A fascinating journey into the consumer's brain. A fascinating journey into the brain of the modern consumer

Buyology: a fascinating journey into the brain of the modern consumer.

Lindstrom Martin. Buyology. Truth and Lies about why we buy

The experimental research on which this book is based had a budget of more than $7,000,000. Based on extensive neuromarketing research, Martin Lindstrom reveals the surprising truth about what grabs customers' attention and makes them want to part with their money. If you want to know how important brand logos are and how effective subconscious advertising is; how major world religions influence purchasing behavior; what effect restrictions and health warnings actually have and whether sexual innuendo in advertising is justified - read this book carefully. You will be surprised at how much of what you thought you knew for sure about making purchasing decisions will turn out to be completely wrong. This book will be useful not only to professional marketers, it will certainly be of interest to anyone who has ever been caught in an advertising network trying to win our loyalty, our money and our minds.

PREFACE

It was a cool September evening. I was dressed inappropriately for the weather: I was wearing a sports jacket, and under it only a thin cashmere sweater. As I boarded the crowded cruise ship where I was to meet Martin Lindstrom for the first time, I still felt the chill from the walk from the hotel to the pier. That day he spoke at a conference on problems Catering, which was conducted by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, a real treasure trove of Swiss scientific thought.

Conference organizer David Bosshart was eager for Lindstrom and me to meet. Until this time I had never heard of Martin. We moved in different circles. However, before arriving in Zurich I had already seen him last book"Children's Branding" in a bookstore at New York's JFK Airport.

Anyone watching Martin from a distance of ten meters might have mistaken him for a fourteen-year-old teenager forced by his father to come to this meeting to introduce him to his corpulent, graying business partners. But the very next moment I was surprised by how quickly this “fair-haired boy” became the center of attention, and I kept waiting for the public’s interest to fade away - but it didn’t happen. A certain light emanated from Martin, as if from the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites (The Pre-Raphaelites are followers of Pre-Raphaelitism, a movement in English poetry and painting that formed in the early 1850s with the aim of fighting against conventions victorian era, academic traditions and blind imitation of classical models. Prominent representatives: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and others - Note.

As if standing on stage was his destiny, not as a jester, but as a king. This man is full of talents. Coming closer to him, I was even more amazed. I have never met a person with such a wise look and such a youthful face. Blond hair and an open smile emphasized his individuality. If I didn’t know that this was a branding business guru standing in front of me, I probably would have asked him for an autographed photo.

That evening, seven years ago, we didn’t say ten words to each other. But this was the beginning of our friendship and business communication which took place on five continents. We agreed to meet at the intersection of our roads from Sydney to Copenhagen, from Tokyo to New York. We joked a lot, had heated discussions, gave each other useful tips- all this left an unforgettable impression on me. Martin spends three hundred days a year on the road. Fortunately, I am still far from this. I very quickly accepted this lifestyle and no longer pay attention to such trifles as uncomfortable pillows and expired air tickets, so I consider myself a full member of the “travel club”.

Martin observes, listens and masterfully works with the information received. A biography posted on his personal Internet page states that he began his advertising career at the age of twelve. This fact surprised me less than the fact that at about the same age his parents took him out of school so that the whole family could go on a trip around the world on a yacht. I know that if I were a twelve-year-old boy, I could not live for two years on a ten-meter yacht with my parents. Martin says he still suffers from seasickness and prefers to live in Sydney, perhaps the furthest city from his native Denmark.

Value scientific conferences is that by participating in them and exchanging opinions with people whose views on a certain problem are somewhat different from ours, we gain new experience. We take part in them in order to show ourselves and look at others. Although I work in the behavioral aspects of shopping, I have not often had the opportunity to interact with advertisers and marketers. So, I don’t share the general obsession with brands at all: I don’t wear shirts with a crocodile or a polo player and I even cut off the labels from the inside of my jeans.

Buyology: a fascinating journey into the brain of the modern consumer

PREFACE

It was a cool September evening. I was dressed inappropriately for the weather: I was wearing a sports jacket, and under it only a thin cashmere sweater. As I boarded the crowded cruise ship where I was to meet Martin Lindstrom for the first time, I still felt the chill from the walk from the hotel to the pier. That day he was speaking at a conference on public nutrition, which was held by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, a real treasure trove of Swiss scientific thought.

