Why is it that we buy so many products by force of habit? Without even noticing, our hands will grab the product we’ve bought many times before. As we make 500 million decisions daily and 95% of these decisions are made unconsciously, it is clear that we cannot think rationally about everything.

Things we often see and do are stored in the part of our brain that is in charge of our 'habits'. However – lucky marketers – our brain also has an adventurous part that is sensitive to new experiences that we find attractive or that give us a euphoric feeling (desire).
There’s just one little problem: we also have a little part of the brain that is involved in emotions like pain and disgust. This part will be stimulated when we see the price of a product. Ow, spending money hurts! We combine the activities from the different brain areas in our frontal lobe and make a decision. How much do I want to have the product compared to the price I have to pay? It doesn’t need much explanation that the art of marketing is basically convincing the brain that desire dominates pain.
How does it work?
The field of neuromarketing gives insight into the subconscious emotions and motivation of consumers. Neuroscience has discovered thirteen emotion areas in the human brain. Neuro researchers can measure the brain activity in those emotion areas, for instance when a person is shown an advertisement. Does the ad activate the ‘desire’ or the ‘anger’ area? This makes a huge difference to the success of your advertisement!
Lessons learned
The field of neuromarketing has given us some valuable insights. A few examples:
- Activate emotions and memory. Happiness is not what you experience, it’s what you remember. People want to join the happy family. This is the secret to Coca-Cola’s success all over the world. Their message has been happiness for years already.
- Be consistent. A consistent message builds trust and recognition for your company or brand.
- Don’t focus on ‘how it should not be’. An insurance company that focuses on avoiding trouble is less successful than a company that focuses on the happy feeling and ‘no worries’.
- “I see what you mean.” Use faces, preferably of women. A face, and especially the eyes, have a positive impact on the emotion of ‘trust’. But be careful! Don’t let the face distract your reader from the message. If you have the face looking at the product or text, your message will be more successful.
Although neuromarketing is a fairly young science, a lot has already been written about it. A very interesting science to keep up with and use to your advantage!
Neuromarketing at HZPC
At HZPC, we always try to keep up with the innovations that contribute towards moving our organisation forward. Consumer behaviour and consumer demands are always on our minds. The knowledge of neuromarketing will help us to interpret consumer behaviour. For the future it would be very interesting to know what people really think about the potato. Which parts of the brain will light up? Desire, disgust, trust, or perhaps familiarity? Oh, and yes, we have those lovely ladies in our corporate communication for a reason…