Immersion Active presents Ageless Marketing

The Brain Thinks Brands Are People

"Brands aren't people, consumers know that, they get you're out to make a buck.” So says  marketeer Clinton Duncan from Down Under. Hmmm. Nothing new about that idea. Yes, perhaps, but it’s not quite right.

Ironically, Duncan’s agency recently created a campaign for a new Scandinavian furniture wholesaler operation in Australia that very much cast the new brand in anthropomorphic terms.  You might want to call the campaign’s success dumb luck given Duncan’s apparent defective understanding of how people mentally process brands. (You can read about it at Fast Company.)

From a left brain perspective, Duncan is right. People know that brands’ aren’t people. However, the left brain is not the only side of the brain that weighs in on decisions customers make.

All information picked up by the senses is processed in the right brain before the left brain – the analytical, reasoning language speaking left brain gets much of a crack at it. But unlike the left brain, the emotional right brain perceives reality in sensual terms. Only the left brain with its highly developed language abilities can reduce reality to abstract terms.

But something else about the right brain must be understood to know why Duncan’s view that people know that brands aren’t people is a flawed and oversimplified  version of reality. The right brain cannot process any information that is not rendered in the context of living things (conceptually or actually). If something cannot be connected to life in some way the right brain ignores it. Not so with the left brain. It has the power to see anything in any form it chooses because it organizes abstract representations of  reality. It can create its own reality in any form it is inclined to. Not so the right brain.

The right brain sticks to reality as configured by the senses. It cannot remake reality. And, as already said, the right bran’s reality is rooted in connections with life.

A brand must not simply connect with life to be a strong brand, it must be perceived as the equivalent of a life form to the deeper processing centers of the brain. The goofy looking Michelin Man is a life form to the right brain -- something more than just a cartoon character.

I am not talking theory here. The right brain's cognitive connection to life is is validated by recent brain research. All this boils down to the fact that if you fail to cognitively connect your brand with the right brain on its nonverbal terms, the brand has no chance of getting off the ground.  If speaking the sensory language of the right brain puzzles you, then need to find someone how to talk to the right brain. Truly, you are not going to get your message very deeply into the mills of reasoning in the left brain without employing the wordless language of the right brain. Without doing this any successes you have will likely be more a matter of dumb luck.

 

 

 

 

The Relentless Myth of the Rational Customer

We’ve had it so wrong in marketing for so long that like the proverbial frog in a tub of hot water with rising temperatures we haven’t noted incremental changes as we’ve actually become even more wrong in how we think about customers and marketing.

One of the most damaging realms of marketing mythology revolves around the idea that while  everyone promotes giving messages an emotional twist the truth is that not many marketers understand this dynamic. Sorry to be so damning, but if one examines the rate of campaign failures we can obtain no other conclusion.

In the first place because of our own cultural conditioning we don’t really believe that emotions are the foundation of our decisions. We harbor the illusion that because we are rational beings we analyze our options and make decisions based on what our analysis reveals in our best interests. So we structure our marketing messages under the same assumption.

The only thing wrong with this scenario is that it’s pretty much wrong and new findings in neuropsychology are showing why.

But it’s not necessary to shove consumers through $3 million CAT scans to learn how wrong we have been and what we should be doing instead. All the greats in the golden days of advertising, e.g., Ogilvy, Bernbach, Barnett, et al) intuitively knew the right way to communicate with customer. 

A friend just emailed me a TED talk on the topic that I heartily recommend. Marketer Simon Sinek just uses a flip chart – yes, no PowerPoint – and some common sense to illuminate what he claims is the biggest flaw in conventional marketing. He is worth listening to. But don’t just listen to the Sinek: study what his words mean. This experience could (honestly) change the way you see customers, approach marketing – and view yourself.

 

An Interesting Read: In Praise of Dissent

Catch this article in Ode, a fascinating magazine devoted to "intelligent optimists." The article has nothing to do with the central theme of this blog, but everything to do with life. If you have ever read About under my signature picture with a mule named Dusty, you have a clue as to why this article appealed to me. I dedicate this posting to all of you out there who have what it takes to avoid groupthink. As we move into this next decade you may find the tests of your will against those immobilized by the status quo increasing. As I indicated several posts ago we are in for changes taking place at warp speed in directions beyond most people's imaginations a decade or so ago. So -- damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.