Conference organizer David Bosshart was eager for Lindstrom and me to meet. Until this time I had never heard of Martin. We moved in different circles. However, before arriving in Zurich, I had already seen his latest book, Child Branding, in a bookstore at New York's JFK Airport.

Anyone watching Martin from a distance of ten meters might have mistaken him for a fourteen-year-old teenager forced by his father to come to this meeting to introduce him to his corpulent, graying business partners. But the very next moment I was surprised by how quickly this “fair-haired boy” became the center of attention, and I kept waiting for the public’s interest to fade away - but it didn’t happen. A certain light emanated from Martin, as if from the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites (The Pre-Raphaelites are followers of Pre-Raphaelitism, a movement in English poetry and painting that formed in the early 1850s to fight against the conventions of the Victorian era, academic traditions and blind imitation of classical models. Prominent representatives: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Mills and others - Note.

As if standing on stage was his destiny, not as a jester, but as a king. This man is full of talents. Coming closer to him, I was even more amazed. I have never met a person with such a wise look and such a youthful face. Blond hair and an open smile emphasized his individuality. If I didn’t know that this was a branding business guru standing in front of me, I probably would have asked him for an autographed photo.

That evening, seven years ago, we didn’t say ten words to each other. But this was the beginning of our friendship and business communication, which took place on the territory of five continents. We agreed to meet at the intersection of our roads from Sydney to Copenhagen, from Tokyo to New York. We joked a lot, had heated discussions, gave each other useful advice - all this left an unforgettable impression on me. Martin spends three hundred days a year on the road. Fortunately, I still have a long way to go. I very quickly accepted this lifestyle and no longer pay attention to such trifles as uncomfortable pillows and expired air tickets, so I consider myself a full member of the “travel club”.

Martin observes, listens and masterfully works with the information received. A biography posted on his personal Internet page states that he began his advertising career at the age of twelve. This fact surprised me less than the fact that at about the same age his parents took him out of school so that the whole family could go on a trip around the world on a yacht. I know that if I were a twelve-year-old boy, I could not live for two years on a ten-meter yacht with my parents. Martin says he still suffers from seasickness and prefers to live in Sydney, perhaps the furthest city from his native Denmark.

The value of scientific conferences lies in the fact that by participating in them and exchanging opinions with people whose views on a certain problem are somewhat different from ours, we gain new experience. We take part in them in order to show ourselves and look at others. Although I work in the behavioral aspects of shopping, I have not often had the opportunity to interact with advertisers and marketers. So, I don’t share the general obsession with brands at all: I don’t wear shirts with a crocodile or a polo player and I even cut off the labels from the inside of my jeans.

If you look at it, companies themselves should pay me for wearing their logo on my chest, but certainly not the other way around. Therefore, it is a little strange for me to speak on the same platform with ardent branding apologists and those who truly believe that advertising is good and not evil. However, we still agree on one thing: the methodology needs to be updated. marketing research to understand why we act the way we do in stores, hotels, airports or the Internet.

At the end of the 20th century, entrepreneurs and marketers used only two methods when analyzing the effectiveness of their efforts. The first is the sales research method. What do people buy most often and how can we benefit from knowing buyer preferences? Actually, you can find out without leaving cash register. A significant drawback of this method is that it indicates a sales ranking without explaining what factors form it. Why did people buy Jif nut butter when Skippy butter was on sale?

The second method is traditional market research by survey. You can approach customers and ask them a few questions as they walk through the store, you can interview them over the phone, you can invite them to take part in a focus group, or you can invite them to join in a discussion on an Internet forum. But experience tells me: words often do not coincide with actions.

I don't want to say that these two methods are untenable, just that they are not enough. Advertising and branding still do their job today, but not as effectively as before.

However, collecting information is easier than using it. In the 1990s, many marketers' offices were littered with sheets of television ratings and reviews data, various market research data, and the results of thousands of telephone surveys. Marketers have found that two out of three young women between the ages of 28 and 32 who play soccer, drive old minivans, and live in small towns prefer to buy Jif brand peanut butter over Skippy. But how can you use this information? One cynical friend of mine suggested that we first rise above banal phrases like “well, what does all this mean?”, “invaluable information,” “what should I do now with the survey results?”

