Derren Brown is a British “mentalist” and entertainer. He has a number of fascinating videos over on You Tube, including this classic – quite simply, the most persuasive illustration of nonconscious processing I have ever seen. When you click on the video below, you may have to follow the link over to You Tube to [...]
I have written before in this blog about the the question of whether nonconscious processes need to be “protected” from stimuli that trigger them. The need for protection is derived from a belief that these processes are somehow more vulnerable than conscious processes, and further, that stimulating them can make us do things (specifically, buy [...]
I admit it, I’m a sucker for any argument that turns an established paradigm on its head. It’s hard to beat that little thrill you get when you realize everything we thought we knew may be wrong!
My favorite iconoclast in the advertising research world is Robert Heath, a former ad man turned academic whose home [...]
I’ve written elsewhere on this blog about the influence of Vance Packard’s 1957 book, The Hidden Persuaders, on journalistic accounts and public perceptions of the new “neuromarketing” field.
In 2007 there were a number of reviews and appreciations of The Hidden Persuaders written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its publication. I just finished reading a [...]
There is an active “neuromarketing” group over on LinkedIn that is worth joining and following if you are interested in this field. Ron Wright, who started the group, asked in a recent discussion whether there should be standards in the industry, in part in response to a comment I made in an earlier post.
I thought [...]
Zack Lynch, whose coverage of the neurotech industry I’ve followed for some time, has written a new book with co-author Byron Laursen called The Neuro Revolution. According to Amazon, it will be released on July 21.
Zack recently posted a very interesting interview about the book on his Brain Waves blog. The interview was conducted with [...]
It’s not just because it’s gotten a lot of bad press and now tends to trigger negative stereotypes about the field.
But it is more than a little ironic that a field devoted to understanding how incidental stimuli can preconsciously impact our attitudes should find itself saddled with a “brand name” that is becoming synonymous with [...]
A simplistic approach to advertising effectiveness tries to draw a straight line from an ad’s internal characteristics – its creativity, catchiness, product depiction, value proposition, memorable characters, etc. – to a product’s success in the marketplace.
Some neuromarketers try to exploit this simple view by claiming that their testing can identify “winning” ads that will directly [...]
We recently added a white paper to our website (you can download it here) that provides some background on the different types of neuroscience-inspired research methods you might be hearing about for consumer research.
To put the various methods into some kind of perspective, we created this tree structure.
Eventually the chickens come home to roost. Or insert your favorite aphorism here. It looks like a full backlash is officially underway regarding some of the more, shall we say, inventive uses of fMRI to peer into people’s brains while they’re thinking about stuff – especially political stuff like Presidential candidates and world peace.
It all [...]