Author: Martin Lindstorm
Review: FT
What do smokers think and feel when they see gruesome pictures of diseased body parts and dire predictions of early, painful death on their cigarette packs? Smokers say the warnings put them off. But when their reactions were tested under a brain scanning machine, parts of the brain associated with intense craving flared into action on the scans. Even the most graphic health warnings might unwittingly encourage smokers to light up, the experiment suggested.
It is an intriguing finding from the biggest “neuromarketing” research project so far, a $7m study organised with university academics by marketing consultant Martin Lindstrom and reported by him in a new book, Buy-ology. The study was designed, in his words, to reveal “hidden truths behind how branding and marketing messages work on the human brain”.
Unfortunately, Lindstrom’s book is more speculation than serious science. Little of it actually reports on his own neuro-research; the rest consists of marketing war stories that are rehashed with speculative spin on unrelated topics such as mirror neurons and neurotransmitters.
Dopamine is a powerful neurotransmitter that gives us a sense of pleasure as we anticipate a reward. How and when it works and what its full effects are remain a subject of controversy, but Lindstrom is not deterred. According to him, all you have to do is look at a shiny digital camera and “wham, before you know it,” your brain is flush with dopamine and “a few minutes later, you exit the store, bag in hand”. Why, then, do we not buy every shiny object we see?
Mirror neurons could be the big neuroscientific discovery of the century. They are active in the same parts of the brain of someone observing an action as the brain of someone taking the action. Scientists believe mirror neurons could help gain a deeper understanding of human empathy, learning and imitation. But the research is only just beginning.
A defining feature of mirror neurons is the disconnect between the observer’s internal brain activity and his external, observable actions. But Lindstrom turns this into its opposite. You look at a Gap window display and see a picture of a gorgeous model wearing its clothes. Your mirror neurons make you imagine yourself as equally good-looking and “override” your more rational thoughts. “You just can’t help it”, declares Lindstrom, you go into the store and buy. Many Gap marketers must be thinking “if only Lindstrom was right”.
Lindstrom’s own research did not actually investigate the effects of dopamine and mirror neurons. But it did include functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging brain scans of people looking at brand icons and religious icons. He reports evidence that both trigger activity in the same parts of the brain, and uses this to draw the conclusion that the emotions generated by religious belief and by iconic brands are “almost identical”. That’s a huge claim. But according to Professor Gemma Calvert of Warwick University’s Applied Neuroimaging Group, who actually conducted the research, these particular results were only weakly statistically significant.
This year, Yale University researchers tested the ability of laymen and neuroscience students to distinguish between good and bad explanations of psychological phenomena. They performed well, except when bad explanations were prefaced with “Brain scans indicate ...”, when they accepted invented tosh as plausible. The researchers’ work is a timely warning as to how willing we are to be blinded by science.
There’s little doubt we have a lot to learn from neuroscience. But for this we need thorough, careful research accompanied by thorough, careful analysis and reporting.
Right now, the business world is awash with gurus bearing presentations and project proposals starting “Brain scans indicate ...”. The question for executives is whether the added neuroscience is really there to educate and inform, or to prise open executives’ marketing and research coffers by blinding them with science.
