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"Neuromarketing in action": How marketers manipulate the minds of consumers. Read online the book "Neuromarketing in action"

CP, with permission from Mann, Ivanov & Ferber, is publishing excerpts from a book about the tricks brands use to get people to buy and make them happier.

emotionalslogans

Leading hypnologist and expert on the hypnotic power of words Dan Jones explains:

In Britain, the motor association used the slogan "For our members, we are the fourth Ambulance”, which evokes emotions associated with people's need for safety and security. Cadbury's Milk Tray slogan "It's all because the ladies love Milk Tray" plays on the emotional need to feel connected to another. important person and will influence our decision when choosing a small romantic gift that a lady will like.

Personalized messages

A widely used technique that can be used in both writing and oral speech, is about turning products into benefits. For example, a salesperson trying to sell you a camera might say, "Here's an f1.4 lens and a maximum shutter speed of 1/10,000 of a second."

However, in this case, the buyer will be forced to use a lot of mental energy to understand the meaning of what was said, if such information means anything to him at all. Turning these specifications into benefits sends the message straight to the other system.

For example, a salesperson would say to a new mother who wants to buy a camera, “Imagine you are filming a child’s birthday party and you want to capture the atmosphere accurately. This f1.4 lens allows you to take great shots without a flash.”

You can say to the father: “Does your son play on the school football team? If you want to remove all important points his match, then this camera with a maximum shutter speed of 1/10000 seconds will capture even the most rapid shots and goals. And if you put this telescopic lens, you will almost feel like a participant in the game!”

Price manipulation

One of the most famous marketing techniques is, of course, price. However, as retailers have long realized, most consumers are completely helpless when it comes to judging whether prices are right.

It is said that more than fifty years ago, a man came to the manufacturer of toothpaste, saying that he could increase the company's profits by 40%, and it would cost her almost nothing. He demanded $100,000 for his secret. Not wanting to pay a huge amount for those times, the leadership of the organization convened its staff of specialists for a “military council”.

They had to find the secret that the man discovered. However, when they failed, the manufacturer reluctantly signed the check. In response, he received a piece of paper on which three words were written: "Make the hole bigger."

The company immediately increased the diameter of the hole in the tube from five to six millimeters, which meant that the amount of toothpaste squeezed onto the brush at a time increased by 40%. Sales of toothpaste rose as consumers ran out of it faster. But no one noticed this, and if they did, they found no reason to complain.

Today, companies actively use the strategy of selling less product for the same money. Thanks to this, they manage to maintain or even increase their profits without increasing costs. Such manipulations with the price are successful, because consumers, once acquainted with their product, believe that its quantity remains unchanged.

Ask people at the orange juice shelves what they're buying, and they'll say "half a gallon of orange juice," even if they're holding a smaller bag.
It's the same reason people buy a "pint" of ice cream when it's actually only 14 ounces; it could be the same box with a lot of air inside, or just a new and trendy smaller package.
The fact is that this manufacturer has set the price per box, while his competitor, who sells a real pint, sets the price for a pint. That is why the average consumer does not manage to compare the prices of products on the shelves and choose the one that is really more profitable.

As Harvard Business School professor John Gourville says:

Consumers are more likely to notice a change in price than a change in quantity, and companies are trying to keep their actions secret, for example by keeping the same height and width of the package, but changing its depth so that the silhouette of the bag on the shelf looks the same as before.
Sometimes left in a bag of chips more air or thicken the bottom of a jar of peanut butter so that it looks unchanged.

Feeling of pride

Among all the emotions that brand managers seek to construct, pride occupies the most honorable place. And all because of our biology. As Jeffrey Miller, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Mexico, explains:

Humans have evolved into small social groups where image and status mattered most—not just for survival, but also for attracting a partner, impressing friends, and raising children.
Today, we surround ourselves with goods and services more to impress other people than to enjoy owning something. This is the fact that makes "materialism" a completely wrong term for consumption.

How effective a brand can instill a sense of pride and superiority in a person is shown by the brain processes of fashion-crazed shoppers—like those New York 6th Avenue bargain hunters I described in the chapter—when they encounter counterfeit designer items or those that, while real, were mistakenly presented to them as counterfeit.

Even though the quality, look, and style of an unlabeled item is identical to the real thing, if the customer believes it's fake, the brain and body response monitoring equipment doesn't show even mild arousal. The electrical signals in the brain do not increase, the heart rate does not rise, and the electrical conductivity of the skin associated with excitation does not rise.

If the customer is shown a beautifully made replica of a designer item, such as a Louis Vuitton handbag or a Patek Philippe watch, mental and physical excitement will increase in the same way as if he were given the real thing, but only until the moment when he realizes that this is just a counterfeit. As soon as the truth is revealed, the excitement will disappear.

