September 2008

Sales and business experts have always talked about the power of a handshake to make a good first impression and start building a relationship. Researchers at the University of Iowa showed that to be the case when they found that job…

As the current financial chaos moves toward some kind of resolution, there will no doubt be plenty of Monday morning quarterbacking to explain what went wrong. One group that one wouldn't expect to have explanations are neuroscientists. As…

Way back in 2005, in Can Caffeine Brain Boost Help Ad Recall?, I suggested that Starbucks could sell potent ads on their cups. This idea, though tongue-in-cheek in nature, was based on fMRI research that showed caffeine stimulated areas…

In Surprising the Brain, I wrote about a copywriting technique that replaces an expected word with an unexpected one to grab the listener's or reader's attention: Advertising copywriters have for years used a similar technique to jar the…

Does a better-smelling product work better? Probably not, but people will THINK it does. Research shows that people rated a better-smelling product higher in completely unrelated performance areas. Reading Whiff! The Revolution of…

We know that political marketing - the art of persuading voters to support your candidate - is perhaps the most challenging and least productive form of marketing. A couple of years ago in The Neuroscience of Political Marketing, I…

Book Review: Whiff! The Revolution of Scent Communication in the Information Age C. Russell Brumfield, author of Whiff! The Revolution of Scent Communication in the Information Age, along with co-authors James Goldney and Stephanie…

Most of us need to persuade people that we don't know personally to do things. A salesperson wants to close a deal. An office worker needs to persuade the new computer guy to fix her computer first. A fundraiser wants to get a potential…

Last week, I carried the story on Neurofocus's acquisition of what the firm calls the "core patent" for neuromarketing. Subsequent to that announcement, I spoke by phone with Dr. A.K. Pradeep, President and Chief Executive Officer of…

Marketing eco-friendly products isn't as easy as it might seem, particularly if the products involve some kind of sacrifice or behavioral change on the part of the consumer. Take a look at one of the supposed eco-villains, the auto…