It so happened that marketing was not immediately classified as scientific disciplines. In the 1950s, representatives of science, at their own peril and risk, began to collaborate with advertising agencies. Vance Packard's bestseller The Secret Manipulators (Meaning, 2004) tells the story of this golden era, which lasted less than a decade. Many women were happy to feed their children Jell-O, and researchers were looking into why the small sports cars parked in front of the Ford dealership were replacing the Plain Jane sedans. Much seemed simple and logical at that time. New advertising easily ended up on the three main TV channels or in the top ten most popular magazines. Marketing increasingly became a science when internal contradictions arose between the two fields. In the 1950s, despite the attraction the best specialists and a huge investment of money, the attempt to bring the Edsel to market was a complete failure. Thirty years later, New Coke failed miserably.

In the last three decades, marketing research has focused more on mathematics than on psychology, focusing on statistical uncertainty, sample size, standard deviations, Z-tests, T-tests, and the like. Absolute values You definitely trust more.

I would like to believe that today every research company is trying with all its might to make its clients the most competitive and not leave the rest any chance of success. Every market researcher is now a cross between a scientist and a fortune teller: he must correctly and quickly assess the situation, and then beautifully present everything in a believable story.

Martin, who has been developing new research methods for the past ten years, devotes this book to neuromarketing. It contains the latest developments in the field of medicine and marketing,

INTRODUCTION

Let's face it: we are all consumers. And it doesn’t matter what exactly we buy - mobile phone, a Swiss-made anti-aging cream or a can of Coca-Cola - shopping is an integral part of our Everyday life. Every day we are bombarded with dozens, if not hundreds, advertisements And market offers. Commercials on TV. Billboards on the streets. Internet advertising banners. Advertising in store windows. We are surrounded by brand names everywhere, each of which constantly bombards us with their information. But is it really possible to remember at least a few names in this endless avalanche of advertising that we encounter every day? Why do some pieces of information linger in our minds while others are consigned to the industrial waste heap of human brain activity and gather dust among short-lived Huggies commercials and other equally bland consumer messages?

I can't help but remember now what often happens to me when I stay in hotels. When I enter a hotel room in an unfamiliar city, I immediately throw my room key or my credit card somewhere and in a split second I completely forget where everything went. Data about this is irretrievably erased from hard drive my memory. Why?

Whether I realize it or not, the reason is that my brain takes in a lot of information at once - for example, what city and time zone I am in, how long until my next business meeting, when was the last time I ate something, etc. n. And since a person’s short-term memory is very limited, the key to the room is not found.

The human brain constantly collects and sorts information. Some of it is sent to long-term storage, and most of information from the outside turns into garbage and falls into oblivion. This unconscious process happens every second, every minute, every day.

People constantly ask me the same question: why did I write a book about neuromarketing? I work in several areas of business, constantly travel around the world, consulting with executives large companies. I am at home only sixty days a year. So why, despite being so busy, did I find time to conduct such extensive research? Advising companies on how to create a powerful and successful trademark, I made a discovery: many brands today resemble a lost room key. To paraphrase my compatriot Hamlet, something is very wrong in the advertising world. There is no demand for too many products today; they cease to exist as soon as they make themselves known on the market. Traditional research methods don't work here.

As a branding professional, I have become obsessed with this issue. I wanted to get to the bottom of why consumers prefer a certain brand of clothing, a certain brand of car, a certain shaving cream, shampoo or chocolate. I realized that the key to the answer lay in studying human brain activity. I firmly believed that if I could find the answer, it would not only revolutionize the world of advertising, but would change the way we think and behave as consumers.

And yet there is a grain of irony in my statement: we, consumers, most often do not ask ourselves these questions at all. If you asked me where I put the room key - on the bed, on the bedside table, on the shelf in the bathroom, or hidden under the remote control remote control, - I still couldn’t answer you. For the same reason, I can't explain why I bought an iPod Nano. Casio watch, Starbucks milk tea or a pair of Diesel jeans. I don't know why. I just bought it.

But if marketers could learn what exactly happens in the human brain at the moment of making a purchase, what influences the preference of one brand over another, what information passes memory filters and what does not, they would find the key to creating future luxury brands. That's why I started this three-year, multimillion-dollar journey into the world of consumer brains, brands, and science.

After reading the book, you will learn that neuromarketing - a fascinating symbiosis of marketing and human science - has opened up human consciousness for us, has become the key to what I call the biology of purchases (Buyology), the key to our subconscious thoughts, feelings and desires that motivate us every day. us to make a choice in favor of one product or another.

