1: Introduction
Neuroscience is young and sexy: the term "neuroromarketing" was coined less than a decade ago, and most of the research into the area has been published within the last five years.
Meanwhile, many firms and consultants are offering their expertise in the area, and marketing executives are speaking confidently about the neuroscience that backs their initiatives, and the notion has even founds its way into the mouth of popular media, adding to the clamor.
The Problem of Popularity
The problem is: most of these people simply do not know what they are talking about, but have the semblance of knowing more than those who are taken in by them.
The author is deeply troubled by the level of hype and the degree to which the discipline is becoming poisoned by charlatans. Bad information and bad theories lead to bad practice and bad results, and threatens to discredit the subject entirely. The real problem, the author states, is that "neuromarketing has achieved very little and at the same time very much."
The greatest breakthrough was the paradigm shift led by Antonio Damasio, who pointed out two critical errors in the premises of applied psychology:
- Descartes' statement that "I think therefore I am" is preceded by "I feel, therefore I think." Human beings react emotionally first, and turn to logic afterward to justify their reactions.
- Darwin's theories of evolution have likewise been misapplied to lead us to the false assumption that the psychology of man can be understood by studying the psychology of animals.
Unfortunately, Damasio's statement has started people talking about marketing as if the human being is not a rational creature at all, but driven purely by emotion. This is not what Damasio proposed at all, and he has since lamented the misinterpretation and misapplication of his theory.
There's also an oblique reference to the misuse of neurology: we can, in fact, insert people into an MRI and plot the topography of their brains, as well as wiring people up to electrodes to read the flow of electrons in real time - but we are very limited in what kind of experiments these can be used for, and the results are easily misinterpreted.
In terms of science, there are really only two experiments most markers are aware of: Read Montague's use of the MRI in taste tests and Martin Lindstrom's use of EEG in analyzing the workings of the brain while performing tasks. While these studies had some interesting findings, neither was able to "prove" anything with reliability. The conclusion, best stated by Montague himself, was that the field of neuroscience has little to offer and much to learn.
Emotions And Feelings
In terms of marketing, nearly all of the work in recent years considers the role of emotions, without understanding emotion itself. It's generally accepted that emotions are virtually instantaneous responses to our environment, people often act upon them without applying rational thought, and that a few seconds later, even after taking action, we reflect upon them and form logical rationalizations that were not, in fact, an influencing factor at the moment the reaction took place. But most people who are caught up in the hype about emption can provide a satisfactory explanation of what an emotion is, or where it comes from.
(EN: An excellent point - and in my own experience with these types, asking this question leads to a great deal of stammering. I have my own theory on this topic, but expect the author will get around to it in a later chapter, so will refrain from adding too much here - but it's a very important point and worth keeping in mind.)
Where Does This Leave Us?
In case it's not already obvious: the author will not be going along with the hype about neuromarketing in this book. Most of it is utter hogwash, based on a misinterpretation and misapplication of science, and the reader would do well to regard anyone who speaks on the topic, especially when they do so with an air of absolute confidence, with a great deal of skepticism.
Where does this leave us? Back at the beginning. To gain a better understanding of the topic, the reader must start over. Pout all of the hype aside, and approach the topic unclouded by the misinformation that has been forwarded.
About This Book
This book is about how people think in general, and how they think about brands specifically.
What people do involves choices: to act or take no action; and if to act, then which course of action among options. In the marketplace, most decisions are about brands - rarely about products. People often know what product they need, and what general options they have, but then seek to match thins knowledge to a brand that delivers the benefits they desire at a price they are willing and able to pay.
In a broader sense, "brand" transcends the marketplace: people choose the brand of company they work for, the brand of the city they want to live in, the brand of house and neighborhood they live in, the brand of politician they vote for, the brand of television they watch andmusic they listen to, the brand of spouse they choose to marry, the brand of child they want to raise, the brand of church they attend, and so on.
A person is often defined by the sum of these choices. Each is a distinct decision, a distinct piece of a puzzle that makes little sense viewed in isolation. The big picture, the one we see when all of these smaller decisions are considered as a whole, is "behavior" - and it is in the context of behavior that the individual pieces make sense.
Extending that metaphor, most people have a sense of what the "big picture" is supposed to be, though for many it is indistinct and their individual choices may not be as consistent as those who take a broader view and make choices accordingly. It doesn't mean they do not have any sense of the overall picture, nor that they act completely at random in each decision: they are still aware of it, though in a vaguer sense.
Where medical application is concerned, the focus has been in diagnosing and fixing abnormalities. Psychologists and neurologists identify specific, unsatisfactory patterns of behavior that are detrimental and require correction.
Study of the normal mind, the choices people make that are not abnormal or detrimental, has been very much neglected until only recently. But it's worth noting that what is being "discovered" by science is often nothing new, but merely confirming what we already believed, through theory and inference. The disciplines that study the human mind lacked a scientific method for measuring and observing, but came to fairly reliable conclusions, as evidenced by the degree to which science more often verifies intuition than contradicts it.
The "big picture" that marketers must consider is not merely the mind of the individual consumer, but the society and culture in which they exist. The mind, in itself, is of academic interest - how that mind causes people to act, in a social environment, has practical application.
And just as in the medical field, what we are finding as we delve into neuroscience is not the discovery of the new, but verification of our existing beliefs, and at best a refinement to our practices, rather than a complete change of direction.