Emotional Stories

Many purchasing decisions are based on how accessible the product itself or information about it is to the buyer. This happens because consumers are sure that what comes to their mind the fastest is the most important.

The old sales adage that it's easiest to sell to a buyer who's in the here and now is an example of this rule in action. The easier it is to remember a brand, the more likely it is that the brand's product will be selected and valued more than its less memorable competitors.

We are social animals, trained to respond to stories, especially those that evoke strong emotions. By creating an emotional story about their product and then putting it into an easy-to-remember phrase – “Mars energizes you for the day”, “Recharge with an egg”, “Guinness is good”, “Esso - and you drive easily” - advertisers effortlessly putting their products into your minds.

There are two types of marketing ploys: those that work and those that don't. The first, for example, include the idea to increase the diameter of the hole in the toothpaste tube by 1 mm. The pasta ends three days earlier without the consumer noticing. Companies increase revenues by slightly reducing the volume of packaging with the goods or the weight of the product. However, over time, buyers from these brands are becoming less. Why?

According to the founder of Mind Lab and author of the book "Neuromarketing in Action" David Lewis, subconsciously a person catches even the slightest change in the shape and weight of the product. This may not have an immediate effect on buying habits or preferences, but distrust and suspicion develop over time. Such feelings are always hidden, but in the end they undermine the credibility of the brand.

So, thanks to neuromarketing, a third type of marketing activity appeared - those that would not work better :)

Before proceeding, I propose to understand the key concepts.

About the book and almost science

The term " neuromarketing” was invented in 2002 by Eil Smidts, a professor at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. He described neuromarketing as commercial application neurobiology and neuroimaging technologies. Smidts explained that the goal of neuromarketing is to “better understand the consumer and their response to marketing stimuli by directly measuring brain processes” and to improve “the effectiveness of marketing methods by studying brain response.”

David Lewis is a recognized world leader in the application of neuroscience methods to the study of the mental activity of buyers. As early as the 1980s at the University of Sussex, he attached electrodes to the scalp of volunteers, hoping to track their brain's electrical response to television ads, he was dubbed the "father of neuromarketing." His client list includes many Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies.

In fact, the goal of neuromarketers is to cultivate customer loyalty, to cage the brain in sales, based on subconscious reactions. Although researchers cannot yet read the thoughts of users, their methods (recording brain activity, heart rate and electrical conductivity of the skin, fixing movements, changes in body position, oculography) still depend on individual interpretation. On the way to the full development of neuromarketing as a science stands the reluctance of individual agencies to share these interpretations and systematize the results of full-fledged scientific research. In the hands of neuromarketers armed with equipment, there was a base of advertising chips already developed over decades. Scientists repeated the conditions and stated when and where the decision-making region of the prefrontal cortex of the brain or the somatosensory cortex responsible for the desire to have something is activated.

Areas of the Brain of Most Interest to Neuromarketers

Therefore, most books on neuromarketing (and Neuromarketing in Action was no exception) suffer from the “Captain of Obviousness” syndrome: the color red excites, the image of a kitten evokes a feeling of warmth, and in order for a brand to be remembered, the user must see it at least three times a day. So far, this is reminiscent of an anecdote about Archimedes.

Towards the end of his life, he no longer proved anything, but simply wrote: “Proved. Archimedes".

However, social networks help neuromarketers more effectively define a given audience and make their work targeted. For example, the myPersonality Facebook app distinguishes African Americans from whites with 95% accuracy, and Republicans from Democrats with 85% accuracy. Religious beliefs can be predicted with an accuracy of 82%; whether the user smokes cigarettes — 73%; whether he drinks alcohol - 70%. Neuromarketing in Action can be called an anthology of popular marketing techniques, viewed through the prism of neuroscience. Experienced professionals can extract the golden grains of cases from the work of David Lewis and systematize them. The value of the book for novice marketers and consumers was well defined by himself

We have already written about some of these traps. Below, I tried to systematize the methods and facts given by David Lewis, which, according to the father of neuromarketing, educate a loyal user without the losses for the brand described in the first paragraphs of the post.

Loyalty Steps

1. Creation of desire-need

Once the desire is firmly rooted in the mind, the buyer can no longer focus on anything else. Desire turns into desire-need.

It is important to understand that wants-needs are completely rigged, and not just through advertising, marketing, and retail. Public relations firms, bloggers, Internet forum participants, radio and television, newspapers and social networks also contribute to this.

For many consumers, the opportunity to buy a coveted fashion item at a low price creates the same spike in the brain as winning the lottery or even inhaling a line of cocaine.

Neuromarketers have identified six most effective ways that help make the product more desirable.

Get customers to work on their purchases.
Create shortage (this method works well in the modnaKasta business model).
“That's not all” (EEB) strategy.
Encourage play.
Desire-need for distraction.
Create a sense of inferiority (physical or social).

