Breakthroughs in brain science are challenging basic assumptions about consumer behavior.It's time to re-write the rules of market research.
In February 1998, the late David B. Wolfe wrote an article in the now defunct American Demographics magazine headlined, “What Your Customers Can’t Say.” The article challenged the assumption in most customer research that customers are the best sources about their motivations. Wolfe wrote.
"Consumers don't choose rationally, [so] any research that forces rational answers has to be flawed."
The article drew the largest response in the magazine’s history.
It has been 15 years since the article was printed but its argument is as relevant today as it was then. Breakthroughs in brain science are challenging basic assumptions about consumer behavior.It's time to re-write the rules of market research. The following is an annotated summary of Wolfe’s original article.
If your job depends on market research, prepare for a shock. New discoveries in brain science are radically revising our understanding of how human beings think and make decisions, and these new models of cognition are rewriting the conventional wisdom about consumer behavior.
Conventional marketing research depends on the assumption that people can accurately report their values, needs, and motivations. But many scientists no longer believe this. says neurologist Richard Restak.
"We have reason to doubt that full awareness of our motives, drives, and other mental activities may be possible."
Bernard J. Baars, author of In the Theater of Consciousness, adds.
"Our inability to accurately report intentions and expectations may simply reflect the fact that they are not qualitatively conscious."
The idea that consumers have limited knowledge of their motives is shocking on both a professional and personal level. Everyone wants to believe they know why they do what they do. It wounds one's sense of personal autonomy to think otherwise. Also, evidence that average people cannot accurately describe their motivations is a direct challenge to established methods of conducting research. It calls for radical changes in the status quo of research.
Marketing is ripe for a revolution because its failures are so apparent. One of the most important reasons for this breakdown is that research is not working because of flaws in its basic premises. Multivariate statistics that describe personality traits can account for no more than 7% of purchasing behavior, according to a paper published by William Massy, Ronald Frank, and Thomas Lodahl of Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell, respectively.
Consumer research's problems originate in psychology, a field that has long struggled to define human behavior with the same precision physicists use to describe the movement of bodies from atoms to stars. But human behavior is too unpredictable to describe with such precision, because it depends on an almost infinite number of relationships. Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan writes.
"An increasingly desperate search for cause-and-effect explanations leads many psychologists to "retreat to abstract ideas that ignore contexts completely."
Consumer research reflects similar tendencies.
Kagan is bothered by psychology's excessive dependence on behavioral models that conform better to statistical theory than to behavioral realities. Models of consumer behavior tend to extract their subjects from the complex, often unpredictable, but completely natural contexts in which people live and make purchasing decisions. The result is often an interesting manipulation of a hypothetical situation that leads to a marketing failure.
One of the most famous marketing busts was the reformulation of Coca-Cola. Extensive consumer research predicted success for "New Coke" because people said it tasted better. But the research failed to disclose that people also saw "Old Coke" or "Classic Coke" as an important cultural icon that would lose value by changing the original recipe. This subtle value proved to be far more influential than taste in determining consumer response.
Mainstream consumer research generally fails to take into account developmental changes in values and world views that happen across a person's life span. Research also tends to ignore the major changes in cognition, or how the mind processes information, that happen with age. The subliminal origins of these changes prevent consumers from adequately reporting them to researchers, but the changes are decisive in marketplace behavior.
Another assumption that leads consumer research astray is borrowed from classic economics. Researchers assume that people make buying decisions to satisfy their self-interest, and that they use reason to determine which product best serves that end. Brain researchers see reason playing a much weaker role in personal decisions, however. In their book, Marketing Revolution, Kevin J. Clancy and Robert S. Shulman state the problem this way:
"Because consumers don't choose rationally, any research that forces rational answers has to be flawed."
Our next post will discuss “hot buttons” and root motivators that should supplement current research methodologies.
COMMENTARY: In a blog post dated March 8, 2012, I explained how developmental relationship marketing (DRM), a.k.a. Ageless Marketing was the key to tuning your marketing message so that it resonates with Baby Boomers.
The origins of Ageless Marketing stem from the five basic premises That define the origins of behavior, and its general path across the lifespan. They increase marketers’ effectiveness in linking product messages to the hidden (unconscious) drivers of consumers’ marketplace behavior by revealing behavior predispositions in various periods across the lifespan.
The five premises* contain benchmarks for testing the validity of what people report about their attitudes, needs and motivations. This is critical given that recent brain research indicates that all motivations are rooted outside the realms of consciousness. We can only speculate about the foundations of our behavior; thus overly relying on the literal meanings of consumers’ testimonies doubtlessly accounts for many marketing failures.
First Premise: Origins of behavior - A person’s worldviews, needs, motivations and general approaches to needs satisfaction are predisposed – not predetermined -- by her/his current season of life, and originate in five systems of motivating underlying values (MUV Values). MUV systems, from which all behavior emerges, are biologically innate and constitute the basic building blocks of behavior. In effect, the five MUV systems are the DNA of behavior: identity, relationships, purpose, adaptation, and energy.
Second Premise: Origins of motivations - Urges to satisfy needs arise from root motivations that are activated by tensions between five sets of bipolar forces. The first force (objective force) in each set dominates behavior in the first half of life; the second force (subjective force) in each set dominates behavior in the second half of life.
Third Premise: Domains of personal development - Personal development evolves in two domains of the self. These domains contain the roots of all developmental potential. The two developmental domains are: physical domain and psychological domain.
Fourth Premise: Keeping information flow to levels the conscious mind can manage - The brain resolves this problem by conducting information triage. The criterion the brain uses to determine what information will be sent to the conscious mind is the relevance of information to a person’s survival scenario, a matrix of needs whose satisfaction is vital to a person’s comfort and pleasure and avoidance of discomfort and pain.
Fifth Premise: Seasons of life – stages of personal development - There are four seasons of personal development. The first two are dominated by social (psychosocial) development needs; the last two by inner (psychospiritual) development needs.
In a blog post dated October 18, 2011, I profiled Neurofocus, a Berkeley-based firm that is making groundbreaking research in the field of neuromarketing. Neuromarketing is a new field of marketing research that studies consumers' sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli like TV ads, billboard, online ads, etc.
Neuromarketing firms Neurofocus use technology like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure changes in activity in parts of the brain, electroencephalo-graphy (EEG) and Steady state topography (SST) to measure activity in specific regional spectra of the brain response, and/or sensors to measure changes in one's physiological state, also known as biometrics, including (heart rate and respiratory rate, galvanic skin response) to learn why consumers make the decisions they do, and what part of the brain is telling them to do it.
In short, neuromarketing studies how a person's brain reponds to advertising messages. It is the study of the brain’s responses to advertising, the brands encountered in our daily lives, and all the associated messages and images that are strewn throughout the cultural landscape of everyday life.
Devices from two startups could be used to treat people with anxiety disorders—and one of the devices may eventually diagnose pain.
Amid rising concerns over post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental illnesses, two MIT startups are developing wrist-worn sensors that can detect physiological changes—including perspiration and elevated temperature—that may signal the onset of events like anxiety attacks.
The data collected by these devices can be fed into an algorithm that aims to learn what triggers anxiety, or when people may be about to engage in a risky behavior. One goal is to head off destructive behavior, from drug abuse to suicide and violent outbursts, and to help with treatment.
The newest of these startups, Boston-based Neumitra, emerged from stealth mode earlier this year with a device that can measure proxies for excitement or stress, including increased motion, increased skin conductance from perspiration, and elevated skin temperature. The device, called bandu, sends readings to the wearer’s smartphone, which records them for later analysis. The device also includes a display that can be customized to suggest, say, that you take your medication, call a loved one, or listen to a song.
Neumitra’s wrist-worn sensor detects elevated perspiration and temperature associated with stress or excitement and can relay messages to the wearer (Click Image To Enlarge)
The challenge is teasing out exactly which physiological changes are linked to stressful events. Researchers also must filter out noise, such as perspiration from exercise or excitement from watching a favorite sports team. Some improvements will come from self-learning algorithms.
The Neumitra device is already being used in new research efforts at Massachusetts General Hospital, including ones to help patients suffering from PTSD and other anxiety disorders. The aim of the research is to create detailed records of what is triggering anxiety, says Darin Dougherty, director of MGH’s division of neurotherapeutics. While it is early days for the technology, he says, the device has the potential to fill a diagnostic gap.
Dougherty says.
“Previously, treaters had to rely on the patients’ subjective memory for the week, or weeks, between appointments as their sole measure of anxiety symptoms.”
The device “provides moment-to-moment objective data regarding a patient’s anxiety symptoms,” and both the doctor and patient can see it.
Robert Goldberg, a neuroscientist and Neumitra founder, points to a grim national backdrop: one in three U.S. adults has a form of mental disorder—ranging from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to PTSD—making it the third-largest category of health-care spending. More soldiers now die of suicide than in battle. Goldberg says.
“My goal is to bring mobile portable technologies to brain health.”
Neumitra’s underlying technology is similar to that used by a commercial device made by Affectiva, a startup from MIT’s Media Lab that has made recent inroads in medical research.
Affectiva's Q Sensor 2.0 is a wearable, wireless biosensor that measures emotions via skin conductance (Click Image To Enlarge)
The company’s Q sensor has been used for more than a year in trials with an undisclosed company that is attempting to develop a physiological measure of pain. This would be an enormous advance, as pain diagnoses currently rely entirely on patients’ self-reporting.
The device is also in clinical trials to help measure drug efficacy in sufferers of Rett Syndrome, a genetic neurological disorder that can cause loss of speech, problems with motor coördination, and impaired cognitive function. The goal there is to see whether the drug is producing any measurable changes in patients’ stress levels, movement, and sleep patterns.
Affectiva's Q Sensor 2.0 is an 'emotion' sensor that is worn on the wrist (Click Image To Enlarge)
Affectiva has made recent advances in other medical applications. In a recent study, the device showed it can serve as a proxy detector for a type of epileptic attack associated with sudden death. More than 50,000 people a year die of seizures, and most are unexplained. But in a few cases where the victims died wearing headgear that can measure the brain’s electrical activity (an electroencephalogram or EEG), clinicians found that brain waves were unusually suppressed.
Rosalind Picard, a cofounder of Affectiva and director of affective computing research at the Media Lab, says that physiological responses measured by the Q sensor are associated with this same type of suppressed brain activity (which is not always fatal). Picard says.
“We now have a correlate that is much easier to use than wearing an EEG all the time.”
Clinical trials using the device in epilepsy patients are being planned, she adds.
