The Buying Brain

What are consumers really thinking when they see websites, commercials, ads, and products?  Companies like Proctor font-family: Calibri;">  Take Pepsi, for example.  For years, blind taste tests have concluded that half of participants preferred Pepsi to Coke, but Pepsi never came close to owning half of the soft drink market share.  Enter neuroscience.  Using brain scans, Pepsi conducted the same taste test.  When participants were not told what they were drinking, the results were not surprising.  Half chose Coke, half chose Pepsi.  And the part of the brain responsible for reward lit up, validating the results.   BUT, when participants were told in advance what they were about to drink, almost all of them chose Coke.  And the part of their brains responsible for memory lit up, meaning that once people knew what they were drinking, they started thinking about what they knew and remembered about Coke and Pepsi as companies and brands, not what the drinks actually tasted like.  Consumer brains were saying that their reasons for buying Coke over Pepsi had more to do with what they thought about the brand than what the product actually tasted like.  If youre Pepsi, youd want to ramp up your branding efforts based on these results.    Other neuroscience tests related to marketing study things like what makes people choose to pay with cash over credit at point-of-purchase, or what words people pay attention to the most in ads, etc.     Written by the worlds leading neuromarketing research company, this book is a fascinating look into the minds of the consumer, and a must-read for anyone in marketing, branding, or advertising.