Buyology - Martin Lindstrom [69]
What I’m describing is a subtle sensory assault that doesn’t rely exclusively on vision but which summons our nostrils, our eardrums, and our fingertips. Thanks to fMRI, we now know the extent to which the senses are intertwined; that fragrance can make us see, sound can make us smack our lips, and sight can help us imagine sound, taste, and touch—that is, if it’s the right pairing of sensory input. For many advertisers, this finding will be a revelation; for consumers, it will validate a strange blurring of the senses that we’ve always known was there but haven’t been able to identify before. Tomorrow’s retail world? It will have the distinct smell of cantaloupe, lemongrass, tangerine. It won’t be black and white, but in vivid color. It will chirp, waltz, holler, infuse you, and leave you humming. And this assault on your senses will be more effective in winning your mind, your loyalty, and your dollars than you ever thought possible.
Take Alli, GlaxoSmithKline’s over-the-counter weight loss treatment. Not only are its colors eye-catchingly vivid (red, blue, yellow and green against a white background), but the uniquely shaped, conveniently portable pill carrier, known as a shuttle, has a gentle, bubbled texture—all of which serves to evoke associations of collaboration and partnership of you and the product embarking on a journey together, hand in hand. Remember, the road to emotion runs through our sensory experiences, and as we’ve shown in this chapter, emotion is one of the most powerful forces in driving what we buy.
SO FAR, WE have seen many ways in which neuromarketing can shed light on what and why we buy. But can it go so far as to predict the future success or failure of a product? Our next brain-scanning experiment tested the predictive powers of neuromarketing, using the pilot of a TV game show that hundreds of study subjects claimed to hate—but secretly kind of loved.
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AND THE ANSWER IS…
Neuromarketing and Predicting the Future
IT WAS, ACCORDING TO its prerelease buzz, a slam dunk, one of those once-in-a-lifetime, can’t-miss inventions. Web sites offered tantalizing rumors, wild guesses, and endless What-ifs. It would revolutionize transportation. It would render cars obsolete. It would banish bicycles and motorcycles from streets and sidewalks. Apple CEO Steve Jobs went so far as to assert that future cities would be built around it. Venture capitalist John Doerr predicted $1 billion in sales for what he foresaw as potentially the most successful product launch in history. In preparation for the anticipated demand of this thing (it didn’t have a name yet), a New England factory readied itself to assemble roughly 40,000 units a month.
In early December 2001, the Segway PT (short for personal transporter) was released. You remember it, it looked like a rolling upright lawnmower with oversized wheels and a small platform to stand on, something you might motor along in if you were a bionic clone living in the year 2375. When the first three Segways were auctioned off, consumers bought them for more than $100,000 apiece.
But despite all the hype, less than two years later, only six thousand Segways had been sold. And when in 2006 Segway released a new Gen II PT, sales were even more dismal. Despite the novelty of the contraption, at five or six thousand dollars apiece (depending on the model), few people, it seemed, actually wanted to own one. It had been predicted to be one of the most successful, revolutionary products in history, but any way you look at it, the Segway turned out to be a disappointment. It’s hardly alone.
As I mentioned in Chapter 1, 80 percent of all product launches fail in the first three months. From soft drinks to paper towels to chocolate bars to hair dryers, the list of fallen products is like a roll call of the dearly departed.
In