September 2009

Some neuroscientists have long been critical of fMRI brain scans, complaining that the technique's colorful images may cause their data to be weighted beyond their merit. Now, two skeptical groups have published data suggesting that the…

Advertisers have known for decades that pictures of babies attract attention and hold the viewer's gaze. That's why you often see pictures of babies - cute, startled, smiling, frowning - in ads that have nothing at all to do with baby…

Last week, we saw that order of presentation of a small number of products dramatically affects consumer preference. (See Order Effect Affects Orders.) But how do our brains cope when choices number in the hundreds or thousands, and how…

Ecommerce websites have a great opportunity to exploit the "scarcity effect," primarily because they can often provide instantaneous feedback on inventory levels and, in a credible way, let customers know when products are scarce.…

I've begun reading BrandDigital: Simple ways top brands succeed in the digital world by Allen P. Adamson, and found myself wholeheartedly agreeing with Adamson on the need for brand authenticity. In College Branding: Rooted in Reality, I…

The last time you bought a product online, you probably went through a logical analysis of alternative products, prices, features, and so on. And perhaps you really did. Research shows, however, that we are actually far from rational…

The recent Creative Arts Emmy Award result had an interesting neuromarketing tie-in: Super Bowl commercials found to be emotionally engaging using EEG and biometric measures fared unusually well in the Emmy award competition:

Book Review: Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? I couldn't pass up Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? by Susan Weinschenk, inasmuch as it combines several of my interests - neuroscience and marketing, specifically Web…

I don't often get into neuro-parenting here, but I thought this particular research finding was interesting enough to single out. (I mentioned it in my Managing by Mistakes post last week, too.) The short story is that a lot of what…

I've written often lately about college branding, but have focused on developing the external brand of the institution. One thing that's clear is that as skeptical as academics may be about the idea of branding, a few profs are actively…