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This is Your Brain on Brands

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Last week at the 2011 Online Research Methods conference Phil Barden of Decode GmbH presented “Neuro-psychology online – theory into practice”. He began with a case study of the T-Mobile ad, ‘Dance’. “In a fiercely competitive market, our neuro-psychological approach created a TV ad that doubled football to stores, increased sales by 49%, increased market share by 6% and more than halved the cost of customer acquisition.”

So why aren't more researchers using neuro-science? The main barriers seem to be knowledge and understanding of the technique, skepticism and cost concerns. “Neuro-psychology sounds too academic, all science and white lab coats, but let’s go inside your head. More has been discovered in the last 20 years about how the brain works than in the previous several hundred years. There have been more Nobel prizes in this field than any other field in the past 10 years.”

“Only recently has this learning crossed over into our industry,” Phil said. “Neuro-science debunks a lot of theories and models that went before, such as the rational charioteer of Plato, controlling the emotional horses or the left and right brain distinction. In fact, modern imaging techniques show that rational thinking is not separate from emotional thinking and emotions play a fundamental role in how we make decisions.” Phil provided some examples:

• Show a mother a picture of her infant and her brain’s reward center lights up.
• Show a guy a picture of sports car and he responds with lust.
• Show a guy a picture of family car and that area of the brain is depressed.

In a study of how the brain responds to brands, researchers showed participants slides, some with their favorite brands included, some without. The participants had to think less for favorite brands; weak and unfamiliar brands led to greater brain activity. “We are cognitive misers; the primary function of the brain is not to think but to act. The brain seeing weak brands uses 40% of the body’s energy, where the brain seeing strong brands uses only 2-3% of the body’s energy.” The brain is working “overtime” to evaluate the weak brands. “Whenever and wherever it can, the brain switches off. We don't like to think. You can't fight biology.”

The dichotomy of the brain is not “left brain”/“right brain” but a division between what neuroscientists call System 1 and System 2: the implicit system or Autopilot and the explicit system or Pilot. The Pilot is the reflective cognitive engine. If the Pilot was a 40 bit system, the Autopilot would be an 11 megabit system – broadband speed receiving information from all the senses in parallel. “About 90-95% of our daily decision making is driven by Autopilot processes that operate below the level of our consciousness. Traditional research techniques give us insight into Pilot processes.” David Ogilvy famously said, “Consumers don't think how they feel, don't say what they feel, don't do what they say.” Their Pilots are confused about what their Autopilots are up to.

For instance, the Tropicana repackaging led to a 20% drop in sales. The research had said that the new design was fresher, cleaner and more modern, but that was the Pilot speaking. “The implicit system is driven by rewards. The Autopilot gets to desire first unconsciously and in fractions of a second; if something is desirable, then we will then pay attention to it. The Autopilot is the key gatekeeper for our action.”

When deciphering the implicit rewards of brands, Decode looks to six dimensions: excitement, adventure, autonomy, discipline, security and enjoyment. To field research leveraging neuro-psychology online, Decode shows images to a survey respondent in rapid fire fashion, measuring reaction time; for instance, “brand X = strong”, “brand X = harmony”. The shorter the reaction time, the more likely the response is from the Autopilot rather than the Pilot. (Prior to asking the questions being researched, the respondent answers some test questions, such as an image of Brad Pitt labeled  “man” and then an 1980s image of Boy George also labeled “man”.)  Based on the results, brands are then diagramed across the six dimensions. Decode will measure TV commercials, package design, new product concepts and sponsorship ideas for fitness to the brand.

Phil concluded, “The implicit system drives over 90% of decisions, so how much of your research budget is spent on measuring it?”