It should be noted that the idea of ​​marketing as a science that can peer into the human brain makes many people nervous. When most of us hear the phrase “brain scan,” the imagination slips into paranoia. This seems to us a gross intrusion into the sphere of the personal, as if a huge and terrible Curious Barbara with an x-ray gaze makes our innermost thoughts and feelings visible.

One organization, known as Commercial Alert, has asked Congress to ban neuromarketing, arguing that research into the human brain is intended to "capture the mind and exploit it for commercial purposes." “What would happen if neuroscientists used their knowledge to create a desire to buy a product through hidden advertising? - asks the same organization in a letter to Emory University President James Wagner (at the same time, the department of neurobiology of this university was called “the epicenter of neuromarketing”). “What if neuromarketing,” the organization asks in a petition to the US Senate, “will be used in political propaganda, provoking the emergence of new totalitarian regimes, social conflicts, wars, genocide and countless deaths?”

I deeply respect Commercial Alert's opinion, but I find it completely unfounded. Of course, like any new branch of science, neuromarketing potentially creates room for criticism, but at the same time it also entails moral responsibility. I take this responsibility extremely seriously because I am a consumer myself every day, and the last thing I want is to play into the hands of companies in manipulating our minds.

I do not believe that neuromarketing can become a tool of power for insidious, corrupt governments or fraudulent advertisers. In fact, neuromarketing is as simple as a hammer. Of course, in the hands of dishonest people it can become a weapon, but that is not its purpose. After all, you do not need to obtain a special permit to own a hammer. The same can be said about neuromarketing. It is just a tool designed to help us determine what we as consumers are thinking about when making a decision to buy a particular product or brand, and sometimes to reveal the secret tricks of marketers who want to seduce or trick us without our knowledge.

I have no intention of helping companies use brain research to gain mind control over consumers, and I have no intention of turning us into robots. Perhaps in the distant future there will be people who will want to use this tool for personal gain. But, I hope, the majority will treat neuromarketing constructively, in order to better know themselves, human desires, internal impulses and motivation, and use this knowledge in real life. (Agree, it’s stupid to refuse this.)

Do you want to know my opinion? By better understanding our own seemingly irrational behavior—for example, why we buy a shirt from a famous designer or how we determine whether an applicant is suitable for a given position—we gain more control over ourselves. The better we understand why we fall victim to the tricks and deceptions of advertisers, the better we can protect ourselves from their attacks. Conversely, the more companies understand the unconscious wants and needs of customers, the more useful and valuable products they will bring to market. After all, why shouldn't marketers care about creating products that customers will immediately love? They will improve our life and make it more joyful. From this point of view, and with the right ethical attitude, research into the human brain will benefit everyone. Just imagine: selling products will bring more profit to companies, and customers will get exactly what they crave. That would be great!

Until now, the only way to understand consumer behavior was through observation or survey. And nothing else. Think of neuromarketing as one of the three circles in a Venn diagram. Invented in 1881 by English logician and philosopher John Venn, this diagram displays all possible relationships between subsets and is traditionally used in mathematical set theory. In other words, if one of the circles in the diagram depicts a man, the second depicts dark hair, and the third depicts a mustache, then in the area of ​​their intersection a dark-haired, mustachioed man will be depicted.

But if you are already planning to depict two classical methods of market research, quantitative and qualitative, using two circles in a Venn diagram, then it’s time for you to include another circle in the diagram - neuromarketing. At the intersection of these three circles lies the future of marketing - the key to fully understanding the thoughts, feelings, motivations, needs and desires of customers - that is, all of us.

Of course, neuromarketing will not provide answers to all questions. This is a young science, and its knowledge is limited by the lack of a coherent understanding of the human brain. However, we are learning more and more about the influence of the unconscious on our behavior, so today some major scientists around the world have begun to seriously study this amazing science. Based on the most significant research in neuromarketing, this book was my personal contribution to the development of this field of knowledge. (Some of my statements may raise questions, which I will be very happy about, since I believe in the constructive power of dialogue.) Nothing in science can be considered the ultimate truth, and I am confident that this book will begin an in-depth study of the question of why we we buy. If I achieve my goal, the result will debunk many myths, reject assumptions and beliefs that have long explained why we are attracted to certain products and repelled by others. I really hope that you will like my book, that you will learn a lot from it and will begin to better understand your purchasing biology - the forces that push you to make a purchase.