Neuromarketing - Communicate feature article

Feature: Neuromarketing
Communicate March 201334
I
n a fascinating recent article I was reminded
how Aristotle – back in AD350 – was a master
of message and delivery, with his formula for
content sharing after a good speech.
To ensure an oration is persuasive and strong
enough for listeners to pass on, it has to work to the
three simple principles: ethos, pathos and lagos –
elements of ‘ethical, emotional, and logical’ appeal
respectfully and the key ingredients of any good speech,
worth sharing.
Nowadays, with everyone having their own social
voice through which to share content, marketers
scramble for every new technology and widget to get
ever closer to the herded message. It’s a confusing time
as the connected world leads a swell of emotions in
one way, and the other, with items of titillation and
celebrity, promotion and value. Unlike in the past, the
content being released now is often lacking curation.
Brands no longer feel secure as group loyalties and
attentions sway from one event or moment to the next.
We’ve moved away from the topdown advertisers’
delight of years long gone, to a more peer influenced
world where so the notion of ‘word of mouth’ has
become the trading floor for all attentions, not to
mention sales. We’re witnessing the greatest shift in
control and power struggle as brands work harder and
smarter to ingratiate themselves with their audiences.
This shift implies that digital, digital content in
particular, will have to change. The clues once again lie
within, as the field of neuromarketing looks to tap the
inner workings of our social and psychological patterns,
for new ways to engage and converse.
If companies begin to act as personas, customers
will also begin to identify with these personalities and
how much they listen to and trust them. This may
become a proven way to win trust through
your company’s behaviour.
Communicators have been shifting toward a
content-focused model since the social media
boom. Content agencies have sprung up around the
world, in-house teams have embraced brand
journalism and content creation and individual
The future of communications is inherently a psychological and more mindful process. For
business, developing engaging content is a psychological process, writes Hubert Grealish
It’s all in your head
communicators have become content producers, editors
and developers in their own right. Gilad de Vries, senior
vice president of Outbrain, a digital content company,
said last year, “What brands needed was a completely
new vehicle to engage with their consumers in the
digital space. In the digital world, there’s so much
content that one of the biggest challenges was ‘How do
you get people to find that content and engage with the
content the brands are producing?’” The answer may be
found in neuromarketing.
In a groundbreaking study from 1979, persons, or
perhaps companies, should act ‘as if’ they represent
the values or characteristics they wish to be known
for. Theoretically, that is exactly what will happen. In
this test, Harvard professor Ellen Langer found that
by simply filling an old folks home with 1950s icons
and memorabilia and asking the men in their ’70s to
pretend it was 20 years earlier, not only did the subjets
act convincingly, they actually started to demonstrate
improved physiological and youthful health
improvements, almost as if they were younger again.
As professor Langer said herself of the study,
“Wherever you put the mind, the body will follow.”
Indeed, with four decades study now behind her, she
says, “Mindfulness is the essence of engagement” when
considering how to effect change in people.
However, in a world with thousands of messages
bombarding the world each day, communicators
are still struggling to reach through the noise. By
introducing psychological or emotional triggers into
content, they may be able to achieve cut-through. Until
they succeed though, brands no longer feel secure as
group loyalties and attentions sway from one piece of
content to the next. The industry seems to at times even
lack a certain confidence in itself.
And so, in this more peer-influenced world of word
of mouth, communicators are all ring-side witnesses to
the greatest shift in control as companies bow to more
public opinion and work harder to engage increasingly
obscure and disinterested audiences.
So what to do? The answer is straightforward.
Companies, like folk, need to follow and think like the
34-35_3rd feat_mch'14_p.indd 34 03/03/2014 14:38

Feature: Corporate affairs
March 2013 Communicate 35
herd. They should behave ‘as if’ they already represent
their best selves, delivering on whatever values and
services for which they seek to be known.
We need to consider what already makes us happy
and gives us pleasure, for new ways to produce useful
and engaging content. James Olds and Peter Milner
released research in the 1950s that discovered the
brain’s pleasure center – essentially determining that
certain triggers can have an positive emotional response
on people. Neuromarketing seeks to harness these
triggers in branded content in order to reach audiences
more effectively.
Music can be a clear winner for neuromarketing.
Some of the most viral and far reaching campaigns
I’ve worked on haven’t focused on product or brand
marketing, they’ve consciously avoided it. In one case
with partner professor Daniel Levitin, a neurologist and
ex-music producer, we set out to seek the ‘sex, drugs
and rock ‘n’ roll’ part of the brain. That was in 2006
and the results helped sell early digital audio products.
As Dr Levitin himself found, “Many people today
use music for emotional regulation in the way that
they use drugs such as caffeine and alcohol: they use
a certain kind of music to help get them going in the
morning, another kind to unwind after work. People
use music to help make it through their exercise
workout or to comfort them during emotional crises.”
So music is the doctor.
His book on the topic continues to generate news
even now, almost a decade later.
Nike’s Just Do It strapline continues to endure as
an example of the success of neuromarketing, calling
on its consumers to get out there and get busy, without
overtly plugging any product. It gets people to buy
into the pleasurable lifestyle idea, which has a greater
reach than any single product.
Neuromarketers of the new age will move away
from product and brand messages, direct to the
moments of pleasure and achievement, which make
our daily lives. At base level, the importance is to
consider simplicity and emotion. Keep the message
human. This need not be a complex matter, not in
execution anyway. The back-end ‘under the bonnet’
workings of larger and matrix organizations need not
intrude on the customer mindset.
In social media, everyone is quick to retweet and
share the cutest of cats and the most shocking news.
Though it’s not without a price. Those who like or +1
branded content, are keeping a semi-conscious tally
of their attentions to that company, with a view to
one day wanting some attention in return. This was
proven in tests with monkeys, whose brains specifically
remembered when scientists gave extra juice to their
peers. As for the humans, beware the free lunch, as
people won’t forget the likes.
And finally, a word on mindfulness. As we’ve seen in
TIME, people are increasingly aware and open to new
ways of managing their (grey) matter. With so many
individuals now embracing more conscious living, the
possibilities for communicators are endless. A more
developed sense of intuition can allow communicators
to anticipate and connect with audiences at their most
primed moments, while also consciously knowing
when to hold back. Now there’s a thought – a mindful
business model.
Hubert Grealish is partner, strategy & communications,
MPERA Media Consulting.
If companies begin to act as
personas, customers will also
begin to identify with these
personalities and how much
they listen to and trust them
34-35_3rd feat_mch'14_p.indd 35 03/03/2014 14:38

Neuromarketing - Communicate feature article

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Neuromarketing - Communicate feature article