The Q sensor can also help predict outbursts in autistic children, who often have difficulty verbalizing their emotions (see “Sensor Detects Emotions through the Skin”). Picard says her company is also working on ways to detect changes that may signal that a person is about to engage in risky or destructive behavior, such as drug abuse or even an outburst of violence.
Affectiva is currently focusing on supplying researchers—a single device costs $2,000, but the price is in the mid-hundreds when they are sold in quantity—including the software and support. The company is not currently marketing to consumers, but a consumer version might be available in a year or two, Picard says.
Goldberg says the Neumitra device will sell for $249 to $1,499, depending on features and analytics, and will be made available to consumers, as well as researchers and other organizations, sometime in 2013.
Goldberg says the company was inspired in part by a war veteran who was having anxiety attacks. Three years into therapy he realized that one source of his stress triggers were his visits to a Whole Foods supermarket. For him, the experience—strangers, suddenly appearing from a maze of lanes, holding objects—felt threatening. He says.
“Whole Foods was a trigger point. We could have given him the same information in a week.”
Goldberg made a map of his own stress triggers, including several hot spots on and around the MIT campus. He says he realized those were from rushing to events, and from being asked to speak publicly, as he did recently at a health startup event.
He says.
“We see in healthy individuals—stress associated with real-world events. I can point to my own—public speaking is one of the major categories of phobia.”
Ultimately, with enough people wearing stress monitors, he says, a company could find what was making employees stressed out, city officials could learn where women felt unsafe, and a nation could even take its collective stress pulse.
After the event, Goldberg invited me to put on the bracelet. He then asked me to recite the alphabet backwards in front of several strangers, who watched with a gleam of schadenfreude in their eyes. I lost my way around “W.” Goldberg, watching readings on his smartphone, said my wrist sweat and temperature indicated my stress was up 50 percent.
Although the technology is still experimental and the devices are used mainly in medical research, they herald the appearance of consumer versions and associated apps that let people monitor their mood and stress levels. Other emerging technologies aim to detect emotion using subtle cues from how people use smartphones (see “A Smartphone That Knows You’re Angry”).
COMMENTARY: I know of a friend who is bipolar, and goes through frequent periods of emotional highs and lows. It's when this person goes into depression that worries me the most because she drinks a lot, and has gone from one rehab program to another. I hope that Neumitra and Affective can use their devices to detect when biopolar disorder patients are going into depression so that medications can be used to control their disorders.
It’s a known fact that there are vast differences between how men and women think and process information. Yet some marketing experts believe many companies still can’t get it right when it comes to tailoring marketing to the sexes. Dr. K.A. Pradeep, the CEO of Nielsen NeuroFocus, a Berkeley, California-based neuroscience research company, explains what companies should know about gender differences in the brain.
Dr. A.K. Pradeep of Berkeley's Neurofocus explains why he wrote the book about using neuroscience for marketing. Filmed by AVC with two hi-def cameras and a green screen, the video helps market Dr. Pradeep's book. To learn more about The Buying Brain, visit Neurofocus athttp://www.neurofocus.com/
In a blog post dated October 18, 2011, I profiled NeuroFocus and its newest product: Mynd, the world's first portable, wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) scanner. The skullcap-size device sports dozens of sensors that rest on a subject's head like a crown of thorns. With Mynd, users can capture, amplify, and instantaneously dispatch a subject's brain waves in real time, via Bluetooth, to another device--a remote laptop, say, an iPhone, or that much-beloved iPad.
An attractive female subject is shown wearing NeuroFocus' Mynd portable EEG scanner:
Click Images To Enlarge
Here's a great video demonstrating NeuroFocus' Mynd, the world's first portable, wireless and wearable EEG scanner:
They found some major innate variances in the neuro make-up of women and men. For example, female brains have a larger prefrontal cortex which has an impact on emotions, and the regulation of emotions, so emotions are a primary way to get through to women. And females tend to be more social, empathetic, and verbal than men.
In the above video titled, "The See-Through Consumer," A.K. Pradeep, the CEO of NeuroFocus, discusses the ways in which neuroscience, technology, and big data have enabled companies to know more about their customers than ever before. The session was moderated by Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, China business and finance editor for The Economist, at The Economist's Ideas Economy: Innovation 2012 event in Berkeley, California.
Another big difference is that women have a larger corpus callosum, which is like an eight-lane superhighway connecting the right and left parts of the brain. Female brains distribute their thinking quickly, and can multitask - it comes naturally to them. It’s also significant that the hippocampus is bigger in women, so the level of nuance in emotional details is much greater. A man might remember the day he proposed; whereas a woman can likely tell you everything about that day
Advertisers have heard all the same Venus/Mars clichés and Louis C.K. monologues that consumers have. That said, some marketing experts, including A.K. Pradeep, believe that many companies still can’t tell their estrogen from their testosterone. The CEO of Nielsen NeuroFocus, a Berkeley, Calif.-based neuroscience research company acquired by Nielsen last year, tells Marketing Daily what companies should know about gender differences in the brain.
Q: What’s one of the major misunderstandings that marketers have about the way the brain works?
A: We’re all very keen to segment consumers into various groups, but that misses the fact that Mother Nature has already done a segmentation -- she calls it men and women. Marketing needs to honor that segmentation.
Q: So what are some of the major differences?
A: Female brains have a larger prefrontal cortex. That has an impact on emotions, and the regulation of emotions, and so emotions are a primary way to talk to her. There’s also more intuitive reasoning. The portion of the brain that is responsible for worry is also somewhat larger.
Another big difference is that women have a larger corpus callosum, which is like an eight-lane superhighway connecting the right and left parts of the brain. Female brains distribute their thinking quickly, and can multitask. It comes naturally to them. It’s also significant that the hippocampus is bigger in women, so the level of nuance in emotional details is much greater. A man might remember the day he proposed; a woman can likely tell you everything about that day.
In men, there is a larger parietal lobe, which means they tend to be better at spatial perception. They like images better than reading. And the larger amygdala in men results in more aggression.
Q: How can that inform marketing?
A: Well, it helps to know that women tend to be more social, empathetic, and verbal. She is a multitasker and a big-picture thinker. So for example, we can show men and women an image of someone drinking a beverage, and their brains react about the same. But then if we show someone drinking that beverage, and then touching someone else on the shoulder, the women’s brains tend to really light up. The image of someone drinking something doesn’t create much of a response at all. But when it is shown with a social interaction, it does.
Q: What’s the impact of the emotive difference?
A: We don’t know why, but women have a better-developed suite of emotions. Women smile a lot more than men. Female infants make eye contact many times more than boys. Eye contact is critical in connecting to women. When girls play or do any cooperative activity, they are more than 20 times as likely to take turns as boys -- 20 times! Q: But women are also very smart shoppers, and very rational.
A: Yes. But they respond better to pitches with a combination of fact and feeling. A low price is a fact. A happy price is one that is low, and also emotive.
Q: So that’s what she likes. What turns her off?
A: Stress. Conflict. We know that cortisol -- the stress hormone -- actually stays in women’s bodies longer than men, so she is conflict-avoidant.
Q: Which companies get it right?
A: I won’t name names. But in general, I see many health and beauty companies getting it right, combining messages for women in a way that is most likely to appeal to them. The worst are CPG companies, which is interesting -- it’s a trillion-dollar space, and women do most of the purchasing.
COMMENTARY: There's no doubt in my mind that men and women think differently, and those differences are very important for brand marketer's to understand when marketing their products to either gender.
The fact that so few brand marketers actually take the time to understand what goes on inside the human brain and how consumers respond when presented with similar product choices is a missed opportunity for them to design their products in such a way as to elicit the most positive reactions to their products.
Neuroscience is still in its infancy, but you can bet that in another 10 years, the adoption of neuroscience in marketing decisions will not only become commonplace, but necessary in designing products, its packaging and even pricing it right.
The Science of Neuromarketing
The new science of neuromarketing explores the dynamics of consumer purchase decisions, customer brand affinity, and customer brand engagement. Neuroscience research is increasingly clear that many of the decisions people make about what products they will buy or what services they will use are a result of intuition and unconscious mental processes rather than analysis or reasoning. Consumers have emotional responses and logical responses to marketing and advertising. And in both types of responses can occur on a conscious basis or an unconscious basis.
Experts at NeuroFocus suggest that approximately 11 million bits of sensory information is processed by the human brain every second. But only 40 bits of sensory information is processed consciously - this is all the conscious mind can handle - and all the rest of the information is processed unconsciously.
Advertising and marketing efforts are part of the universe of sensory information that the brain processes every day in a typical environment in the developed world. Images used in advertising, colors and designs used in packaging, music and fragrances associated with services, and the rich attribute sets of products themselves are all subject to the conscious and unconscious sorting that happens in the marketplace.
Brand Engagement Begins at Birth
American children are exposed to an enormous amount of advertisement. The marketplace is very good at schooling children in brand awareness. According to a research conducted by Nickelodeon, the time children turn about 10 years old, they know about 400 brands. Child psychologists at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, a private college offering masters and doctoral programs in clinical psychology and counseling psychology, say this figure is up from an average of 100 brand logos at the tender age of three. That is an increase of 300 percent in just three short years. As market researchers, we might ask how this level of brand awareness is developed.
Survey research conducted by SIS International Research indicates that people tend to use brands that they have vague memories about which extend back to their childhood. This is true for 53 percent of the adults and 56 percent of the teenagers who were surveyed. The survey data indicates that this most true for household good, beverages, and food - all brands that tend to be passed down from generation to generation. A review of when Proctor and Gamble introduced some of their brands gives a good picture of how this takes place. The age Proctor and Gamble's brands can come as a big surprise to consumers.
About 20 years ago, little children were as familiar with the Joe Camel character on a pack of cigarettes as they were with the cartoon drawing of Mickey Mouse, the Disney character. Most people would agree that children are knowledge sponges and that they soak up much more information than can adequately be measured. Some of the information that children process is subconscious, just as it is for adults. But a good share of brand-related knowledge acquired by children is consciously acquired, tied as it is to social status. In fact, some market research firms that focus on learning about what children think about products and services relevant to their lives.
Courtesy of an article dated May 21, 2012 appearing in MediaPost Publications Marketing Daily, an article titled "Brand Affinity and Neuromarketing" appearing in About.com Market Research
A. K. Pradeep knows what you like and why you like it. Take the sleek, slick iPad. Ask Mac lovers why they adore their tablet and they'll say it's the convenience, the touch screen, the design, the versatility. But Apple aficionados don't just like their iPads; they're preprogammed to like them. It's in their subconscious--the curves, the way it feels in their hands, and in the hormones their brains secrete when they touch the screen. He says.
