Buyology - Martin Lindstrom [56]
For example, why do many consumers choose to buy an Audi over other cars with equally attractive designs, comparable safety ratings, and similar prices? It might very well have something to do with the company’s slogan, Vorsprung durch Technik. Now, I strongly doubt many people outside of Germany or Switzerland know what this means (roughly, it translates to “progress and/or head start through technology” U2 fans, of which I’m one, will note that Bono murmurs the phrase at the beginning of the song “Zooropa”). But that’s not the point. Most people will guess correctly that the phrase is German. Our brains link together “automobile” with “Germany” with everything we’ve picked up over our lifetimes about top-of-the-line Teutonic car manufacturing. High standards. Precision. Consistency. Rigor. Efficiency. Trustworthiness. The result: we walk out of the showroom holding the keys to a new Audi. Why? We are rarely conscious of it, but the fact is that in a world teeming with cars that are for the most part indistinguishable, a somatic marker that connects Germany with technological excellence comes alive in our brain and ushers us toward a brand preference.
Or let’s imagine that you’re shopping for a digital camera. Even with the vast array of features—optical zoom, tony image processors, face detection gizmos, red-eye correctors—most of them look exactly the same. So why do you find yourself gravitating toward the ones that come from Japan? Once, back before Japan became a global leader in manufacturing technology, the words “Made in Japan” turned you off. You associated it with cheap kids’ toys, gadgets that fell apart after fifteen minutes, and crummy, mass-marketed merchandise put together by people working in substandard conditions. But now anything Japanese seems to you a marvel of cutting-edge sophistication. Again, based purely on a series of unconscious markers, your mind has linked together Japan with technological excellence and you leave the store with a new Japanese camera under your arm.
This is all very well and good, but by now you might be wondering, how do these markers form? And do companies and advertisers work to deliberately create these in our brains? You bet. Take TV commercials. If you’ve ever shopped for tires, you know that they all look the same—Dunlop, Bridge-stone, Goodyear—nothing but a mind-numbing ocean of black rubber. Yet you automatically make your way, say, to the store’s Michelin section. You know you’re making the right choice but you can’t really articulate why. In truth, your brand preference has very little to do with the tires themselves, but instead with the somatic markers the brand has carefully created. Remember the cute baby Michelin once used in their advertising? Or what about the Michelin man, whose plump, round appearance suggests the protective padding of a well-made tire? And then there are the Michelin Guides, those slender, authoritative, high-end travel and food guides (which the company invented so that consumers would drive around in pursuit of the best restaurants—and thus purchase more tires). Point is, all these seemingly unrelated bookmarks deliberately forge certain associations—safety for your child passengers; sturdy, reliable durability; and a high-quality, top-of-the-line, European experience. And it’s these powerful associations that come together to shepherd you toward a choice that feels rational, but that isn’t at all.
Professor Robert Heath, a British consultant who among other things has written extensively about somatic markers, has examined the success of a brand of British toilet paper known as Andrex that outsells its nearest rival, Kleenex, in the