Sit Straight, Build Confidence

We know that making ourselves smile or frown can actually influence our mood, and now it seems that the posture we assume can affect our confidence in our own thoughts. A study by Richard Petty, who apparently is not the NASCAR driver…

Got Branding?

The last time I wrote about Nabisco's Oreo brand, it was in Mega-Branding: The Purple Oreo Problem. In that post I was critical of the seemingly crazy proliferation of Oreo variations - 46 offerings, including "Purple." My criticism was…

How We Decide

Book Review: How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer Jonah Lehrer has been translating neuroscience into prose comprehensible by the lay reader for years, and How We Decide helps readers understand and even apply current research in the process of…

The Neuroscience of Temptation

If you are human, you are subject to temptation. In a religious context, temptation is an invitation to sin, i.e., to break the established rules of that particular faith. Even without the influence of religion, society has both formal…

Weird News: Cow Names Matter

Is there something about names that attracts odd research? The last time I used "Weird News" in a Neuromarketing title was in, Weird News: Names Affect Outcomes. That article detailed research that showed a weak but significant…

Are Brain Scan Findings Fishy?

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…

Child Labor: Put That Baby to Work!

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…

Your Brain on Thousands of Products

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…

Selling with Scarcity

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.…