Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy
by Martin Lindstrom
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Book Summary Information
Author: Martin LindstromForeword: Paco Underhill
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-10-21
ISBN: 0385523882
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Crown Business
Book Reviews of Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy
Book Review: Looking for the "buy button" inside our heads
Summary: 5 Stars
On one level this is about advertising and persuasion through neuromarketing. World class branding guru Martin Lindstrom commissioned a couple of top researchers, Dr. Gemma Calvert using fMRI technology, and Professor Richard Silberstein using SST technology, to look inside the heads of consumers to see why we buy what we buy. Lindstrom, who makes a living advising international corporations on what works and what doesn't work in advertizing and marketing, was led to this approach because of an unshakable unease within the corporate world about the effectiveness of their research and advertising methods, an unease due primarily to the fact that "80 percent of all product launches fail in the first three months." (p. 167, and Chapter 1)
What he found out is that people themselves often do not know which commercials or advertisements are effective, and so asking them is a waste of time and money. To put it bluntly, we often do not know why we buy what we buy. There are subconscious factors at work that go directly to various brain centers and modules governing fear, greed, sex, power, status, etc. that not only override our conscious, rational minds, but actually operate independent of our consciousness. Lindstrom writes, "...most of our buying decisions aren't remotely conscious. Our brain makes the decision and most of the time we aren't aware of it." (p. 199)
On another level "Buyology" goes beyond advertizing and persuasion. On this level Lindstrom's book is about corporations and perhaps ultimately our governments going directly into the minds of consumers and citizens to exercise control over people in order to get them to do what they want them to do. In a sense this amounts to a postmodernist fusion of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and Vance Packard's "The Hidden Persuaders."
Unlike Huxley and Packard, however, Lindstrom is optimistic about where this research will lead. He argues that if we have "a better understanding of what drives and motivates" us, "what attracts and repels," we "can escape all the tricks and traps that companies use to seduce us...and get us to buy and [we will therefore be able to] take back our rational minds." (pp. 204-205).
I have my misgivings. I see neuromarketing being used to package political candidates to appeal to our limbic systems and ultimately being used to stifle unpopular views and behaviors contrary to what the power structure desires. Lindstrom is aware of this trend and writes, "I predict that the 2008 American presidential showdown will be the last-ever election to be governed by traditional surveys, and that by 2012, neuroscience will begin to dominate all election predictions." (p. 30) This is after recalling on the previous page that the famous 1964 "Daisy" ad showing "a young girl frolicking with a daisy as a nuclear explosion detonates" and "the September 11 imagery" in 2004 "triggered a noticeable, across-the-board increase in activity in voters' amygdalas." The amygdala "governs, among other things, fear, anxiety, and dread." The unmistakable conclusion is that fear helped Lyndon Baines Johnson and George W. Bush win elections.
One of the reasons I am not as optimistic as Lindstrom stems from one of the striking discoveries in the book, namely that smokers are not deterred in the slightest from having horrific words and pictures on their packs of cigarettes. Instead those words and images merely serve to remind them of what it is they want: to light up! (see especially page 82). Consequently we might know that a candidate is using fear or hate to get inside our heads and persuade us to vote for him but still be unable to vote otherwise. In fact, what usually happens when we do something for a reptilian brain inspired reason is that we use our rational minds merely to justify the behavior.
Some interesting conclusions that Lindstrom came to after evaluating the research:
Product placement doesn't work. The product needs to be tied to the entertainment vehicle itself in some way. He shows this by comparing how little Ford got for its ads on TV's "American Idol" compared to what Coca -Cola got. See Chapter 2: "This Must Be the Place: Product Placement, American Idol, and Ford's Multimillion-Dollar Mistake." No he wasn't talking about the Edsel. That's another story.
Sex may get your attention, but it doesn't sell, in fact it distracts--unless of course the ad promises more sex for you! If the advertiser can persuade you that buying the product is going to make you sexier, then it works.
Celebrity endorsements? "Well, evidence suggests that just as sex hijacks our attention away from the crucial information in an advertisement, so, too, can extreme beauty or celebrity." (p. 186)
Brand logos may not be important as the aurora surrounding them. Lindstrom shows how even a fish can become a brand and by becoming a brand be much more valuable than its nearly identical cousins. (See pages 200-203). He also shows how the colors and the atmosphere associated with a brand, such as the rugged Western outdoor-ness of the Marlboro brand, can be more effective in selling the product than the brand logo itself. Lindstrom concludes, "...when we brand things, our brains perceive them as more special and valuable than they actually are." (p. 203) To really bring home the significance of this, he reports that Dr. Calvert "discovered that when people viewed images associated with...strong brands...their brains registered the exact same patterns of activity as they did when they viewed...religious images." (p. 124)
All I can say is that neuromarketing may turn out to be a more powerful and more frightening tool than, say, bioengineering or replicating nanobots.
Summary of Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy
How much do we know about why we buy? What truly influences our decisions in today?s message-cluttered world? An eye-grabbing advertisement, a catchy slogan, an infectious jingle? Or do our buying decisions take place below the surface, so deep within our subconscious minds, we?re barely aware of them?In BUYOLOGY, Lindstrom presents the astonishing findings from his groundbreaking, three-year, seven-million-dollar neuromarketing study, a cutting-edge experiment that peered inside the brains of 2,000 volunteers from all around the world as they encountered various ads, logos, commercials, brands, and products. His startling results shatter much of what we have long believed about what seduces our interest and drives us to buy. Among his finding:
Gruesome health warnings on cigarette packages not only fail to discourage smoking, they actually make smokers want to light up.
Despite government bans, subliminal advertising still surrounds us ? from bars to highway billboards to supermarket shelves.
"Cool? brands, like iPods trigger our mating instincts.
Other senses ? smell, touch, and sound - are so powerful, they physically arouse us when we see a product.
Sex doesn't sell. In many cases, people in skimpy clothing and suggestive poses not only fail to persuade us to buy products - they often turn us away .
Companies routinetly copy from the world of religion and create rituals ? like drinking a Corona with a lime ? to capture our hard-earned dollars.
Filled with entertaining inside stories about how we respond to such well-known brands as Marlboro, Nokia, Calvin Klein, Ford, and American Idol, BUYOLOGY is a fascinating and shocking journey into the mind of today?s consumer that will captivate anyone who?s been seduced ? or turned off ? by marketers? relentless attempts to win our loyalty, our money, and our minds. Includes a foreword by Paco Underhill.
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