve written about sensory branding, olfactory marketing, and in particular Starbucks’ attempt to get more coffee aroma into its stores. Now, it seems that all you need to get you going in the morning is a whiff of coffee aroma: Wake up and smell the coffee…yes, it’s the best way to cure tiredness.
The [...]

Neuroeconomics and Investment Insanity

The human brain didn’t evolve to pick stocks, which explains why there are so few Warren Buffets among the ranks of fund managers. Jason Zweig, author of Your Money & Your Brain (reviewed in Ignore Your Brain and Get Rich), did a lengthy interview with the Journal of Indexes. The publication, which seems [...]

Fashion Psychology

Our tastes in fashion, and indeed, our ideas in general, are almost never the result of a solo creative effort. Rather, they are influenced by collective behavior of which we may or may not be consciously aware. Robert L. Goldstone and a team of researchers at Indiana University have been modeling collective behavior [...]