There's a Sucker Born in Every Medial Prefrontal Cortex

This summer, when it opened its doors for
business, the BrightHouse Institute for Thought Sciences in
Atlanta became the first neuromarketing firm to boast a
Fortune 500 consumer-products company as a client. (The
client's identity is currently a secret.) The institute
will scan the brains of a representative sample of its
client's prospective customers, assess their reactions to
the company's products and advertising and tweak the
corporate image accordingly.

Not long ago, M.R.I. machines were used solely for medical
purposes, like diagnosing strokes or discovering tumors.
But neuroscience has reached a sort of cocky adolescence;
it has become routine to read about researchers tackling
every subject under the sun, placing test subjects in
M.R.I. machines and analyzing their brain activity as they
do everything from making moral choices to praying to
appreciating beauty.

http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/neuro/neuromarketing_nyt.html

in tinfoil.

Have fun....

Thanks for the find.

I am sending that one all over the place.

Check out the other one I just put up in GD about Forced treatment?
What blew me is it totally DISCRIBED the stupid process and my experinces with the state that I went through for being a free minded kid.

If you could provide a link, I will read it.

I am somewhere between music and checking on DU. I just simply do not have the time or energy to see everything.

But when I was younger...

I never missed a thing.

I have commercial free TV available to me when I choose and when I don't, I watch local TV (Europe) just to see the commercials. They're hilarious. I think the UK has the best commercials for entertainment value.

Poland has some funny ones. Germany's commercials - some are funny...some are too much like American TV.

When I visited the states back in May, the commercials on TV in the states irritated the caca out of me. I found them annoying - not at all funny...and relentless.

But I am curious about how people respond to a product, a way of thinking...and why. So I view commercials in a way they weren't intended to be viewed. I see them as a window into the changing cultural attitudes of a country(simply because the commercial has the power to shape and change cultural attitudes)...what makes the people tick...what appeals to them...how that's used to manipulate them.

I don't tune them out. I don't turn them off. I want to see them for what they are...

It's not a "product" (shampoo, car, food, drink) they are selling so much as it's a (false) lifestyle and a way of thinking...owning the product just means you're on board with the program and the company needs you to be on board with the program.

So they'll define the "American Dream"...they'll define "cool" and they'll define "what you need"

The commercial is to convince you that you're not with it, or behind the times, or out of step with the rest of the people...so they aren't saying "buy this product and you'll be instantly cool" - nothing that simple...they are saying "you're wrong and different and out of touch because you don't think this way"...because if you thought this way, you'd have all the trappings that indicate that you are one of us...you don't belong - because you're not with the program...you don't think like the rest of us do..because if you did....well, you'd do this.

Marketing is my game.

And it is a game. Winners, losers.

Pray tell, just where are you located?

So, what do you tell people they just have to have to be happy little campers? :)

I have always noticed that you have a slightly different take on things here and that you tack to a slightly different course.

Are you in Germany through choice or profession? I take it that you are originally from the U.S.

Just teasing.

Husband's assignment brought us here in 2004. Hopefully it will be a long stay. I enjoy living here.

that the brand fits with who you already are. The brand doesn't make you cool. You are already cool, you are perfect, and the brand is a way of expressing your perfection. You may be a Jackass-loving junk food muncher, you may be a status-obsessed workaholic, but whatever you are there is a brand that expresses your pride in that.

What's more, brands finally recognize that people are more than one dimensional in their lifestyle choices. You are this way at work; you are that way at home. You're this way as a parent but that way as an adult, or when you hang with the guys or girls, or whatever. And you can be a whole lot of those things all at once.

It's a subtle difference but a real one, and it's the way more marketers are going.

and each demographic is special and wonderful and perfect...but not really, of course...because if you were, you'd do this...and people like you buy this, wear this, believe this and say this

It's not the product...it's the feeling you're left with (course it does help to remember the product). You need more to truly be perfect...you need more to truly be who you are and what you are...sure, you're perfect...but you still need this..and without this in your home, you aren't being true to yourself

That's shaping a demographics. Which is why certain commercials are aired during specific TV shows and time slots. The commercials appeal to the most likely viewers of that show.

So I don't really see appealing to demographics as anything new...new adaptations for that appeal, yes...such as changing needs..."I'm more than this..I'm also this"...but really, people have always been more - they have always been multi-dimensional....they were just taught to think otherwise - until they thought differently. And it's a safe bet that another external force got them to thinking differently.

So marketing influences people and is influenced by people.

So, to put a directly political bent on it, during a show that appeals to conservative voters or, more importantly, a show that wants to appeal to conservative voters...there will be flags in the background, the family is pushed, men as strong and manly is pushed..women as homemakers is pushed...thus shaping and reinforcing the idea of "traditional"

The product can be aspirin...but the point is...good "real", patriotic, god-fearing Americans who believe in one man one woman use this...so it appeals to a way of thinking, shapes that thinking and reinforces that thinking.


Maybe we're saying the same thing in different ways?

First off, I have read Read Montague's research and found it very interesting. It doesn't just explain why people buy Coke when they like Pepsi, it gives insights into their political choices. I am all for more research and analysis like George Lakoff's to help understand the schism between liberals and conservatives, instead of simply vilifying each side. Even though the other side is evil. Heh.

Secondly, BrightHouse can call itself anything it wants but it's an ad agency. Okay it calls itself the world's first Ideation Corporation, and it does branding instead of advertising, but founder Joey Reiman is an ad guy and that's what ad guys do. They name a gimmick and sell it. But even Reiman doesn't believe his neuroscience gimmick really works, and neither do neuroscientists. Here's a much better article that explains it.

http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=201

Thirdly, BrightHouse isn't that big a secret. Its main client has always been Coke. (Small world, eh.) It's in Atlanta where Coke is headquartered, and Coke is very big on developing its marketing through nontraditional venues. Like when they partnered with Hollywood's biggest talent agency, CAA. Everyone in the business said OMFG, this is the new way to do things, we gotta do it too! But Coke dumped CAA last January.

http://www.brandweek.com/bw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001844302

So is neuroscience the next big thing in marketing? Meh. It's just another way of selling the client on your insights. But not everything works - e.g. subliminal advertising. Doesn't work. And even when something does work, it doesn't work forever. Why? Because people don't like to be sold stuff. They like to discover it.

Finally, BrightHouse may or may not exist any longer. I became aware of them only last year and since then have tried in vain to locate any information more recent than 2004. They don't have a website. A communications company, an "ideation corporation," without a website? They charge clients a gajillion dollars per project. Where the fuck is their site? I have found only one article that mentions Joey Reiman and/or Brighthouse since:
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/stories/2006/09/17/0918marta.html

They did an ideation for Atlanta's public transportation system. Some of BrightHouse's suggestions are detailed in the article. If he had to wire up anyone's brains to get these insights, it was a waste of electricity. The ideas reflect current brand thinking but they are not amazing breakthroughs. These days every marketer is focused on establishing an emotion-driven experience with their audience. Which takes us all the way back around to the opening of my post:

I am all for more research and analysis like George Lakoff's to help understand the schism between liberals and conservatives, instead of simply vilifying each side. Even though the other side is evil. Heh.