The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind (28 page)

“Let’s do a neuroscientific study of our consumer’s reactions to these mood boards. And let’s do it in five key markets around the world,”

our client decreed. Two weeks later, we did just that. We found that in addition to “safe” and “secure,” consumers associated “friendly” and

“supportive” on a deep, subconscious level with this international brand.

This was a huge finding. Because it was
determined neurologically,
by extracting information captured and processed at the precognitive stage, there was strong corporate alignment with the research results, and these additional attributes were featured in all marketing campaigns going forward. Understanding that “friendly” and “supportive” were strong brand attributes allows this company to construct strategies, select symbols and imagery, and formulate language that are better synchronized with consumers’ true, but unarticulated (and inarticulable!) core feelings about this brand.

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Takeaways:

r The seven dimensions of the Brand Essence Framework r Key neurological best practices for brand positioning and marketing r Context is critical for the formation and recognition of brand identity at the subconscious level

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and Products

At the end of this chapter, you’ll know and be able to use the
following:

r The specific processes that the subconscious goes through when a product is consumed or experienced

r How the neurological high points of those processes can be extracted and leveraged for maximum product design, performance, and marketing effectiveness

r How to apply neurological testing to significantly improve the success rates and avoid the potential pitfalls of new product introduction r How to determine the appropriate price for a product and the bounds of price elasticity and reasonability within the deep subconscious mind of the consumer

r How the principals of product feature bundling work from a neuroscientific point of view

The Problem: Altering a

“Sure Thing”

The Brand Manager and the head of Consumer Insights sat across the conference table from me. In between, atop the polished mahogany, sat their product.

The Brand Manager explained, “We already know what the top attractors are—what we’d like to get is additional data on how our customers would respond if we alter the formulation.” The confidence (
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(
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in her voice bespoke her long tenure at the helm of this well-known brand. “Slightly,” she added, with a note of reassurance for my benefit, I guessed. “We’re not going to mess with a sure thing.”

“Well, we know from
focus groups
what the attractors are,” the Consumer Insights chief quickly interjected. “But you’re saying the test you do may produce something else?”

That conversation from 3 weeks before now rang in my mind as I sat across a different table in a different room with these same two executives. This time, what lay before us was a stack of paper.

“Your research has pegged the consistency as the key trigger of consumer satisfaction,” I offered. “There’s very little variation in the studies you gave us. They convey just what you told me in our first meeting.”

There wasn’t much reaction from my small audience. No wonder—I was confirming what they already knew.

Or so they thought.

“But we found something different.”

As the lights dimmed, the image of an iconic consumer brand glowed on the wall screen.

The Problem: The Product Inside

the Brain

The brain has a seemingly endless supply of surprises in store for us. Even when logic and experience and, yes, traditional consumer research tell us convincingly that something is true, the brain may know differently. So we ask it. Because it doesn’t volunteer that information—the deep-seated data residing in our subconscious has to be sought out, in true scientific fashion, with true scientific rigor and standards.

But, you can’t just put a NeuroCap on someone and wait for the brain to reveal its secrets—you have to prompt it, trigger it, and cause it to react to a specific stimulus. Only then does the brain talk back to you about what it really thinks, feels, and remembers. Only then do you discover what consumers really notice . . . what they genuinely feel . . . and what they hold onto in their memories about your product.

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Capturing the Total Consumer

Experience

When we test products for clients, we get the brain talking with something we call the Total Consumer Experience (TCE). This is such a powerful and versatile neuromarketing tool that I’m going to go into some detail about it. The TCE measures a consumer’s brainwave activity step-by-step as he or she approaches and proceeds with the consumption or other use of a specific product. The TCE measures a test subject’s subconscious responses to anything the five senses can register. So it’s applicable to virtually any consumer product.

The Total Consumer Experience is a methodological framework with which we measure the consumer’s brain responses as they continuously interact with the product. It literally measures the
totality
of the consumer’s interaction—all the way from examining the package to enjoying the product.

Its value lies in helping companies identify the Neurological Iconic Signatures (NIS) that are the highpoint of their interaction with the product.

Emphasizing these peak moments tends to increase both sales and consumption of the product. Activating the NIS at the point of sale increases purchase.

In addition, ads that focus on the NIS score higher in both Purchase Intent and overall Effectiveness than ads that do not feature the NIS.

Total Consumer Experience Framework

Typically, a TCE comprises the following steps:
1.
Visual examination of the package

2.
Handling the package with the anticipation of product use
3.
Extracting the product from the package
4.
The multisensory perception of the first moment of contact with the product

5.
Multisensory neurological perceptions and responses as the product is consumed

6.
Either enjoying the product for a second time or putting the product away

7.
Postproduct consumption rituals/bliss As we measure the brain’s response through this continuum of consumer experience of the product,
we’re able to isolate precise points
of this experience that are extremely evocative for the brain. We call these points the Neurological Iconic Signatures (NIS) of that particular TCE. These are the P1: OTA/XYZ

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points of the consumption experience that become the true representations of the product and most deeply encoded in the brain. We have also found that reminding the consumer through these iconic signatures creates a natural desire in the mind of the consumer for the pleasure of these experiences. It

“primes” them to desire and seek out the product between uses.

