Buyology - Martin Lindstrom [82]
Another ad, debuted by Nationwide Annuities, starred the indomitable Kevin Federline, Britney Spears’s ex-husband. Dressed all in white, K-Fed unwinds himself from a red sports car as bikini-wearing females cluster around him. In a reverse twist on the GM ad, the entire scenario is revealed as a workplace reverie. The next shot reveals the real-life Kevin Federline manning the counter of a fast-food chain. The tagline? Life comes at you fast. The obvious subtext is that a man can be on top of the world one moment and working a minimum-wage job the next—so he’d be wise to protect himself by investing with Nationwide.
As the volunteers viewed the two commercials, fMRI scans revealed a noticeable amount of stimulation in their amygdalas, the region of the brain that generates dread, anxiety, and the fight-or-flight impulse.
In other words, the commercials had scared viewers, leaving them upset, rattled, anxious, on edge. The subjects might have been thinking about the uncertainty of the economy or their own job security, or they might just have found the robot—or Kevin Federline—inherently fear-inducing. Point is, the brain scans revealed information of incredible value to GM and Nationwide Annuities: that their $2.4 million commercials not only weren’t working, they were scaring people away.4
But perhaps the biggest lesson companies have learned from neuromarketing is that traditional research methods, like asking consumers why they buy a product, only get at a minuscule part of the brain processes that underlie decision-making. Most of us can’t really say, “I bought that Louis Vuitton bag because it appealed to my sense of vanity, and I want my friends to know I can afford a $500 purse, too,” or “I bought that Ralph Lauren shirt because I want to be perceived as an easygoing prepster who doesn’t have to work, even though all my credit cards are maxed out.” As we have seen again and again, most of our buying decisions aren’t remotely conscious. Our brain makes the decision and most of the time we aren’t even aware of it.
But despite what we are now starting to learn about how our brain influences our buying behavior, there is still much more yet for scientists to discover. So how will the findings of neuroscience affect how (and what) we buy in the near future? I believe that our national obsession with buying and consuming is just going to escalate, as marketers become better and better at targeting our subconscious wishes and desires.
Though in some cases (for example, the Nationwide commercial, which left viewers generally anxious and rattled), fear can drive consumers away from a product, there is no denying that fear exerts an extremely powerful effect on the brain. In fact, when fear-based advertising plays less on our generalized anxieties and more on our insecurities about ourselves, it can be one of the most persuasive—and memorable—types of advertising out there. Given that, I predict we’ll be seeing more and more marketing based on fear in the years to come. Remember that the more stress we’re under in our world, and the more fearful we are, the more we seek out solid foundations. The more we seek out solid foundations, the more we become dependent on dopamine. And the more dopamine surges through our brains, the more we want, well, stuff. It’s as though we’ve climbed aboard a fast-moving escalator and can’t get off to save our lives. Perhaps George W. Bush knew a little something about the brain—when asked what Americans could do to contribute in the fearful, unsettled days and weeks after 9/11, he replied with a simple monosyllabic: “Shop.”
Soon, more and more companies will go out of their way to play on our fears and insecurities about ourselves, to make us think we’re not good enough, that if we don’t buy their product, we’ll somehow be missing out. That we’ll become more and more imperfect; that we’ll have dandruff or bad skin or dull hair or be overweight or have a lousy fashion sense.