Yesterday during a new business meeting, I was again reminded that it’s too easy for marketing to live in the analytical side of the brain — especially when buying decisions are often made in the emotional side of the brain.
I regularly read Brain Based Biz by Robyn McMaster and Brain Based Business by Ellen Weber but yesterday I was re-introduced to Neuro Science Marketing. This morning while reading the blog, imagine my surprise after I clicked on “The Smell of Marketing” to find that I had commented on this post about a year ago.
4 Responses to “Does Your Marketing Smell?â€
Chris Brown Says:
July 30th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
How does my marketing smell?hmm, hopefully like a:
* campfire burning with ambience.
* chocolate fudge sundae w/brownies, very rich but not expensive.
* like the sweat of a horse after a workout… Okay, I like the horse smell!
* like freshly mowed grass all neat and tidy.No really. How should I make my marketing firm smell? Usually it’s more like the smell of air conditioning. Not good.
Thanks for making me think about it!
Chris
This is developed along the same path as another website: Sales Brain & Neuromarketing which was recommended to me yesterday. When things like that happen, some people call it serendipty, others call it karma. I figure something is giving me a sign. Â
Studing how the brain listens and evaluates information is extremely interesting to me. Learning to use all the senses to engage the emotional part of the brain will trigger the “call to action” that we marketing and branding professionals use to get the prospects to take the next step in the sales process.
Touch, Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste: What sensory cues does your brand evoke?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Chris, I’m finding more and more that if you consider only the logical rooms in our brain, we leave out very important pieces. While so many others concentrate here, we can get to cutting edge outcomes by tapping into creativity, spontaneity and flow which comes from other rooms in our amazing brain.
The MITA brand evokes vision - changes you see and experience as a result of living the model at work and beyond.
Thanks so much for pointing out the work Ellen and I do. We value friends like you!
Wow — thanks for the deep dive into a fun topic Chris. In some ways we appeal to many more clients and in refreshing ways when we engage parts of their brains that others may pass over. I was thinking about that today — and an intrigued at how we build community by more fully using the full mix of human senses, and thanks for the wonderful angles you tossed into the winner’s circle on this topic.
Great topic and very useful links!
I have a question, can we say that all customers buying decisions are made in the emotional side of the brain? What about those who measure the expected benefits and credibility of the company they are dealing with? I think the last ones are making their decisions on analytical basis.
Which one should marketing be focusing upon, the emotional or the analytical side when dealing with prospects?
Thanks again for the interesting topic!
Ellen & Robyn:
I think the work that you two do is phenomonial — can’t tell you how much I value your blogs! Everytime I read an article, you have me thinking in a new and different or a deeper way. Thanks!
AxeCity:
You bring up interesting questions! To say all decisions are emotion is probably a stretch, however the analytical part of the rain really focuses on justifying the decision more than making the decision.
I think too often marketing focuses on just one or the other, but needs to have the right combination of both.
It’s like just focusing on features and ignoring benefits. Fear/Pain or Greed/Pleasure motivators combined with intellectual analytical information can be a powerful motivator, in my opinion.
What has been your experience?
Chris
Unfortunately, what I noticed about large numbers of prospects that they are making their decisions emotionally without paying an effort to read reviews or check about the features of what they are going to buy, or whether they really need those features or they are just following the word of buzz.
Many friends I know behave that way, they buy product X because their friends did so, not because they know that the features of that product will satisfy their needs, and here the same behaviour goes from one to another.
It is no doubt that real quality shows and proves itself soon, however, I think companies dealing with prospects with such behaviour should deliver a message that addresses their way of thinking and assure them about the popularity of their products, the same way they get such message from their friends and other people they deal with in their daily life.
This is a well documented subject and very much the area where I live. I don’t think there is any doubt that buying decisions (and maybe most or all other decisions) are emotional, but some people in some circumstances attempt to rationalise the decisions they have made.
This is what brands are all about. A brand is a community that we join because it reflects our values and/or views. A strong brand community will leverage that feeling of belonging to sell us stuff. That’s why we all own stuff that may not rationalise as the best choice, but which we feel comfortable with because they are part of our community.
Whatever you think it tells us about where we have come to as a race we also wear our purchases as a badge of belonging - OK, so we’re sad! We’ve all done it - refused a perfectly serviceable product because it isn’t cool or doesn’t say what we want about us.
We also change the dynamic of a brand by joining it’s community in the same way that we influence’s the profile of a residential area by moving in. So, brand communities are always changing and appealing to different types of people - its called fashion.
When all the shell-suit clad, bling-wearers own the stuff that we bought a year or so ago, we get outta’ town and move to a new community … until we are all rubbing shoulders once again with the great unwashed, when we move on again. Rational has nothing to do with it!