"When you move an icon on the iPad and it does what you thought it would do, you're surprised and delighted it actually happened. That surprise and delight turns into a dopamine squirt, and you don't even know why you liked it."
Pradeep is the founder and CEO of science-based consumer-research firm NeuroFocus, a Berkeley, California-based company wholly owned by Nielsen Holdings N.V. that claims to have the tools to tap into your brain (or, as Woody Allen called it, "my second favorite organ"). You might say Pradeep was born to plumb the depths of our minds. The "A.K." in his name stands for Anantha Krishnan, which translates as "unending consciousness"; Pradeep means "illumination." Fortunately, he doesn't refer to himself as Unending Illuminated Consciousness, preferring, as is custom in his native region of India, a single name: Pradeep. "Like Prince or Madonna," he explains.
On this particular spring day, he's in New York to offer a presentation at the 75th Advertising Research Foundation conference. As he holds court on a small stage in a ballroom of the Marriott Marquis in Midtown, Pradeep seems to relish the spotlight. Swizzle-stick thin and topped with unruly jet-black hair, the effusive 48-year-old is sharply dressed, from his spectacles to his black jacket and red-and-black silk shirt, and all the way down to his shiny boots. He stands out, needless to say, from the collective geekdom gathered at this egghead advertising fest.
Speaking with the speed and percussive enunciation of an auctioneer, Pradeep is at the conference today to introduce his company's latest innovation: a product called Mynd, the world's first portable, wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) scanner. The skullcap-size device sports dozens of sensors that rest on a subject's head like a crown of thorns. It covers the entire area of the brain, he explains, so it can comprehensively capture synaptic waves; but unlike previous models, it doesn't require messy gel. What's more, users can capture, amplify, and instantaneously dispatch a subject's brain waves in real time, via Bluetooth, to another device--a remote laptop, say, an iPhone, or that much-beloved iPad. Over the coming months, Neuro-Focus plans to give away Mynds to home panelists across the country. Consumers will be paid to wear them while they watch TV, head to movie theaters, or shop at the mall. The firm will collect the resulting streams of data and use them to analyze the participants' deep subconscious responses to the commercials, products, brands, and messages of its clients. NeuroFocus data crunchers can then identify the products and brands that are the most appealing (and the ones whose packaging and labels are dreary turnoffs), the characters in a Hollywood film that engender the strongest emotional attachments, and the exact second viewers tune out an ad.
Pradeep and his team in Berkeley are hardly the first to make a direct connection between brain function and how it determines consumer behavior. Advertisers, marketers, and product developers have deployed social psychology for decades to influence whether you buy Coke or Pepsi, or a small or an extra-large popcorn. Like the feather weight of that mobile phone? Suddenly gravitating to a new kind of beer at the store? Inexplicably craving a bag of Cheetos? From eye-deceiving design to product placement gimmickry, advertisers and marketers have long exploited our basic human patterns, the ones that are as rudimentary and predictable as Pavlov's slobbering dog.
NeuroFocus, however, promises something deeper, with unprecedented access into the nooks and crannies of the subconscious. It's a tantalizing claim, given that businesses spend trillions of dollars each year on advertising, marketing, and product R&D, and see, by some estimates, 80% of all their new products fail. The hope that neuroscience can provide more accurate results than traditional focus groups and other traditional market research is why Citi, Google, HP, and Microsoft, as well as soda companies, brewers, retailers, manufacturers, and media companies have all become NeuroFocus clients in the past six years. When salty-snack purveyor Frito-Lay looked to increase sales of its single-serve 100-calorie snacks to women, it tapped NeuroFocus, whose research informed new packaging and a new ad campaign. CBS partnered with the firm to measure responses to new shows and TV pilots; Arts & Entertainment (A&E) had NeuroFocus track viewers' second-by-second neurological reactions to commercials to ensure that its programs work with the ads that fund them; and Pradeep's team helped ESPN display the logos of its corporate advertisers more effectively on-air. California Olive Ranch had NeuroFocus test its olive-oil labels for maximum appeal. And, as we'll see later, Intel hired the company to better understand its global branding proposition, while PayPal sought a more refined corporate identity.
These corporations vary widely, but they share a fundamental goal: to mine your brain so they can blow your mind with products you deeply desire. With NeuroFocus's help, they think they can know you better than you know yourself.
THE CHEETOS CASE
Orange cheese dust. That wholly unnatural neon stuff that gloms onto your fingers when you're mindlessly snacking on chips or doodles. The stuff you don't think about until you realize you've smeared it on your shirt or couch cushions--and then keep on eating anyway, despite your better intentions. Orange cheese dust is probably not the first thing you think of when talking about how the brain functions, but it's exactly the kind of thing that makes NeuroFocus, and neuromarketing in general, such a potentially huge and growing business. In 2008, Frito-Lay hired NeuroFocus to look into Cheetos, the junk-food staple. After scanning the brains of a carefully chosen group of consumers, the NeuroFocus team discovered that the icky coating [of Cheetos] triggers an unusually powerful response in the brain: a sense of giddy subversion that consumers enjoy over the messiness of the product. In other words, the sticky stuff is what makes those snacks such a sticky brand. Frito-Lay leveraged that information into its advertising campaign for Cheetos, which has made the most of the mess. For its efforts, NeuroFocus earned a Grand Ogilvy award for advertising research, given out by the Advertising Research Foundation, for "demonstrating the most successful use of research in the creation of superior advertising that achieves a critical business objective."
THE COKE VS PEPSI TEST CASE
This seemingly precise way of unveiling the brain's inner secrets is the ultimate promise of neuromarketing, a science (or perhaps an art) that picks up electrical signals from the brain and spins them through software to analyze the responses and translate those signals into layman's terms. While evolving in tandem with advances in neuroscience, the field owes much to a study conducted at the Baylor College of Medicine in 2004 to investigate the power of brand perception on consumer taste preferences. Based on the famous Coke vs. Pepsi tests of yesteryear, volunteers had their brains scanned in an MRI as they sampled each beverage. When they didn't know what they were drinking, half liked Coke and half liked Pepsi. When they did know, however, most preferred Coke, and their brain scans showed a great deal of activity in the cranial areas associated with memory and emotion. In other words, the power of Coke's brand is so great that it preps your brain to enjoy its flavor--and presumably to influence your purchasing decisions when you're in the supermarket.
EEG THE NEW STANDARD FOR NEUROTESTING MEASUREMENT
Since the Baylor study, neurotesters have turned to the EEG as their standard measurement tool, rather than the MRI. For starters, the MRI is bulkier, harder to administer, and expensive. Far more important, however, is the fact that an EEG measures the brain's electrical activity on the scalp, while an MRI records changes in blood flow inside the brain. This means that an EEG reading can be done almost in real time, while an MRI's has a five-second delay. MRIs provide beautiful, high-resolution pictures, ideal for identifying tumors and other abnormalities, but they are useless for tracking quick-hit reactions.
For example, imagine that you are asked to generate an action verb in response to the word ball. Within 200 milliseconds, your brain has absorbed the request. Impulses move to the motor cortex and drive your articulators to respond, and you might say "throw." This process happens far too fast for an MRI to record. But an EEG can capture virtually every neurological impulse that results from that single word: ball.
This is where modern neuromarketing exists--at the very creation of an unconscious idea, in the wisp of time between the instant your brain receives a stimulus and subconsciously reacts. There, data are unfiltered, uncorrupted by your conscious mind, which hasn't yet had the chance to formulate and deliver a response in words or gestures. During this vital half-second, your subconscious mind is free from cultural bias, differences in language and education, and memories. Whatever happens there is neurologically pure, unlike when your conscious mind takes over and actually changes the data by putting them through myriad mental mechanisms. It's all the action inside you before your conscious mind does the societally responsible thing and reminds you that artificially flavored and colored cheese dust laced with monosodium glutamate is, well, gross.
With the instantaneous readings of EEG sensors, neuromarketers can track electrical waves as they relate to emotion, memory, and attention from specific areas of the brain: namely, the amygdala, an almond-shaped region that plays a role in storing emotionally charged memories and helps trigger physical reactions (sweaty palms, a faster heartbeat); the hippocampus, where memory lurks; and the lateral prefrontal cortex, which governs high-level cognitive powers (one being attention). Once the brain waves are collected, complex algorithms can sift through the data to connect each reaction to a specific moment.
BUILDING THE CASE FOR NEUROTESTING OVER FOCUS GROUPS
Neuromarketers like Pradeep argue that this testing is much more efficient, cost effective, and precise than traditional methods like focus groups. While Gallup must poll roughly a thousand people to achieve a 4% margin of error, NeuroFocus tests just two dozen subjects for its corporate clients--and even that is a sample size larger than those deployed by leading academic neuroscience labs. This is possible because people's brains are remarkably alike, even though there are some differences between male and female brains, and between those of children and senior citizens. And NeuroFocus collects a massive amount of input, recording and analyzing billions of data points during a typical neurological testing project. This is the genius of neuromarketing, according to a booster like Pradeep. He promises an accurate read of the subconscious mind. Focus groups and surveys, on the other hand, give an imprecise measure of the conscious mind, of so-called articulated, or self-reported, responses. They are one step removed from actual emotion, inherently weak: like flashbacks in a film. They are fine for eliciting facts, less so for probing into what people really feel.
Not everyone agrees that neuromarketing is the next great thing, of course. Because its research has been primarily corporate funded and its tangible results primarily anecdotal, neuromarketing is not without detractors, who tend to lump it in with the array of businesses, like biometrics or facial mapping, that promise all sorts of new-wave marketing breakthroughs. Ray Poynter, founder of the Future Place, a social-media consultancy in Nottingham, England, colors himself a skeptic on all of them but saves his harshest criticism for neuromarketers. He believes they offer far more hype than science. "Neuromarketers are overclaiming massively," he says. "While it is likely to reduce the number of bad mistakes, and slightly increase the chance of good things happening, it's all a matter of degree."
Even so, it's hard to imagine neuromarketing proving less reliable than traditional market research. For decades, marketers have relied on focus groups and surveys to divine what consumers want, using these methods to solicit feedback on their attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and perceptions about an advertisement, a product and its packaging, or a service. Each year, hundreds of thousands of focus groups are organized around the world, and about $4.5 billion is spent globally on qualitative market research.
This kind of "mother-in-law research," as ad exec Kirk Cheyfitz calls it, has all manner of shortcomings. It's not statistically significant, so it's risky to graft your findings onto the population at large. One or two blowhards may hijack an entire panel, and researchers can, without knowing it, influence participants. The world has changed, and yet so much market research is still conducted the same old way.