2. Correct setting of the sales situation

The power of the nod

Setting a selling situation in which the consumer is encouraged to nod frequently will greatly increase their desire to buy the product, and making them turn their heads for any reason will make a purchase less likely.

Jens Föster of the German University of Würzburg conducted an experiment in which well-known products were presented to the viewer in vertical or horizontal motion on a monitor. As products passed into view, participants were forced to nod their heads (vertical movement) or turn their heads (horizontal movement). Föster found that nodding (vertical movement) evoked positive emotions about the products presented and more likely to persuade people to buy. At the same time, those participants who were forced to turn their heads (horizontal movement of the product) evaluated the products not so positively and were not interested in buying.

This example can be given to all customers who want to see a horizontal slider on their online store site.

Bending arms increases desire

Some interesting facts:

Just by clenching our fists, we are filled with altruism. By sticking out their thumb, many women perceive the fictional character whose description is being read more positively.

Taking the product from the shelf, the buyer bends his arms; to replace it, he straightens them. These simple movements have a noticeable subconscious effect on what emotions this product evokes, and, of course, on whether we want to buy it. As a result of repeating these actions many thousands of times, we begin to associate arm flexion with the desire for acquisition, and extension with the likelihood of rejection. It's like entering a personal space: if a person attracts us, we draw him closer, and those we don't like, we push him away. In practice, this means the importance of the poses of models in pictures and actors in video ads.

The astounding commercial success of the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Kinect, and Playstation Move motion-controlled video game consoles is partly due to the positive emotions that certain movements evoke.

3. Take care of the fluency of processing

The brain uses energy very sparingly. If he is faced with a choice: to spend energy on something new or to accept the familiar, he will choose the second. That is why it is so important, with what speed and ease the consumer will understand the message addressed to him. Processing fluency plays a prominent, though usually subconscious, role in the decision to buy or not to buy a product. This is especially important when the product is unfamiliar to the consumer. For example, a complex font not only creates the feeling that there is something incomprehensible in the product, but also subconsciously leads the buyer to believe that there is something dishonest about it.

An experiment with evaluating the taste of tomato soup. 64% of the group whose menu was printed in Lucida Calligraphy felt that the soup was tastier and fresher. Accordingly, the group whose menus were printed in Courier font gave the soup not as high scores. Twice as many participants in the first group indicated that they would buy this soup for themselves.

For the same reason, plain text emails are considered the best format for trigger emails. Without fashionable templates and pictures. Another thing is when the user receives this letter. We at Netpeak, for example, use GetResponse , which provides the ability to send eight different types of trigger emails, from birthday greetings to a trigger that a user receives after reading another email.

4. Start a chain reaction in the network

Any serious marketing strategy today combines online and offline channels. Multi-channel allows brands to tell completely new stories, leaving users to complete the picture in their imagination. Companies today are trying to optimize websites for mobile devices and encourage users to download geolocation apps. They collect information about where a person is and what he is doing in order to provide him with the most relevant advertising. This form of digital marketing is known as "SoloMo" (integration of social, geolocation and mobile platforms).

Two games were created to advertise Dorito's chips. The owner of Cyber Lion "Hotel 626" and Asylum 626. The plot for the horror was a chilling escape from a lunatic asylum, where nurses were chasing players with chainsaws. In moments of greatest danger, the player could send an SMS to a friend asking for help. Those who agreed had to shout into a microphone or hit computer keys to distract the enemy. In another scenario, players were shown two photos of their Facebook friends to choose who would live and who might have to die. In the last video game scene, you had to use special code or a marker printed on packages of chips. Shown to the webcam, it triggered a 3D key that allowed them to escape.

David Lewis argues that neuroscientists have not yet done research into user subconscious responses in a cross-screen environment. Will the viewer's perception of a TV ad be just as passive when he's hunched over his tablet rather than leaning back in his comfortable chair? There are still more questions than answers.

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Business Book Description:

This book by the father of neuromarketing, David Lewis, explores how advertisers can drive sales and influence consumer emotions through color, smell, catchy slogans, and prejudice. Based on his research, the author describes the future of marketing. All ideas are illustrated with excellent examples.

The bibliography is available at www.mann-ivanov-ferber.ru/books/mozg_potrebitelya

Published in Russian for the first time.

The presented fragment of the book is placed in agreement with the distributor of legal content LLC "LitRes" (no more than 20% of the original text). If you believe that the posting of material violates your or someone else's rights, then .

WHEN SCIENCE MEETS SHOPPING

Published with permission from Nicholas Brealey Publishing Group

Legal support of the publishing house is provided by law firm"Vegas Lex"

This edition is published by arrangement with Nicholas Brealey Publishing and The Van Lear Agency LLC

To Stephen Matthews with many thanks for helping me over the years and for inspiring me all along.

