Unravel the intricate connection between neuroscience and branding. Discover how our brains respond to brands, and how savvy marketers leverage this knowledge to create powerful, memorable brand identities. A fascinating exploration awaits, bridging the gap between science and commerce.
Effective branding can not only change how you feel about a company, it can actually change how your brain is wired.
Brands can manipulate our brains in surprisingly profound ways
- They can change how we conceptualize ourselves and how we broadcast our identities out to the social world. They can make us feel emotions that have nothing to do with the functions of their products.
Brands and the Self
Does having a strong connection with a brand justify paying higher prices for their products? Maybe.
- People have long used objects and clothing to express themselves and signal their affiliation with groups
- Since the 1950s, researchers have found that consumers tend to prefer brands whose products fit well with their self-image
- By choosing brands that don’t disrupt their image, consumers are able to not only express themselves personally but also broadcast a specific version of themselves into the social world
Making smarter decisions
Brands may have some power over us when we’re facing a purchasing decision.
- The best strategy might be to slow down and try to avoid making “automatic” purchasing decisions that are characteristic of Kahneman’s fast “system 1” mode of thinking.
Branding and the brain
Brands can burrow themselves deep into our subconscious
- Through ad campaigns, brands can form a web of associations and memories in our brains
- When these connections are robust and positive, it can change our behavior, nudging us to make “no-brainer” purchases when we encounter the brand at the store
A peculiar relationship with brands
Apple has one of the most loyal customer bases in the world, with brand loyalty hitting an all-time high earlier this year
- Qualitatively, how does that loyalty compare to Samsung users?
- Platt and his team conducted a study in which functional magnetic resonance imaging scanned the brains of Samsung and Apple users as they viewed positive, negative, and neutral news about each company
- The results revealed stark differences between the two groups, with empathy for their own brand the most prominent feature
