Buyology more deeply

This week I've been concentrating on one of the three books, the Buyology by Martin Lindstrom. I think here's a book almost every company's management should not only read but study carefully. The neurological experiences (what happens inside of our brain) don't lie eventhough customer polls and surveys often do. It seems that most companies have over the years done the exact opposite what they should've done.

I haven't finished the book yet and there's a LOT of interesting stuff but here are a couple of important points for our project with Wiklund that I've come across during the reading.

1. The senses
Nowadays we're drowning into visual impulses. Our brain is getting way too overwhelmed by all the things we see and the visual stimuli we get around the clock that mostly it blurs everything into a fog where we can't separate one stimuli from the other let alone remember almost any of these. Instead of wasting tremendous amounts of money to developing logos and visual advertises companies should concentrate on the two much more important sensations: smell and sound. These two have been proven to be more memorable and easier to recall than any visual stimuli. The companies shouldn't forget the visual ads completely as they still play a role in the whole picture, but rather than focus on the extent of those try to focus on the differentation and surprises they might be able to bring for customers. The complete package that these three make is called Sensory Branding.

2. Somatic markers
When we make a buying decision our brain summons and scans a huge amount of memories, facts and emotions and squeezes them into a rapid answer - a shortcut in a way. Over 50% of all buying decisions are made spontaneously and unconsciously at the point of sale where the shortcuts play a big role. These shortcuts are also known as somatic markers and they have a lot more power than we're aware of. We make new somatic markers everyday and the advertisers are trying all they can to create us new ones so that we'd spontaneously buy their product from the store. For example fear is a very effective way to create a somatic marker: reminding people carefully but constantly that if they don't buy this or use this they may fall ill etc. is proven to be very powerful. Fear is part of sensory experiences which actually are often pleasant and affect our buying decision big time.

3. Mirror neurons
Our brain mimics how other people interact with objects and how they feel in situations. We often smile when we see someone is happy or wince when we see someone (in a movie for example) is in pain. Everything we observe or read about that someone else is doing, we do in our minds aswell. And everything someone we look up to has, or any person we find interesting, we want aswell, our brain imitates them. This idea goes close to marketing's basic idea of  "opinion leaders" whose choices affect a big crowd of people around them.


I think here are some ideas that we could really use in our project!