Brain Eaters
Companies try to keep their neuromarketing efforts secret. Here are six that we flushed out.
Pradeep says.
"I bet you, long ago if you looked at cave paintings, there were a bunch of Cro-Magnon men and women sitting around a fire in focus groups wondering whether to go hunt mastodon that night. Today, our focus groups are no different."
In the tale of our inner lives, we have always been unreliable narrators. Pradeep believes he can get at the truth.
THE INTEL CASE
When David Ginsberg joined Intel in 2009 as the company's director of insights and market research, he was something of an expert on the slippery nature of "truth," having spent 15 years working on political campaigns for John Edwards, John Kerry, Al Gore, and Bill Clinton. Ginsberg was downright skeptical of neuromarketing, or, as he calls it, "nonconscious-based research." He thought it had more to do with science fiction than reality. But he also knew that Intel had been conducting market research as if it were still 1965, with surveys that were the equivalent of sending Gallup off to knock on thousands of doors. That may have worked decently in the days when a person bought a computer based on specs--processing speed, RAM, etc. But in an age where virtually every computer is sold with power to spare, Ginsberg knew that the rationale for buying a certain computer was as much emotional as it was rational. To compete in this new market, Intel the company had to understand how people felt about Intel the brand.
Ginsberg says.
"If you ask people if they know Intel, something like 90% will say they know Intel. Ask if they like Intel, a huge percentage will say they like Intel. Ask them [to rank or name] tech leaders, however, and we come out much lower on the list."
Ginsberg felt that he needed to understand consumers' feelings at a deeper level: What words did consumers associate with Intel? Were these associations altered by one's culture? Ginsberg decided to run pilot tests with a number of market-research firms, and despite his sense of neuromarketing as mumbo jumbo, he included NeuroFocus. What he learned surprised him and turned him into a believer.
NeuroFocus structured its test for Intel as it does most of its market research, patterning it after something called the Evoked Response Potential test, a staple of neuroscience. Test subjects were paid to come to a NeuroFocus lab and put on a cap with 64 sensors that would measure electrical activity across the brain. Because the U.S. and China are two very important markets for Intel, NeuroFocus tested groups of 24 consumers (half men, half women) in Berkeley and in a midsize city in China's Sichuan Province.
In a quiet room, each test subject was shown the words "achieve," "possibilities," "explore," "opportunity," "potentiality," "identify," "discover," "resolves," and "solves problems." Each flitted by on a TV screen at half-second intervals. The subject was instructed to press a button whenever she saw a word with a letter underscored by a red dot. After several minutes of this subconscious-priming word test, she was shown a few Intel ads. Following this, the words were again presented on the screen, this time without the dots.
The exercise served two functions: First, the red dots focused the subject's attention; second, they gave NeuroFocus a baseline measure of the brain's response, since each time a test subject saw the red dot, her brain went "A-ha! There's a word with a red dot." Click.
When NeuroFocus later analyzed the EEG readings, it looked for those same "a-ha" moments from the period during which the subject had viewed the Intel ads. The words that provoked the most such responses were "achieve" and "opportunity." Interestingly, women in the U.S. and in China had virtually the same response post-advertisements, as did American men and Chinese men. The differences were in the genders; on both sides of the pond, men and women had strikingly different reactions. "Achieve" prompted the most intense reaction among women, while men gravitated toward "opportunity. "
Says Ginsberg:
"This was incredibly fascinating to us. There seem to be fundamental values across humanity."
He believes that Intel would have never learned this through traditional market research and focus groups, where cultural biases come into play. He also concluded that there are differences in how men and women think, and that these differences cross cultural boundaries. This is not news to Pradeep, who points out that male and female brains are different, and not in a Larry Summers women-aren't-as-good-at-math-and-science-as-men-are kind of way. The female brain is our default brain when we are in the womb. But at week eight, about half of all fetuses are bathed in testosterone. These now-male brains close down certain communication centers in the brain while opening up others geared toward sex and aggression. In female brains, meanwhile, the communication pathways continue to evolve, intricate neural routes are constructed across both hemispheres, and areas dedicated to emotion blossom. Life seems to imitate a beer commercial, doesn't it?
Now Intel is changing its marketing strategy. Ginsberg says.
"A brand that helps people achieve and offers opportunity has a phenomenal brand attribute. It gives you a new perspective on things, to understand your consumer better."
The NeuroFocus findings have informed the next round of creative advertising you'll see from Intel, due to emerge later this year. Ginsberg adds.
"I guarantee when you see these ads you'll see a straight line. The study gave us fresh insights to talk about things we didn't have permission to talk about before."
It is conceivable that Intel could have redirected its advertising toward achievement and opportunity with the help of focus groups. But Ginsberg feels, and Pradeep fervently believes, that neuromarketing has a much better shot at getting closer to the unconscious truth, and therefore proving more effective. Still, the difference between the two forms of research sometimes seems to be just a matter of degrees.
THE PAYPAL CASE
Barry Herstein left American Express to join PayPal in October 2007 as global chief marketing officer with the goal of giving eBay's transaction-processing division a coherent marketing strategy. After the first few weeks, he knew just how difficult the task would be. Almost every time he asked a PayPal employee, "What's the big idea behind PayPal?" the following response came back: "Safe, simple, wow!"
"Safe, simple, wow?" Herstein scoffs. "That's not a big idea. It's a tagline." It didn't even make sense. Wasn't any payment product supposed to be safe and simple? He supposed that software engineers might know that paying for things was complicated, but having worked at American Express and Citi, he knew that the consumer didn't think that was the case. And "wow"? He cringed. Then, after a series of brainstorming sessions and conversations with a broad range of customers, he hired NeuroFocus to help him figure out the basic concepts around which he could build a new global identity for PayPal.
As part of its standard methodology, NeuroFocus captures the subconscious resonance consumers have for seven brand attributes: form, function, and benefits, as well as feelings (the emotional connection a brand elicits from consumers), values (what it represents), metaphors (aspirations, challenges, lessons, or life events that seem connected to the product), and extensions (the unexpected and perhaps illogical feelings it inspires). Based on his earlier brainstorming sessions, Herstein asked NeuroFocus to home in on three attributes and create three phrases for testing within each. For function he offered "convenient," "fast," and "secure"; for feelings, "confident," "hassle-free," and "in the know"; and for benefits, "new opportunity," "on my side," and "empowering." The 21-person panel had 11 men and 10 women and was also segmented into regular, light, and non-PayPal shoppers.
According to NeuroFocus, "fast" ranked the highest in the function category. (Notably, "fast" was not acknowledged in any way by "safe, simple, wow.") In fact, according to the brain heat map that NeuroFocus created from the aggregated data, speed is a huge advantage that sets off extremely positive feelings, especially from regular users. The more people use PayPal, it seems, the more they appreciate how quickly they can close transactions. For the feelings category, "in the know" resonated best, and in benefits, "on my side" won out.
Examining brand attributes is a standard of traditional market testing, of course. Herstein ran a parallel, more conventional track at the same time as his NeuroFocus study, creating a conventional online survey. The results were significantly different. While the word "fast" resonated with this group, the phrase "on my side" wound up at the bottom of the benefits category, which was topped instead by "confident"--a word that had finished dead last among men in the NeuroFocus study.
Herstein trusted the NeuroFocus results, though, and set out to create a coherent global image for the company based on them. That image would humanize PayPal by emphasizing the outcomes it delivers, not the act of paying; nowhere in the new marketing would you find any dreaded, dreary images of two people hovering around a computer. Herstein says.
"People don't want to see that. They want to see people enjoying either what they just bought or the time that it gives them by paying fast."
Not everyone at the company was sold on his new approach. The heads of some foreign markets--Herstein declined to name which-- predicted that the new campaign would bomb. Herstein says that his boss, PayPal president Scott Thompson, told him he was crazy--but Herstein was willing to stake his reputation on the new approach.
What happened? According to Herstein, when he changed PayPal's visual and verbal identity across the company's email and web pages, click-through and response rates increased three to four times. He says.
"I'm telling you, in the world of direct marketing, the words '400% improvement' don't exist. If you can go from 1.2% response rate to 1.3%, you'll get a promotion, right? And if you can take something from a 4% response rate to 16%? Unheard of."
Herstein has left PayPal to join Snapfish and now sits on NeuroFocus's board as an unpaid adviser. While eBay confirms the basics of his account, it won't confirm his description of the outcomes from the marketing campaign he created; a spokesman repeatedly asked Fast Company not to include this information in our story.
THE FEAR OF NEUROMARKETING
This bid for secrecy is entirely in keeping with the aura around neuromarketing, an industry that is both highly confident about what it can deliver and very nervous about its perception in the broader world. Several neuromarketing firms were approached for this story, but the only one that would do more than provide vague descriptions of its work was NeuroFocus, which is by all accounts the industry leader. Out of dozens of its corporate clients, very few would agree to discuss their work with the firm.
Neuromarketing outfits are afraid of being branded as trendy voodoo science, no more trustworthy than palm readers. Such a perception, they believe, will wither with good results. Perhaps more worrying is the other end of the speculative spectrum, which posits that corporations armed with our neurological data will be able to push a secret "buy button" in our brains. This is a fear promulgated by, among others, Paul B. Farrell, a columnist for Dow Jones and author of The Millionaire Code. He calls this buy button your brain's "true decision-making processor," a "weapon of mass delusion." You end up like a computer "without virus protection" and "exposed to every Wall Street banker, politician, and corporate CEO with gobs of cash and a desire to manipulate your brain."
Ron Wright, president and CEO of Sands Research, a rival neuromarketing firm based in El Paso, Texas says.
"There's still this mystique that there's a way to control consumers and turn them into robots to purchase products. That is simply not the case."
Nevertheless, after spending time with Pradeep, you get the feeling we've only just begun to tap the potential of this new movement. Pradeep is not a neuroscientist. He's a former GE engineer and consultant who became fascinated by neuromarketing after a conversation with a neuroscientist who sat next to him on a cross-continental flight. After seven years at the helm of NeuroFocus, he sees every product relationship in terms of the brain, like a virtuoso musician who hears music in everyday sounds, from the clackety noise of a woman's heels on a wooden floor to the melange of notes from a car engine.
DR. PRADEEP ON WHY PEOPLE LOVE APPLE PRODUCTS
On a sun-drenched afternoon in Berkeley, we tour the shops at the local mall. We stop in front of a Victoria's Secret plate-glass window and Pradeep points out the ambiguous expression of a lingerie model on one of its posters. He explains that the brain is constantly looking out for our survival and as part of that is always ready to measure another person's intent. Is that stranger happy? Angry? Sad? When an expression is not easy to decipher, we do a database search through our collection of faces--curious, worried, nervous, threatening--to choose which is closest to the one we see, and match it. He says.
