The key ideas

Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy

Martin Lindstrom, 2008

A smoker writes in a questionnaire that the warnings on cigarette packs help her smoke less, while the scanner shows that the same labels stir up her craving for a cigarette. Martin Lindstrom spent three years scanning the brains of two thousand volunteers to understand what decides for us in a store. You’ll see how images without a logo, smells, music and rituals work, and learn to notice them before you reach the checkout.

Who it is for

For anyone who wants to understand why they buy exactly what they buy, and for those who sell and build brands themselves.

The more we know about why we fall prey to the tricks and tactics of advertisers, the better we can defend ourselves against them.

The answer on paper and the brain’s answer

Marlene from Middlesex, near London, has been smoking for fifteen years. In a questionnaire she writes that the warnings on packs work on her and that she smokes less. Then she lies in a scanner for more than an hour and looks at the same warnings.

The scans showed something else. According to the study, labels like “smoking kills” did not dampen the craving. What’s more, they stimulated the nucleus accumbens, the area of the brain that is active when a person craves something. Marlene wasn’t lying. Her conscious mind simply didn’t know what was going on inside her own head.

This experiment is described by Martin Lindstrom, a Danish brand consultant. He spent three years and about seven million dollars from eight corporations using MRI and brain-wave recordings to look into the brains of 2,081 volunteers from five countries. The author’s conclusion: we make most of our purchases on autopilot and find the explanations afterward.

Lindstrom himself calls neuromarketing a young science and expects some of his conclusions to be challenged. So what follows are his findings, not laws of nature. But each one will help you notice what decides for you at the shelf.

A cowboy without a logo

When cigarette advertising began to be banned, tobacco brands didn’t disappear from view. They sponsored car races with red race cars and furnished bars with sofas in Marlboro colors. Lindstrom decided to test whether advertising works when it doesn’t say a word about cigarettes.

Smokers were shown two sets of images. The first had Marlboro and Camel packs and logos. The second had nothing resembling cigarettes: a cowboy against a mountain backdrop, a sunset, a red Ferrari. According to Gemma Calvert, who led the scanning, the second set stirred up the same craving areas as the packs, and even more strongly.

The author explains it this way. A logo switches on our defenses: a person recognizes an ad and mentally shuts it out. When there is no logo, the association gets through unchecked. He cites a similar case from Britain. For years the brand Silk Cut printed its logo on purple silk, and after the ban it left only the silk on its billboards. In a survey, 98 percent of people linked the silk to the brand, though they couldn’t explain why.

It’s worth watching not only the signage but also the color and mood that sell a product without its name.

Read in Livria

About the author

Martin Lindstrom, a Danish brand consultant, has worked with major global companies. Buyology is based on a study he carried out with neuroscientists, funded by eight corporations.

All books by this author: Martin Lindstrom

Terms from the book

  • Dopamine
  • Scanner
  • Nucleus accumbens
  • Rizzolatti
  • Mirror neurons
  • Damasio
  • Leicester
  • Ritual
  • Mother Teresa
  • Jobs
  • Newton
  • Marlene: One of the smokers in Lindstrom’s study. In her questionnaire she wrote that the warnings on packs helped her smoke less.
  • Middlesex: A historic county northwest of London, today part of Greater London.
  • Neuromarketing: The study of how the brain reacts to products, advertising and brands using scanning. The author himself calls it a young science.
  • MRI: Magnetic resonance imaging. Functional MRI shows which areas of the brain receive more oxygen-rich blood, that is, which of them are working harder at the moment.
  • Calvert: Gemma Calvert, a British neuroimaging specialist. She led the MRI scanning in Lindstrom’s study.
  • Silk Cut: A British cigarette brand. Before the advertising ban, it taught people to associate it with purple silk.
  • Abercrombie: Abercrombie & Fitch, an American clothing brand for teenagers and young adults. Known for the models at its store entrances and its signature scent in the stores.
  • Somatic marker: Damasio’s term: a link between past experience, a bodily sensation and a reaction. It suggests a decision faster than reasoning does.
  • Montague: Read Montague, an American neuroscientist. In 2003 he repeated the “Pepsi Challenge” while scanning the participants’ brains.
  • Andrex: A British toilet paper brand. For many years its advertising has featured a Labrador puppy.
  • Heath: Robert Heath, a British advertising consultant. He wrote about how advertising creates somatic markers.
  • Guinness: An Irish brand of dark beer. It made the slow pour of a pint part of its advertising.

All terms

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