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A Look Back at TMRE 2009: Martin Lindstrom: Buyology

Posted by on 10 September 2010
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The Market Research Event 2010 is taking place this November 8-10, 2010 in San Diego, California. Every Friday leading up to the event, we'll be recapping one session from The Market Research Event 2009.

TMRE 2009 Keynote: Martin Lindstrom: Buyology

Buyology: The Truth & Lies About Why We Buy
Martin Lindstrom, Author Buyology

Martin Lindstrom starts out by pointing out many of the irrational things we do. From taking the second magazine when purchasing one and that there is no 4th floor in the hotels here in Las Vegas. Studies show that 8 out of 10 new products fail. Until the age of 65, Americans watch 2,000,000 hours of commercials.

One of our fundamental problems is that our non-consciousness brain is making many 85% of our irrational decisions. Lindstrom is going to spend his keynote presentation discussing neuroscience. He took the concept of peoples buying behaviors and combined it with a scientific technique that looked at what people are really thinking about when they're buying products. This is called the SST methodology.

We have various regions in the brain that can tell us what's going on. Neuroscience tells you what goes on, not necessarily why it goes on. For this experiment, they used to methods to measure what was going on in the brain. If you look at a brain from a different angle, you'll get different results, this is why two methods were combined. They took the show 'Quizmania' and asked people around their world if they liked it. The general response was that they didn't like it. After a brain scan, they found out that what they really thought. They looked at other shows brain scans response, like American Idol, and found out that people really liked the show. Then they looked to distribute the show worldwide.

Lindstrom also looked at why people smoke. They looked into the craving spot of the brain. Countries across the world have banned their advertising on television, in movies and on the radio. So they've had to find alternative ways to promote their products. They've started promotion in other ways, such as Marlboro and their promotion of race cars, designs of the race tracks, and a barcode on the racecar.
Lindstrom is now looking at Coca Cola, which much of the world can recognize from simply their glass bottle. After showing a promotion, Lindstrom points that rituals are created with brands. He points out Apple iPods, McDonalds . If you build a powerful brand, you don't even need a logo.

Lindstrom then took four different brands and test their smells. A branded smell activates the same areas of the brain that a brand logo does. Kids have an amazing ability to smell different bands and identify them. Non-conscious handshakes sell the signal of a weak person. We automatically assume that, and it may not be true. Less than 1% of brands today don't have a powerful brand. We should not forget the power of sounds, casinos installed speakers that projected the coin machines into casinos to increase those gambling.

The non-conscious mind makes decisions for us in many cases. As marketers, we need to find a way to get around this. We must understand what goes on in the human mind.

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