"If the expression is easy to decipher, I hardly glance. But if the expression is relatively hard to decipher, she makes me open the cupboard of memory."
Contrast this with the nearby Bebe store, where Pradeep shakes his head at the headless mannequins in the window.
"Now that's what I call a crime against humanity. Money down the drain."
At the Apple store, we pause at a desktop computer and he explains why it's always better to put images on the left side of the screen and text on the right:
"That's how the brain likes to see it. If you flip it around, the right frontal looks at the words and has to flip it over the corpus callosum to the left frontal lobe. You make the brain do one extra step, and the brain hates you for that."
Pradeep loves Apple, and he loves to talk about Apple, in part because Steve Jobs never has been and probably never will be a client. (Apple doesn't even use focus groups. Jonathan Ive, Apple's top designer, famously said they lead to bland products designed to offend no one.) But the real reason he loves talking about Apple is that he believes the company has elevated basic design to high art, a hugely successful strategy that Pradeep thinks is justified by our most basic neurological underpinnings.
Which brings us back to that iPad. Pradeep claims the brain loves curves but detests sharp edges, which set off an avoidance response in our subconscious. In the same way our ancestors stood clear of sticks or jagged stones fashioned into weapons, we avoid sharp angles, viewing them as potential threats. NeuroFocus has performed several studies for retailers and food manufacturers and found that test subjects prefer in-store displays with rounded edges over those with sharper edges. In one instance, when these new rounded displays were rolled out to replace traditional store shelving, sales rose 15%.
But curved edges are only one reason for the iPad's success. We also like how the tablet feels, how sleek and well balanced it is. Signals generated by our palms and fingers, along with lips and genitals, take up the most surface area within our brain's sensory zone. The way a product feels in our hands can be a major selling point. It's why we prefer glass bottles to cans, which NeuroFocus product-consumption studies bear out, although it's not just the material, it's also the slender curve of the bottle and the ridges in it. The touch screen, too, is a mental magnet and can induce those hormonal secretions Pradeep likes describing.
Why we like these curves no one knows for sure. Perhaps our brains correlate curves with nourishment--that is to say, mommy. (Calling Dr. Freud.) In men, it could be sexual. One study asked men to view before-and-after pictures of naked women who underwent cosmetic surgery to shrink their waists and add to their derrieres. The men's brains responded as if they had been rewarded with drugs and alcohol. But this response to curves may be even more primal than sex, or beer. Another study suggested that men seek women with curves because women's hips and thighs contain higher doses of omega-3 fatty acids, which nurture babies' brains and lead to healthier offspring.
THE IMPORTANCE OF NEUROMARKETING IN NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
This is the flip side to our fears of neuromarketing: the potential to look at our choices in a new way that blends science, psychology, and history. Lately, NeuroFocus has been moving into product development, providing research to companies that will influence how products look, feel, and function before they hit the market. That's what the firm is doing with its Mynd crown of sensors. But Pradeep has visions that go far beyond testing products, packaging, and commercials. He imagines neurotesting as ideal for court-room trials: A defense attorney could pretest opening and closing arguments for emotional resonance with mock juries. And while NeuroFocus is not getting involved in politics, he says that competitors of his helped Republican politicians shape their messages for the 2010 midterm elections.
One stunning application of neurotesting is the work of Robert Knight, Pradeep's chief science officer, and a host of other neuroscience researchers who are trying to develop a way for quadriplegics to control their wheel-chairs just by thinking alone. When you watch someone move a hand to grab a can of soda, mirror neurons in your brain react as if you were grasping it yourself. Knight is studying which brain signals can be translated into software commands to drive a wheelchair. To further this research, Knight, part of the team that invented the Mynd, plans to give it away to scientists and labs around the world. And the next iteration, he promises, will be a big step up, with eye-tracking capability, a built-in video camera, and three times as many sensors for greater brain coverage. Pradeep says.
"If our limbs will not respond to the beauty of your thinking or your feeling, that is a horror beyond horrors. Restoring a little bit of gesture, a little bit of movement, a little bit of control to that beautiful mind is an extraordinary thing to do."
He seems sincere, passionate even, though of course I cannot read his mind.
COMMENTARY: As a "student" of neuromarketing, an area of marketing that has always fascinated me eminsely, I believe that understanding how the brain reacts to external physical and psychological stimulu is the key to better marketing and ultimately creating brand awareness and lasting consumer loyalty. When you come to think about it branding is the end result of how individuals respond emotionally to a company and its products. And when you think emotions, you think about the human BRAIN.
I also believe that neuromarketing will eventually become commonplace and the basis upon which most marketing decisions will be based including new product design and prototyping, packaging design, media creation, marketing communications, pricing and product distribution.
When Dr. Pradeep explains why he loves Apple products so much, he is seeing neuromarketing in practice, and the master of neuromarketing is none other than Steve Jobs. If you read "The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs" by Carmine Gallo, about seven innovation principles of Steve Jobs, there are two principles that exemplify the very essence of neuromarketing:
Principle #4: "Sell Dreams, Not Products." To Jobs, people who buy Apple products are not "consumers." They are people with dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Jobs builds products to help them fulfill their dreams.
Principle #6: "Create Insanely Great Experiences." Jobs has made Apple Stores the gold standard in customer service. The Apple Store has become the world's best retailer by introducing simple innovations any business can adopt to make deep, lasting emotional connections with its customers.
Like Dr. Pradeep, Steve Jobs is not a neuroscientist, but he is a master of human psychology. Product design is the secret sauce that has made Apple customers worldwide such rabid brand evaneglists that are willing to stand hours or even days in front of an Apple Store to be the first to buy his products.
The importance of product design to Jobs is exemplified in Principle #5: "Say No to 1,000 Things." Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, according to Jobs. From the designs of the iPod to the iPhone, from the packaging of Apple's products to the functionality of the Apple website, innovation means eliminating the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
The ability to finally measure how humans react emotionally to a product changes everything in the marketing mix. It's no longer the 4P's: Price, Product, Place and Promotion, but you can add a fifth 'P': People. Not just their demographics or psychographics, and how they react and connect emotionally with a brand and its products. Measuring the peaks and valleys of those EEG readings is going to separate the winners from the losers.
Althought some marketer's view neuromarketing with some suspicion, and brand it as "voodoo" marketing, and some consumers even call it a form of "brainwashing", the brain doesn't lie, and Dr. Prakeep is on the right track.
Neuromarketing as a marketing tool will become the equivalent to DNA and fingerprint testing in biomedical research and criminology. Just how far neuromarketing will reach into our daily lives remains to be seen, but I can see in the not too distant future when there will be vast databases containing the neuro-footprint of every individual consumer. That neuro-footprint is the equivalent of an emotional DNA. Products will be designed and marketing specifically to consumers with a specific emotional DNA, and I have no doubt that Neurofocus will be at the forefront of that new neuromarketing frontier. (8/10/11)
Courtesy of an article dated August 8, 2011 appearing in Fast Company
It takes more than a fancy logo, fancy catch phrase or brand character to connect with today's consumers. Today, what counts far more than a puma, a monkey, or a snarling aardvark is the cross-sensory experience your brand offers. It's not just the emotion, beliefs, personality and desiresyour brand evokes, but its feeling, touch, view, sound and smell, of which the logo is just one small part.
When marketing to today's Generation Y (a.k.a. Millennials) and Generation X consumers it's very important for marketer's to use a sensory marketing approach that appeals to the five senses: sense: hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste and fulfills their social needs or values.
The sensory marketing approach has given rise to the science of neuromarketing, a new field of marketing that studies consumers' sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli. In effect, getting inside the head of the consumer. Neuromarketing has often been equated with brainwashing, an evil concept if there ever was one, which results in the forced modification of human behavior by repeatedly exposing individuals to the same stimuli over-and-over again.
Neuromarketing has been used very successfuly in the political arena, where candidates for public office use "negative" advertisements that paint their opponent as "soft" on a popular political issue (e.g. national defense, crime enforcement, etal) or "for" an unpopular political issue (e.g. abortion, universal healthcare, etal). If voter's are continually told that Barack Obama is not a legal American citizen or is a muslim, a lot of people will eventually believe that as true. Both parties are guilty of using negative ads, but I won't get into political issues.
Without reallly realizing it, marketer's have been using neuromarketing for quite some time. When you come to think about it, a firm's brand equity, is really the sum of all the influences, both sensory, emotinal and social that consumer's connect with a brand. No where is this more importan5t than when marketing to Generation X and Y. This is based on my observance of human behaviors especially among Millennials and Gen-X because they are both sensory and social animals. They are very susceptible to sensory stimulation and place very high value on social interaction and relationships. In fact, I have developed a manifesto or marketing strategy built on two pillars:
Sensory Approach - A marketing approach that involves the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.
Social Approach - A marketing approach that involves the social needs of the individual.
It has been my experience that employing only a sensory approach will not prove as successful, and that marketer's must integrate a social approach into the equation. Trust me, you do not want to get this part wrong.
In developing my manifesto, I discuss the general marketing principle's I have employed in marketing to Gen-Y and Gen-X, and the best and least successful advertising and promotions strategy's that should be used for both demographics.
Marketing To Gen-Y and Gen-X
GENERATION-Y MARKETING APPROACH
Gen-Y consumers are the most ethnically diverse of all demographics. Gen-Y’s are interested in pop culture, being part of the latest fad, things or activities that are trendy, hip and cool, experiencing new tastes, listening to the latest music, wearing the trendiest clothes, playing the latest online games, interacting and communicating with their friends, expressing their opinions and showing off. Their friends are very important and part of their social DNA. They ignore traditional advertising and rely more on word-of-mouth. Gen-Y’s are the “we want it now” generation and interested in immediate gratification. Gen-Y’s work hard until they get bored. Gen-Y’s are less brand loyal and always looking for a good value. These qualities require a marketing approach that is both sensory and social.
The Sensory Approach
The Social Approach
The sensory marketing approach involves the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.
The social marketing approach involves satisfying a Gen-Y’s need for social interaction and being part of social groups or communities.
Marketers must be aware of the importance of the five senses in reaching Gen-Y’s. Gen-Y’s must be sold on the great taste, texture, aroma, look and quality of a food product (taste, smell, sight and touch). By the same token, Gen-Y’s would be attracted to a new electronic music gadget by its overall design, sound quality and features (sight, touch and hearing). The Internet with its compelling digital imagery, video and sound is a natural media channel for Gen-Y’s as it offers elements of all five senses. Gen-Y’s are among the heaviest users of the Internet for news, information, entertainment and interacting with others.