Another fascinating observation has been that while we have outlined the macro stages of the consumer experience above, many times the most evocative high points—the NISes—are the unarticulated micromotions and microstages.

As we continuously measure the entirety of the experience, we can isolate and tease out those unique Neurological Iconic Signatures.

Of Spoons, Signatures, and Synapses

If you can touch it, taste it, smell it, see it, or hear it,
we can measure your brain’s reactions to it. Coming back to the example I started with, that is why we applied the TCE methodology to our client’s leading brand of yogurt.

Now, you may be wondering: what is there to know that’s so complex about eating a simple thing like a container of fruit-flavored yogurt? You put a spoon in it, you stir it up, and you eat it. Simple, right? But for your brain, it isn’t at all a simple process.

First, all five of your senses are involved. Nothing unusual about that from the brain’s point of view—but it might not have occurred to you when thinking about enjoying a package of yogurt.

Next, from a neurological perspective, there actually are several distinct steps involved. We identify and isolate those steps, and measure them independently of each other. (That said, your brain doesn’t start and stop in neatly separated steps—so please understand that we measure the TCE on a continuous basis, from start to finish. But we’re able to isolate individual components of the overall product consumption/usage experience as well, as we go—and that’s what we do in a TCE study.)

The end goal of the TCE is twofold: first, we want to gain a comprehensive understanding of and insights into how a consumer responds to a product at the subconscious level. And second, we want to identify the specific high points of that experience—the NIS I already described above.

What triggered the most significant brainwave response? Which features, which parts of the consumption experience elicited the brain’s attention, sparked emotions, and were retained in memory? What are the identifiable

“hallmarks” of this product, as registered in the consumer’s subconscious?

The answers to those questions are in the product’s Neurological Iconic Signatures.

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Neurological Iconic Signatures

Neurological Iconic Signatures are just what the phrase implies: they’re the brain’s high-water marks, the unique imprints on the subconscious that are made when something causes a significant neurological response.

Their value to marketers lies in the fact that, when we identify an NIS, we gain an unprecedented picture—in precise detail—of
what is most powerful
about a product
from the standpoint of the consumer’s subconscious.

Equipped with that knowledge, smart marketers can devise means, methods, and materials designed to convey those NIS’ back to consumers outside of the actual consumption/usage process, through advertising, packaging, in-store marketing, and a host of other avenues.

More on NIS in just a bit.

The Resolution

But, first, let me get back to our yogurt package, because it’s illustrative of how an NIS can and very often does escape notice by our rational minds. Let’s examine what happens when you consume a container of yogurt, from both the physical perspective and the neurological one.

(There’s a surprise waiting at the end.)

First, you
see
the package. Synapses in your visual cortex fire as nerve endings in your retina capture and transmit signals. Your prefrontal cortex calls the shots, directing muscles around your eyeballs to focus your vision on the target. Your brain simultaneously decodes color, shape, size, and location of the container. This data is matched against information stored in your memory, and at the same time is matched against all the data streaming in from your other four senses.

The supercomputer spits out the answer in an infinitesimal fraction of a second:
yogurt
. That known, the prefrontal cortex proceeds to order the muscles and ligaments in your arm and hand to extend toward the container. Your brain calculates the distance and amount of time to target, and adjusts actions accordingly. Your fingers form the correct shape to grasp the container.

As you grasp the round plastic, your brain modifies the amount of pressure required for your fingers to hold onto the container, as it receives data about the resistance of the package and its weight. Temperature and surface texture information are transmitted as well.

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(
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Time to proceed to the next step: lifting the container and opening it.

Now the nerves and muscles coordinate anew, driven by the master control center in your prefrontal cortex. Then another sense kicks in: as you remove the plastic top and then peel the metal foil back, you
hear
the sound at the same time as you sense the slight resistance of the adhesive on the top of the container.

And yet another sense floods data into your neural networks: you
smell
the contents. Now we’re approaching what everyone would consider the Moment of Truth: tasting the product.

Next, of course, because it’s a fruit-based yogurt, you pick up a spoon, insert it downwards, feel the consistency of the gelatinous content as the spoon encounters slight resistance due to the semithick texture . . . and you stir. As bits of fruit surface and swirl, your senses of sight, smell, and touch actively process new streams of data.

At last: time to
taste
.

You collect a puddle of the creamy substance on the spoon and raise it to your mouth. Once again, whole batteries of nerve endings, muscles, neurons, and synaptic networks within the brain interact, enabling the motion and anticipating what concerted actions are required to get the spoon and its contents safely and intact into your mouth.