Foreword

The "Science" of psychology, for all its pretensions, is merely a modern approach to telepathy and prophesy: we seek subtle cues in speech and behavior to attempt to read minds, and to have some grasp on what motivates people. As such, the motives of the psychic and the psychologist are identical, and they differ only in their methods.

In marketing, we use psychology with a specific motive: to seek evidence that enable us to predict future behavior, and discover ways to influence it to our own benefit: our goal is to discover what makes people buy, and leverage that knowledge to take actions that will influence them to buy the brand we are marketing.

Naturally, the field of psychology has its detractors, who dismiss the idea altogether. Psychology is a "soft science" based on inference and theory, much of which is entirely questionable. Neurology, which is a field of study in the medical profession, tends to have greater credibility, as it is rooted in physics, chemistry, and other hard sciences, but it provides us with very little information that can be used outside the treatment of injury and disease. Neuroscience falls between the two. Leveraging the hard science of neurology as a basis for a body of practical theory that is similar to psychology, but less fanciful in its origins.

The present book is a sequel to the author's previous book, "The Advertised Mind," which focused on the short-term effects of promotional advertising - it can be as fast as a few seconds in which a display at the check-out stand gets us to pick up one item we hadn't intended to buy at the very last second.

Our reaction to promotional messages is shallow, immediate, and short-term - it is based on transitory emotional states that do not engage long-term memory or higher brain functions. Our allegiance to brands, however, is much more intricate and lasting, and has a more sophisticated basis than a short-term reaction, and as such must be considered separately.

The factors that determine brand loyalty are not the domain of stimulus-response, but of personality and culture, of lasting emotional connections in the mind of the consumer that give them a sense that a brand is "right" for them.

This is a relatively new application of neuroscience, and while many pieces of the puzzle have been identified, it does not form a coherent whole. The human mind remains a territory that is largely unexplored, and the present book provides some insight into a field that will continue to evolve.