Gen-Y’s are social animals so marketers must incorporate social elements into the design of a business whether it is a website, retail or eating establishment. Businesses are no longer solely for shopping, eating or drinking, but places to meet friends, hangout, read a book, surf the Net, socialize and exchange gossip. Facebook, MySpace and YouTube are excellent examples of social networking sites that appeal to a Gen-Y’s need to network and interact with others. Starbucks, Abercrombie & Fitch, Borders, Steve Madden, American Eagle and Best Buy are excellent examples of retail establishments that incorporate social design elements like cool and trendy store interiors, the latest in fashion and electronic gadget’s, piped in music, visual displays, and in-store food and beverage facilities.
In the case of a business establishment, whether brick-and-mortar or digital, Gen-Y’s must be sold on the convenience, product selection, atmosphere and total experience that the business establishment offers (sight, hearing, smell and touch). The success of eBay, Starbucks, Facebook, Myspace and Borders are excellent examples of brands that have capitalized on the importance of the five senses in developing successful products and services.
Gen-Y’s are notorious multi-taskers who communicate with their friends and relatives by telephone, text messaging, instant messaging (IM) and mobile devices like smartphones and iPhones. They interact by sharing video’s and music, rating products, services and business establishments and posting comments over the Blogosphere. Gen-Y’s have an insatiable desire to interact with others and are the driving force behind online social networks like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook and Starbucks.
GENERATION-X MARKETING APPROACH
Gen-X marketing requires elements of high perceived value, quality, purity, less hype, more facts and a marketing message that is honest and straightforward. Gen-Xers are cynical about advertising. Less likely to be taken in by fads or product hype, and more likely to say, “show me”. Their tastes and preferences overlap with both Gen-Y’s and Boomers, making them an elusive target. They are less brand loyal that boomers, and more likely to experiment with other brands, new drinks and foods. Gen-Xers are very technologically savvy. They tend to be first adopters of the latest electronic gadgets like iPods and iPhones. Gen-Xers support social causes like the environment and world hunger. They enjoy social events, leisure activities and get-togethers with family and friends. They are known as the “family-first” generation because they value their family over their jobs. Success with Gen-Xers requires a marketing approach with less hype,more facts and a social approach centered around quality of life, social causes and importance of friends and family.
Less Hype, More Facts Approach
The Social Approach
Gen-Xers are interested in less hype and more facts and figures. They are interested in knowing the nutritional value of a food product: How many calories, how much fat, cholesterol and nutrients a product contains. Gen-Xers look for products with high perceived value and quality like the fuel-efficiency of Japanese cars and durability of German-made automobiles. Gen-Xers take delight in experiencing new foods, beverages, films and products. It is best to deal with Gen-Xers in an honest, respectful and straight forward manner. Gen-Xers seek products and services that are relevant, solve a problem or fill a real need in the marketplace and offer a high value-added component: Superior quality, design, durability, features and convenience.
Gen-X have a social need that is grounded in placing a premium on quality of life, leisure activities, social causes, strong parental and family values and spending time with family and friends. They enjoy family get-togethers, activities and socializing with their friends. Marketers must incorporate social elements whether they are an online, retail, eating or entertainment establishment. Businesses that have succeeded in doing this include McDonald’s (children’s playgrounds), Las Vegas Hotels & Casino’s (electronic games, rides and attractions), Disneyland (family-oriented rides and attractions), Gymboree (early childhood development programs), Target (family-oriented merchandise and refreshments), DisneyOnlineForFamily.com (Disney entertainment for the entire family) and BabyCenter.com (Young mothers with infants), Advertising that works with Gen-Xers include ads depicting the crash safety of Volvo cars and high performance of Michelin tires fit in perfectly with Gen-X’s strong parental values.
Advertising & Promotions Strategy
Although there is some overlap between Gen-X and Gen-Y, they differ in lifestyle and are difficult to reach through traditional media channels, requiring: 1) commercial messages and content that is relevant to their social and psychological needs, 2) selecting the appropriate media channel for each group and 3) carefully targeting our advertising and promotions to insure we reach them most cost-effectively.
REACHING GENERATION-Y
MOST EFFECTIVE MARKETING CHANNELS
Internet Advertising - Gen-Y’s spend more time online than watching television, reading publications or newspapers. 62% of Gen-Y’s watch TV programs episodes online. Gen-Y rank the highest in joining social networking communities, viewing and uploading online videos, downloading music, playing online games sending instant and text messages and reading online blogs. Popular Gen-Y sites include:
Online Social Communities: MySpace , Facebook and Bebo
Video Sharing: YouTube, Veoh, Break, ManiaTV, Hulu and MetaCafe.
Online News and Information: Diggs, Technorati and StumbleUpon.
And a large broad array of Blogs.
Marketers can achieve success reaching Gen-Y’s by targeting websites where they are likely to congregate and socialize.
Viral Marketing - Gen-Y’s go online and rely on word-of-mouth to obtain product and information, so it is vital that firms have a great website that is fully-optimized for search engines and listed in all the major search engines. Firms should have a promotional page on popular social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter and video sharing sites like YouTube.
Street Marketing – Gen-Xers enjoy new experiences and street marketing is a great way to create marketing buzz and reach them face-to-face. Street marketing include neighborhood promotional stunts, free product samplings, and rollouts in specific venues (street fairs, music festivals, concerts, college campuses, bars and clubs, etc). This is also a great way to pass out flyers, free offers and discount coupons.
Contests and Sweepstakes – Gen-Y’s are wild about winning a contest or receiving a gift, especially something meaningful like an iPod, concert tickets, vacations, cell phones and FREE sample servings. This is a great way to increase store traffic, create brand awareness and get them to try a product.
Flyers and Discount Coupons – These should be incorporated into a firm’s street marketing as a way to create excitement, interest and additional traffic. “ONE FREE PIZZA” and “BUY-ONE, GET ONE FREE” coupons work the best.
Paid Search – Nearly 90% of Gen-Y’s use online search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN Live Search to find online information, news and entertainment sites.
Radio Advertising – Radio ranks third for Gen-Y’s in hours per week behind the Internet and TV as their preferred media. Marketers should incorporate targeted radio into its media mix picking stations with the largest reach and most effective CPM’s.
Mobile Advertising – Gen-Y’s are the biggest users of iPhones, Smartphones and portable multimedia devices like iPods. Gen-Y’s prefer text message over email and this is a great way to reach them through one of their most preferred methods of communication.
LEAST EFFECTIVE MARKETING CHANNELS
Television, Direct Mail, Publications and Newspapers – Gen-Y’s cannot be reached effectively through traditional marketing channels. Direct mail, magazine ads, newspaper ads and television advertising does not work well with Gen-Y’s. They do not respond to he marketing messages that appeals to their parents and grandparents. A Gen-Y’s favorite TV programs include sitcoms Friends and Seinfeld, reality TV shows Survivor and Project Runway, Animated TV shows The Simpsons, Music contest shows like American Idol, music video programs like MTV and TV comedy shows like The Daily Show With Stewart., just to name a few.
REACHING GENERATION-X
MOST EFFECTIVE MARKETING CHANNELS
Internet Advertising - Gen-Xers are No 2 behind Gen-Y’s in spending time online than watching television and reading publications or newspapers. 57% of Gen-Xers watch TV programs episodes online. Gen-Xers are just behind Gen-Y’s in joining social networking communities, viewing and uploading online videos, downloading music, playing online games sending instant and text messages and reading online blogs. Gen-Xers over forty represent the largest segment online gambling. Popular Gen-X sites include:
Online Social Communities: MySpace , Facebook, Twitter and Bebo
Video Sharing: YouTube, Hulu, Veoh, Break, ManiaTV and MetaCafe.
Online News and Information: Diggs, Technorati and StumbleUpon.
And a large broad array of Blogs.
Viral Marketing - Gen-Xers trust themselves and the opinion of their friends and rely testimonials and word-of-mouth on product and services. It is important that firms have a great website that is fully-optimized and listed in all the major search engines. Firms should have a promotional page on popular social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, and run online ads on popular video sharing sites like YouTube and Hulu.
Street Marketing – Gen-Xers enjoy new experiences and street marketing is a great way to create marketing buzz and reach them face-to-face. Street marketing include neighborhood promotional stunts, free product samplings, and rollouts in specific venues (street fairs, music festivals, concerts, college campuses, etc). This is also a great way to pass out flyers and discount coupons.
Contests and Sweepstakes – Gen-Xers enjoy winning a contest or receiving a gift, especially something meaningful like an iPod, iPhone, concert tickets and FREE sample servings. This is a great way to increase store traffic, create brand awareness and get them to try a firm’s products.
Flyers and Discount Coupons – These should be incorporated into a store’s grand opening and street marketing as a way to create excitement, interest and additional store traffic. Women with children, in particular, are attracted to discount coupons if there is high perceived value in the offer. Offers that work most often include “ONE FREE DESSERT”, “BUY-ONE, GET ONE FREE” and “BUY-ONE-ADULT serving and receive ONE-FREE child serving.
Direct Mail – Direct mail works best for older Gen-X (Over 35) men and women, especially with children. The offer must be compelling, without a lot of hype, and sold on the basis of high perceived value or in support of a social cause. Some offers that work best include “FREE AIR FARE” or “10% OF PROFITS GOES TO SAVE-THE-WHALES”.
Paid Search – Nearly 90% of Gen-Xers use online search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN Live Search to find information, news and entertainment sites. Paid search is an effective way to reach Gen-Xers and drive traffic to a firm’s website.
Radio Advertising – Older Gen-Xers (Over 30) rank the highest in listening to the radio for music, news and information. Marketers should incorporate targeted radio into its media mix, selecting stations with the largest reach and most effective CPM’s.
Mobile Advertising – Young Gen-Xers (25-30), like their Gen-Y counterparts, are the biggest users of iPhones, smartphones and portable multimedia devices like iPods. Younger Gen-Xers prefer text message over email and this is a great way to reach them through one of their preferred methods of communication. Marketers should incorporate mobile advertising into its media mix.
LEAST EFFECTIVE MARKETING CHANNELS
Television, Radio, Direct Mail, Publications and Newspapers – Gen-Xers are stuck in the middle between Gen-Y’s and Boomers so there are some overlaps with both generations, making them an elusive target. Younger Gen-Xers cannot be reached effectively using traditional marketing channels like direct mail, print ads, newspapers, radio and television advertising. Older Gen-Xers (over 35) can be reached through direct mail, radio and television as their media tastes are similar to Boomers in many respects. Gen-Xers are impervious to the marketing messages that appeals to Boomers, who they treat with some resentment. Favorite TV shows of Gen-Xers include prime-time shows like ER, CSI, Friends, reality TV shows like Survivor and The Apprentice, animated shows likeThe Simpsons, music video shows like MTV and TV comedy shows like The Daily Show. With Stewart., and late night talk shows like David Letterman and Conan O’brien just to name a few.
