Meeting with a sales prospect in person for the first time? Think twice before you offer her a nice, ice-cold beverage. Instead, try a steaming mug of hot coffee to make the best impression. One of my favorite researchers, John Bargh of…

My last Neuromarketing post, Neuro-Menus and Restaurant Psychology, talked about various things restaurant menu engineers do to maximize sales and profits. I think it's worth calling special attention to one aspect touched on in that post:…

Restaurants are great test labs for testing neuromarketing techniques. It's easy to change offerings, menus, and pricing, and one gets immediate feedback on what's working and what's not. Today, many eateries are employing sophisticated…

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…

Mega-sporting events are always mega-advertising events, and the cost to become a sponsor or advertiser is a huge commitment of corporate dollars. The inevitable question that arises after the event is, "Was it worth it?" NeuroFocus, a…

  Erotic images sell better than pictures of office supplies, and a lot better than photos of hairy spiders. Who knew? Actually, that's a bit of an oversimplification. Stanford researchers led by neuroeconomics prof Brian Knutson have…

Brain studies are providing lots of new insights into consumer behavior, but this post recognizes a new and important role for marketing based on neuroscience research. If you are an occasional Neuromarketing reader (or grazer!), this is…

In our recent article on The Mating Mind, we described how "romantically primed" men were much more likely to spend lots of money than men who were not so primed, and than women in either condition. Separately, we've also noted that…

The Mating Mind. A prof at the University of New Mexico has an interesting suggestion: the evolution of the human brain was largely driven by finding better ways to appeal to the opposite sex. Geoffrey Miller is a man with a theory…

We all know what the placebo effect is - give a group of patients a sugar pill instead of a medication with active ingredients, and some of them will show an improvement in their symptoms. Drug researchers treat the placebo effect as an…