Book review: THE BRANDED MIND
What Neuroscience Really Tells Us About the Puzzle of the Brain and the Brand
Genres:
- Neuroscience
- Marketing
- Consumer Behavior
Review posted on:
10.05.2016
The number of pages:
272 pages
Book rating:
3/5
Year the book was published:
First edition published 2011
Who should read this book:
- Start-up founders, Marketers, people interested in psychology and how companies try to influence you.
Why did I pick up this book and what did I expect to get out of it:
With every book that I read on the subject of sales or marketing, I find myself having a longer and longer to-read list on the topic of psychology and neuroscience. If you are interested in the same topics then you are like me happy to discover the genre of Neuromarketing and Neuroscience where you can find how scientific findings are implemented in real-world situations and then get to read about the results and explanations of why something works, why not and how to improve your approach in the future. On the covers of the book Erik Du Plessis explains The Branded Mind is based on exclusive research from one of the world’s top market research companies and that in the book he shares unique and insightful findings as also he covers subjects as feelings, emotions, consumer behavior, decision making and market segmentation.
So from everything that the author claims to provide on the covers of the book, I expect to read first some scientific research and then real-life case studies on how those findings were implemented and the results they yield. I hope that Erik Du Plessis takes into account that not every reader is an academic and that reading the book won’t feel like reading a textbook.
My thoughts about the book:
With every book I read about neuroscience and neuromarketing, I learn more and more about our brains, how and why we think the way we do, and by what “formula” (character, culture, previous experiences, memories…) we make decisions. I believe that this information is very important for each and every one of us, not just for the marketers or people in sales. Knowing how and why you make certain choices won’t prevent you from making the wrong ones at a certain moment, but it may help you improve your decision-making in the future. You can train your reactions, but many do not know how to do that and where to start.
My number one takeaway from The Branded Mind is that you have to make strong and lasting emotion-packed experiences for your customers or potential customers so they have good memories of your brand. The author provided some examples but I would like to read more of them and a little less theory. The book was not an easy read, sometimes it was like a textbook.
If you picked up this book please let me know what you think about it in the comment section.
My notes from the book:
- The human brain is all about survival. To do this efficiently the brain has to learn from experiences so that when it encounters something in the environment it has memories with which to interpret the object.
- When we have experiences we lay down memories not only of the events but also of how we felt when we experienced the event. So when we interpret events, we recall not only memories of the event but also how we felt about it (this is Damasio’s somatic marker).
- People give attention to things they like, and attention creates memories. Without attention and memory, nothing happens. Without a memory, you cannot interpret and without interpretations, you cannot decide.
- The structures of the brain are made up of neurons and synapses. Everyone’s brain is made up of the same structures, and each of these structures, when activated, will lead to something similar happening in each brain. In this sense, our brains are biologically hard-wired and are the same. However, the synapses and even the connections between neurons will differ for each of us based on our experiences (memories).
- Neurons themselves do not do that much in the brain, what really matters is the synapses (connecting points between the neurons). This is where the memories are stored. Each neuron is connected to up to 10.000 other neurons. A neuron has no intelligence of its own and does not even remember anything. All a neuron does is pings all the neurons that it is connected to.
- All humans have mainly the same brains biologically, and we all use the same parts of the brain for the same survival reasons. However different things in the environment will make the different areas in the brain respond differently between different people. Factors that will create different responses among consumers will include their cultures and their personalities.
- It is the anticipation of how much pleasure we will get from consuming one brand versus another that determines which one we buy.
- A decision is really just making a choice between alternatives. The best indication of which alternative would be best for you is your past experience. The system that exists in the brain to do this is called the pleasure system and is mostly operated by dopamine and serotonin. As a marketer, you have to find a way for the brain to release more dopamine when people see your brand or ads.
- The dopamine system is the most important system as far as brand marketing is concerned. All you have to do is make sure that your brand releases more dopamine when the consumer thinks about your brand than any other competing brand.
- All our social interactions begin with prejudice. The content of these prejudices has been acquired through our interactions with friends and acquaintances and through hearsay. Our prejudices begin with stereotypes.
- People’s feelings are strongly determined by their culture. And what might appear as a rational behavior for one person might appear to be very irrational to another.
- The pecking order and hierarchy matter more deeply to men than most women realize.
- When men are faced with a loved one’s emotional distress, their brain area for solving and fixing the situation will immediately spark.
- One important implication is that the sheer size of brain structures may change with specific experiences.
- Smell is the only sense that goes directly to the limbic system and is therefore the sense that can raise very strong emotions.
- Using a fast-forward function while viewing TV or other media during ads increases ad awareness because more attention is given to the viewed media, so the user does not skip his program because he forwarded to far.
- You cannot expect your brand to sell itself just based on what it does when people use it. The expectation of how you would feel when you use it has to be created.
- It is possible to create memories in people of events that did not really occur – as long as they are reasonable.
- The question asked for every brand decision has to be: “If we do this, or that, to the brand, how will it make the consumers feel about using the brand?”