I first developed my manifesto for marketing to Gen-X and Gen-Y in 2006/2007, at about the time that social networking really began to take hold, and I realized then that in order to successfully market to these two generatioins, a social approach was also needed. So far those observations have proven to be correct. Although my manifesto is albeit a bit dated, the basic concepts of neuromarketing work for all demographics.
If you are marketing to Millennials or Gen-Xers you might be interested in reading some of the following blog articles:
Does it seem like there are more law and MBA graduates than ever now? And how big is there decline in students pursuing education and engineering? As trends in in American culture, economy, and education change, so do students' choices in degree fields. The interactive infographic above explores which degrees and subjects have gained in popularity and which have declined over the course of ten years.
Click To Above Image To Launch Interactive Infographic
Bachelor's Degrees
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Master's Degrees
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Doctoral Degrees
Click Image To Enlarge
All Degrees
Click Image To Enlarge
Professional Degrees
Click Image To Enlarge
Engineering Degrees
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COMMENTARY:
Observations From The Above Charts
I think we should all be concerned that less students are entering the educational (down 5%) and engineering (up 17%) fields. We are now seeing a growing number of retiring teachers. The mass layoffs of teachers is really discouraging students from entering the field of education, and this is going to hurt our entire educational system. We will have shortages in the near future unless we can promote education as a career and increase teacher compensation. A higher percentage of engineering students are studing for their doctoral degrees as technology becomes more complex. Students entering the field of medicine and optometry increased by only 3% and 4% respectively, which means a shortage of medical doctors and optometrists in the years to come. Get used to seeing more Indian or Chinese doctors and optometrists treating patients in clinics and hospitals in the not too distant future. The fastest growing education fields are health (up 65%), digital and performing arts (up 52%) and business (up 48%). On a positive note, more students are entering college, but higher tuition and the student loan crisis is going to prove a challenge for many students at the lower socio-economic scale.
State of Science and Engineering in the U.S.
The state of science and engineering in the U.S. is strong, yet the nation's lead is shrinking, according to the latest report from the National Science Board. Based on a wide range of data - from R&D spending to higher-education trends in science and engineering fields - the group's Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 report suggests that U.S. dominance of world science and engineering has deteriorated significantly in recent years, due in large part to rapidly increasing capabilities in China and other Asian economies.
Everyone — from tech entrepreneurs and business analysts to news columnists and out-of-work engineers — is sounding the alarm: The United States is losing its innovative edge.
A new report suggests the claim isn't entirely inaccurate.
Last month, the National Science Board (NSB) released its Science and Engineering Indicators 2010, providing a comprehensive view of international science, engineering and technology. The report, produced every two years by the NSB — the governing body for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NSF's Division of Science Resources Statistics — analyzes data ranging from research and development (R&D) spending to higher-education trends in science and engineering fields.
The latest edition indicates that while the state of U.S. science and engineering is strong, "U.S. dominance has eroded significantly" in recent years, due in large part to rapidly increasing capabilities among Asian nations, particularly China, Kei Koizumi, assistant director for federal R&D in President Obama's Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in an announcement of the findings.
"The data begin to tell a worrisome story," Koizumi said.
The NSB's key findings, highlighted below, shed light on America's science and engineering position in the global economy.
R&D — Between 1996 and 2007, North America's share of world R&D activity dropped from 40 percent to 35 percent. Meanwhile, the European Union's (EU) share decreased from 31 percent to 28 percent. The Asia-Pacific region's share rose from 24 percent to 31 percent during the same period, "even with Japan's comparatively low growth." The share of the rest of the world increased from 5 percent to 6 percent. The annual growth of R&D expenditures in the U.S., at just over 5 percent, is low compared to America's Asian counterparts; in India, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and China, R&D budgets have increased up to four times that of the U.S. growth rate. American multinationals are shifting their overseas R&D from Europe to emerging Asian markets, whose share grew from 5 percent in 1995 to 14 percent in 2006.
NS&E Higher Education — Many Western countries are concerned about lagging student interest in studying natural sciences or engineering (NS&E), fields that convey technical skills and learning considered essential for knowledge-intensive economies. In the developing world, the number of first university NS&E degrees (broadly comparable to a U.S. baccalaureate) is rising, led by large increases in China, from about 239,000 in 1998 to 807,000 in 2006. NS&E degrees earned by Japanese and South Korean students combined in 2006 (about 235,000) approximated the number earned by U.S. students during that year, even though the U.S. population was considerably larger (300 million versus 175 million). The natural sciences include physical, biological, earth, atmospheric, ocean, agricultural and computer sciences as well as mathematics.
NS&E Doctorates Earned — China's domestically earned NS&E doctorates have shot up more than tenfold since the early 1990s, to about 21,000 in 2006, approaching the number awarded in the U.S. Most of the post-2002 increase in U.S. NS&E doctorates reflects degrees awarded to temporary and permanent visa holders, who in 2007 earned about 11,600 of 22,500 NS&E doctorates in the U.S. Foreign nationals have earned more than half of U.S. NS&E doctorates since 2006, 31 percent of whom are from East Asia, mostly from China. (Image credit: NSB, SEI 2010)
Engineering Doctorates and Visas — The engineering numbers are more concentrated. The share of U.S. engineering doctorates awarded to temporary and permanent visa holders rose from 51 percent in 1999 to 68 percent in 2007. Nearly three-quarters of these foreign Ph.D. recipients were from East Asia or India. While many of these individuals, especially those on temporary visas, will leave the U.S. after earning their doctorates, past trends suggest a large proportion will stay; 60 percent of temporary visa holders who had earned a U.S. science and engineering Ph.D. in 1997 were gainfully employed in the U.S in 2007, the highest 10-year stay rate ever observed.
Research Output — The number of research articles published in a set of international, peer-reviewed journals has grown from about 460,000 in 1988 to an estimated 760,000 in 2008. However, between 1995 and 2008, the U.S. and E.U.'s combined share of world scholarly articles dropped from 69 percent to 59 percent, while Asia's expanded from 14 percent to 23 percent. Over the past two decades, the number of engineering research articles in the U.S. has grown by less than 2 percent annually; likewise in Japan. Growth in the EU: about 4.4 percent. Meanwhile, China's output of engineering articles grew by close to 16 percent annually.
Patent Protection Filings — U.S. patents awarded to foreign inventors offer a broad indication of the distribution of inventive activity around the world. While inventors in the U.S. the EU and Japan produce almost all of these patents, and U.S. patenting by Chinese and Indian inventors remains modest, the number of patents earned by Asian inventors is on the rise, driven by activity in Taiwan and South Korea. From 1995 and 2008, the share of patents granted to U.S.-based inventions by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has shrunk from 55 percent to 49 percent. In 1997, 34 percent of high-value patents had U.S. inventors, yet this figure slipped to 30 percent by 2006.
In a 2007 special report, New Scientist explained that contemporary China "is a nation led by technocrats. The current generation of leaders is made up mostly of graduates from some of China's leading universities, typically trained in science and engineering."
"For those in the West," New Scientist said, "where lawyers dominate the political establishment, China provides an intriguing contrast."
The Sexperience 1000 allows you to examine fascinating data from a sex survey as a fun, interactive experience.
Every sex study that comes out seems to fall into two camps. One is stuffed with cheesy, "relatable" graphics that end up talking down to young adults. The other packs too much irrelevant information into a dry, overly serious format. Either way, you walk away, well, unsatisfied. The new Sexperience 1000, a survey of 1,000 sexually active Brits, avoids all the cliches, with timely content packaged in a vibrant interactive experience that invites plenty of exploration. Ahem.
The interactive site is part of the Sexperience project mounted byChannel 4, the U.K.'s public service television station. Sexperience hopes to highlight true stories about everything from masturbation to contraception to help people understand what's right for them. While the Sexperience site includes content like message boards and videos (which can't be seen in the U.S.), the Sexperience 1000 is, in a way, the most helpful piece of information because it allows a user to slice and dice the experiences of the respondents and learn that there's no such thing as normal.
The brilliance in the Sexperience 1000 interface is that instead of transforming the data into impersonal blocks of data, each person who answered the questions is turned into an anthropomorphized symbol that appears to almost walk into formation around their answers.
[Click To View The Sexperience Interactive ]
To the top is a menu that organizes the answers to questions ranging from "How many different sexual partners have you had?" to "Have you ever cheated on a partner?"
[Click To View The Sexperience Interactive ]
To the right hand side is a menu that allows users to filter the results by sex, age, education, even the kind of car they drive.
[Click To View The Sexperience Interactive ]
A click of the menu highlights the filtered results; here the men get colored blue while the rest are rendered gray.
[Click To View The Sexperience Interactive ]
But here's one of the coolest features. If you click on a single character, you can see all their answers.
[Click To View The Sexperience Interactive ]
And after you select a particular "person," you can also choose to follow them throughout the data sets. These ones I've selected turn into the yellow characters in some of the graphs.
[Click To View The Sexperience Interactive ]
This feature is especially useful for people who may want to know how their own behavior tracks. I can imagine someone trying to find someone with a similar age and experience to compare themselves to across the questions. Or maybe learn that doggy style isn't as rare as one would think.
[Click To View The Sexperience Interactive ]
But even for those of us not worried about how many people our age are doing it, the Sexperience 1000 is fascinating fun. Like discovering the fact that classical music fans aren't so interested in role playing.
[Click To View The Sexperience Interactive ]
People who shop at the grocery chain Waitrose may or may not be cheating on their partners.
[Click To View The Sexperience Interactive ]
Single women are very conscious about their body image.
[Click To View The Sexperience Interactive ]
And, of course, the majority of people who masturbate once a day (or more) are male.
COMMENTARY: I found the results of the Sexperience survey very eye-opening. The number of individuals who masturbated definitely outnumbered those that did not at all or refused to answer. Basically, about 85% of Brits masturbate or exercising self-pleasure. Hehehe. Ladies, if you need any help with technique, please let me know.
I was surprised to discover that the number of Brits who did NOT cheat on their partner outnumbered those that did by at least 2-to-1. I think some partners have discovered that self-masturbation is a whole lot less risky than cheating.