Introduction

The material we work with is the fabric of human consciousness.

Vance Packard, Secret Manipulators

More than half a century ago, American journalist Vance Packard shocked consumers by revealing how intensely they were being manipulated for commercial gain. His best-selling book The Secret Manipulators is a debunking of the dark side of advertising, a warning that “advertisers are making massive, often surprisingly successful efforts to channel our unconscious habits, buying decisions, and thought processes in a certain direction. Often they touch strings that are beyond the conscious process of thinking. In other words, more often than not, we are motivated by somewhat hidden appeals.”

These words were written in 1957. Since then, scientists have learned more about how our brain works than in the entire previous history of mankind. Although these advances still prevent mind reading, researchers are closer than ever to this goal. It is already known that the way the blood flows to which parts of the brain and how the electrical signals that communicate between these areas change can tell a lot about our emotions, actions and thinking.

Today, no country in the world has a single big company that would not be in the race to exploit the discoveries of neuroscience. Their area of application is the development of technologies for influencing consumers (or, as critics will say, manipulating them), and the prize in this race is not only their hearts, but also their consciousness.

I know this because for more than thirty years my neuroscience research has focused on the vulnerability of the human brain and various methods impact on him.

I became interested in this rapidly developing scientific field in the late 1980s while working in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Sussex. Then I attached electrodes to the heads of volunteers to record the electrical activity of their brains while watching television commercials. Twenty years later, those early studies resulted in what became the multi-billion dollar neuromarketing industry.

Since then, my colleagues at Mindlab and I have been using ever more sensitive and sophisticated equipment to analyze what is going on in the mind and body of the person who is shopping. I record brain activity, changes in heart rate, breathing, skin temperature, and arousal responses in retail outlets ranging from small family shops to luxurious marble halls. shopping centers. I've seen how a bargain makes the pulse quicken and how red excites the buyer.

I took saliva samples to assess stress levels and used eye-tracking equipment to determine how much time consumers spend browsing different storefronts. AT recent times, as the internet and social media become more influential and widespread, I began to study how people shop online. Recording the direction of gaze, recording the attention level of users, I explored how they surf the web, surf the web, and shop online; how they react to different forms advertising and participate in social networks, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. My mission is to put shopping under a microscope: not only to observe consumer behavior, but also to understand how they feel and think when they are looking for everything from dishwashing liquid and floor wax to designer sunglasses and the latest smartphone.

This book is an inside look at how the rapid growth of knowledge about the workings of the brain (combined with breakthroughs in neuro-behavioral economics and consumer psychology) helps to increase the effectiveness of advertising, marketing and retail - strengthen the sales cage that encloses our brain.

If you are an advertising, marketing or retail(in a broader sense, a representative of the “persuasion industry”), you will get to know the latest technologies in your field and learn how to use them. As a consumer, you will learn how you are being increasingly affected by this incredibly powerful industry. Her technology, as explained former specialist advertising by Robert Heath in his book Seduction of the Subconscious, seriously affect the choice "in the absence of a message, or even if we do not remember and do not pay attention to the message, do not remember and do not pay attention to advertising, and regardless of whether we like us advertising or disgust.

This book will show you that while shopping, the consumer can be influenced even through his surroundings. For example, the lighting in a discount store will be bright and even to show off the product in a favorable light, while in an expensive cosmetics store the light will be soft to emphasize the appearance of customers. The music that plays in a store can make a customer walk along the shelves faster or slower, while the scented air in a casino relaxes players and slows down the passage of time for them. These methods of creating the right atmosphere subtly control the behavior and mood of consumers - so that they do not even notice it. And the emergence of the so-called choice architecture allows us to manipulate, on a subconscious level, how we make decisions.

However, a deeper understanding of brain activity is only part of the picture. The power of the persuasion industry is growing thanks to the emergence of completely new ways to enter the market - through the Internet, social networks, mobile devices and personalized advertising messages. For example, in Chapter 7 I will talk about the acoustic icons on the computer screen that make the appropriate sound when you click on a website link—the sizzle of a steak in a frying pan for a restaurant, the sound of waves crashing on the shore for travel agency. Even the television programs you and your children watch can seriously affect how you perceive the world and how you shop, which I will cover in Chapter 9.

Another source of influence that provides a picture of the world of consumers is data supermasses; their creation is one of the ever-evolving capabilities of the industry. In Chapter 11, I will explain how, using advanced mathematics and high-speed computers, you can systematize shopping habits that are searched for, for example, on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. According to industry representatives, this data helps personalize marketing so that only those products and services that are directly related to them occupy the time and attention of customers. Searching for supermasses of data is just one of the reasons why my lab, like almost any organization of its kind, is staffed not only by neuroscientists, but also by mathematicians, statisticians, and physicists.