I also found it hilarious and surprising that many Brits would like to try bondage & discipline (B&D) and Sadomasochism (S&M). I've discovered that some chicks like tying up and whipping their partners. It's "payback time" for the females. A way for females to let their male partner know that they maybe in charge at work, but now they are in charge. Take it to them.
I read that Butt spanking can be very pleasurable, and women seem to like that too. I've noticed that mature females have a surprised look on their face, when its done to them, but then they purrr afterwards. spank, spank, spank... To "oil, or not to oil", that is the question. A good Longo or Thai ball massage can work wonders after a long day at the office or to relieve the stress of the day.
I love how those "pink" (females) and "blue" (males) animated figures "scurry" around the screen in that interactive Sexperience chart. The Brits really are a lot more sexually liberated than I thought. I especially love their accent. Thanks Sexperience for designing that infographic. It will become one of my all-time favorites.
Courtesy of an article dated December 31, 1969 appearing in Fast Company Design
Are you the type of person that can get easily angry online? I get angry a lot, especially when arguing with dumb asses that won't listen to reason. Political differences almost always lead to anger then argument ensues. The Internet provides the perfect playground for creating and generating arguments.
COMMENTARY: Don't get angry, get even is my motto. I love picking on religious conservative nutwigs, former Vietnam vets, with flags on their Harleys and pickups, who believe in things like The Rapture and hate gays, blacks, latinos, love Bush, hate Obama with a passion, and think it's okay to give tax cuts to the rich. That's what I call brainwashing. Rush and Beck did a splendid job of brainwashing them. So if you are a redneck punkass, like the one I just described, and I got you started already, post something nasty, do it and we can start an online argument.
Courtesy of an article dated August 3, 2011 appearing in Laughing Squid
While social media is still too new to gauge its long-term effects on human psychology, a handful of studies suggest seem to confirm conventional wisdom to the effect that social media -- including online gaming -- can has addictive qualities that are harmful to vulnerable people who over-use the new technologies.
In a recent study by Dr. Larry Rosen, a social media researcher at California State University, Dominguez Hills, surveyed more than 1,000 urban adolescents and found a number of negative effects from overuse of social media, varying by the type of activity. For example, teens who play online games all the time are more likely to experience physical and psychological symptoms including insomnia, agitation, depression, and stomach aches. Meanwhile teens who log into Facebook more than average are also more likely to be "self-absorbed," "narcissistic," belligerent, paranoid, and -- ironically enough -- antisocial. "Obsessive" social media use can also result in truancy, lower test scores, and bad grades.
One of the most interesting findings from Rosen's survey showed that teens and young adults who log into Facebook very frequently are more likely to abuse alcohol than others. I have no idea why this might be, since it seems equally plausible that alcohol abuse could just as easily be correlated with social behavior (binge drinking at parties) as antisocial behavior (binge drinking alone). Maybe it's a little of both.
As a matter of fact this isn't the first study to suggest that apparently unrelated negative behaviors, like substance abuse, are correlated with excessive social media use. In November I wrote about a study from Case Western Reserve's School of Medicine, warning that excessive use of social media -- specifically, "hypertexting" (sending more than 120 messages per school day) and "hypernetworking" (spending more than three hours per day on sites like Facebook) -- is linked to dangerous health problems and antisocial behavior in teens.
Among the Case Western findings about teens:
Teens who hypertext are:
Twice as likely to have tried alcohol.
3.5 times more likely to have had sex.
40% more likely to have tried cigarettes.
41% more likely to have used illicit drugs.
43% more likely to be binge drinkers.
55% more likely to have been in a physical fight.
90% more likely to report four or more sexual partners.
Heavy social network users were:
60% more likely to have four or more sexual partners.
62% more likely to have tried cigarettes.
69% more likely to be binge drinkers.
69% more likely to have had sex.
79% more likely to have tried alcohol.
84% more likely to have used illicit drugs.
94% more likely to have been in a physical fight.
All this may seem pretty damning at first glance. However, I would argue (as I have in the past) that excessive social media use and texting are just symptoms of longstanding social ills. It's well known that adolescents, struggling with unstable identities and mood swings, are more likely to engage in self-destructive behavior. I believe excessive social media use is closely related to the sense of incompleteness and insecurity which bedevils many teens (not to mention a good number of adults): like alcohol, tobacco, drugs and sex, it serves to occupy a restless, wandering, attention-seeking personality, which believes itself totally unable to find peace and tranquility on its own terms.
COMMENTARY: If parents are reading this, they should take careful note of those numbers, especially heavy teen usage of social networks like Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. Those are appalling numbers, but reflective of today's social media addicted society.
At an early age children are exposed to bad social behaviors, too much sex, scenes of violent crimes and bad language on TV and films. Teens experiencing puberty go through a period where they are experimenting with not only sex, but smoking, drinking and drugs. Peer pressure is intense. Many find it cool, and enjoy that "hit" and "high" from smoking, consuming drugs and drinking. Even violent behavior offers a release, another psychological high, if you will. We all went through this in our youth, but it has gotten worse, perhaps even intensified through social networking because teens share information about their experiences and this is just as bad as negative word-of-mouth.
Rosen said new research has also found positive influences linked to social networking, including:
Young adults who spend more time on Facebook are better at showing “virtual empathy” to their online friends.
Online social networking can help introverted adolescents learn how to socialize behind the safety of various screens, ranging from a two-inch smartphone to a 17-inch laptop.
Social networking can provide tools for teaching in compelling ways that engage young students.
For parents, Rosen offered guidance.
“If you feel that you have to use some sort of computer program to surreptitiously monitor your child's social networking, you are wasting your time. Your child will find a workaround in a matter of minutes. You have to start talking about appropriate technology use early and often and build trust, so that when there is a problem, whether it is being bullied or seeing a disturbing image, your child will talk to you about it.”
He encouraged parents to assess their child’s activities on social networking sites, and discuss removing inappropriate content or connections to people who appear problematic. Parents also need to pay attention to the online trends and the latest technologies, websites and applications children are using, he said.
Rosen said.
“Communication is the crux of parenting. You need to talk to your kids, or rather, listen to them. The ratio of parent listen to parent talk should be at least five-to-one. Talk one minute and listen for five.”
Courtesy of an article dated August 8, 2011 appearing in MediaPost Publications The Social Graf
David McCandless points out the biases of each side -- the fundamental difference in how they approach child-rearing.
In American politics today, right and left are often just labels -- Democrats and Republicans alike believe that their stance should be whatever does most damage to the other side. Forget having any political principles. For example, the principles behind "Obamacare" began in conservative think tanks like the Heritage foundation and were loved by the Republican party. Until those principles became Obama's, and then they became a socialist world plot. Likewise, it was Clinton who make possible the lax finance-regulation environment that yielded the financial crisis of 2008. Whatever happened to consumer advocacy, and a check on big business?
Amid all that confusion, it's useful to remember what each side is supposed to stand for, and David McCandless has attempted to lay it all out in an infographic.
Created with data-viz phenom Stefanie Posavec, the chart is actually McCandless's second stab at the challenge; he acknowledges that the early versions displayed a slight liberal bias, owing to his own beliefs, which painted the left in a slightly better light. So he endeavored to correct that. Here is a detail of the left side:
The Left
The Right
It all seems fairly accurate, at least in regards to the basic political principles. (The survey data, however, seems a bit baffling to me -- and its not clear what the source is.) But maybe the most subtle argument within the chart -- and perhaps the most controversial -- lies in the connection between political beliefs and child-rearing. As McCandless thinks of it:
The Right - The right-leaning parenting style is based on "respect and fear": Stern discipline that produces a self-reliant child.
The Left - On the left, it's "respect and trust," which lead to a nurturing environment that's about self-expression.
There's a nugget of anecdotal truth behind these simplifications:
Anyone who grew up in the South can attest to the child-rearing style there.
Anyone who grew up in the Northeast or California can attest to the PC, anything-goes mores you'd find in your standard top-shelf Montessori school. (The major flaw with this sort of thinking, of course, is that it reflects not just a liberal view, a high-income liberal outlook; I'd guess that parenting is probably more of a function of income than politics.)
But then again, the idea of nurturing your child and treating them as something of an equal seems to dominate parenting books these days; you'd be hard-pressed to find a parenting book about the right way to dole out spankings. But we're awash in books about making a kid creative. Assuming that this reflects an underlying reality of parenting, the present age of parenting wisdom would seem to imply two things:
Liberals won the parenting debate.
The next generation of kids should be liberal as hell. The latter actually seems to be true.
Could parenting be the cause? Studies consistently show that your political beliefs are largely inherited from your parents. So would a kid with conservative parents who believed in liberal parenting mores grow up to be a Democrat or a Republican? Makes for an interesting thought experiment; too bad we can't actually run a real experiment.
COMMENTARY: I thought liberal states were blue and conservative states were red. The above infographic has the colors switched.
I don't know if liberals won the parenting debate or whether liberal parents have more wisdom. I doubt that this is completely true. I think rearing style and tone have a lot to do with it too. I've never believed in spanking my children as a form of discipline.
Things can really go awry when you throw in a healthy dosage of religion, because nobody dares to question the words of God (or Jesus for that matter). If it says so in the "Good Book", it must be true, so therefore, let's make it the Law. Our Founding Father's in their incredible wisdom agree with me and even warned of the need for separation of church and government. In fact, you will not find a single mention of the word "God" anywhere in the U.S. Constitution.
Having said this, let's look at the political beliefs of the left and the right, more specifically, the Democratic and Republican parties.
The Republican Party believes that the United States has been blessed with a unique set of individual rights and freedoms available to all.
The Republican Party is inspired by the power and ingenuity of the individual to succeed through hard work, family support and self-discipline.
The Republican Party believes in the value of voluntary giving and community support over taxation and forced redistribution.
The Republican Party, like our nation's founders, believes that government must be limited so that it never becomes powerful enough to infringe on the rights of individuals.
The Republican Party supports low taxes because individuals know best how to make their own economic and charitable choices.
The Republican Party is supportive of logical business regulations that encourage entrepreneurs to start more businesses so more individuals can enjoy the satisfaction and fruits of self-made success.
The Republican Party is committed to preserving our national strength while working to extend peace, freedom and human rights throughout the world.
The political beliefs of each party were taken directly from the GOP.com and Democrats.org. I didn't make any of this up.
President Washington in his Farewell Address warned us all about the dangers of political parties in the following captions from that speech:
"All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They [political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests."
"However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion."
I think George Washington had it 100% right. If Washington were alive today, I wonder what he would be saying. Also let's all remember this famous anecdote:
"Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."
What do you think?
For some of you who are wondering who David McCandless is, click HERE.
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