Buy.ology: What makes people buy
Martin Lindstrom is a multi-awarded futurist and is known as the New York Times bestselling author of Buy.ology, a book based on the astounding findings culled from his pioneering, four-year, $7-million neuromarketing study. Considered a forward-looking research, it looks closely inside the brains of 2,000 volunteers from around the world as they come face to face with an assortment of logos, advertising materials, brands and products.
The results of Lindstrom’s experimentation has startled many, and has smashed to smithereens long-held beliefs about what seduces our interest and drives us to part with our money. For example, he posits that in more than 70 percent of cases, the decision to prefer one product over competition is made in the four seconds before the consumer takes the choice from the store shelf. Yes, you read it right, F-o-u-r s-e-c-o-n-d-s!
Here are other startling findings:
• We continue to be victims of subliminal advertising. We need to understand the secrets of our consumers’ brains and how to translate them to brand action.
• We can bid goodbye to logos, as we optimize or urgently improve our brands.
• Religion is a powerful branding tool. Elements of our values and beliefs can be adopted in building brands and marketing them.
• Our customers, not us, own our brand.
• YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter attract more attention now than any TV commercial is ever able to generate.
• It is possible to predict the success of a brand without asking the consumers’ opinion.
Lindstrom is coming to the country to share with his Philippine audience these mind-blowing concepts and more in a Buy.ology symposium, which will be organized and staged by the Philippine STAR this year at SMX. It guarantees to change our approach to advertising, to make us learn what’s next for market research, to discover new and extraordinary marketing techniques and to explore fascinating concepts like Mirror Branding and Somatic Brand Markers. Watch out for more announcements on what promises to be an amazing day of knowledge sharing.
Brand You
Lindstrom is also an advocate of personal branding. In an interview with Dan Schawbel, he says that in a highly competitive arena it is more important than ever for our brand essence. During difficult times or faced with a range of possibilities, consumers prefer to pay for trusted solutions; and brands are all about trust. Thus, the sturdier our personal brand is, the more chances we’ll have to secure a job ahead of everybody else, be ejected last and in general rise above the sea of many contending faces.
Lindstrom lists two categories of personal brands. The first group is what he labels as provocative personal brands represented by those who conquer fame and fortune due to their provocative nature like Lady Gaga, Madonna, Richard Branson (a British entrepreneur best known for his group of companies carrying the Virgin name) or Bill O’Rilley (Fox TV host who discusses with his guests controversial political issues that resonate to his viewers). And then there’s the second group, which he calls reflective brands, which is made up of softer personality types who become celebrities due to their ability to mirror the problems of their respective audiences. In this cluster are Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Mehmet Oz (a medical expert who has an answer to every health question) or Suzy Orman (an internationally acclaimed personal finance authority who gives helpful advice on money-related issues).
The two personal brand categories have three things in common — they both stay on message, and never deviate from their core values — like Oprah is the listener who always takes the side of weak people; they also keep reinventing the way they get the same message across — Lady Gaga and Madonna reinvent their personas every so often and Branson consistently provokes established values; and, lastly they use a main platform to regularly connect to their audience: Winfrey with her multi-media channels; Orman, Oz and O’Rilley with their individual TV shows; and Lady Gaga and Madonna’s MTV’s and concert tours, among others.
Lindstrom recommends three essential steps to building a powerful personal brand: create attention, bridge and re-invent. Spawning attention is the most apparent first step. It’s claiming our two minutes of fame, which will absolutely have no value though unless an exacting road map has been put in effect to bridge the fleeting celebrity to an enduring brand.
The maverick author uses the classic example of Abba, the European pop group to illustrate the point. Abba won the European song competition, which became its very own ticket to fame. The group’s manager had prepared a comprehensive agenda of next steps in case the singing ensemble would win. Foremost on the must-do list was the local language versions of Waterloo, Abba’s winning piece. The day after Abba was declared winner, the song was immediately sent by courier to all TV stations across Europe. Music videos didn’t exist then so this approach to connect to all TV stations without being physically present was a first in the world. The strategy helped elevate the group from just a song contest first placer to become sparkling stars in the music universe.
Most flourishing artists have found novel and innovative ways to project their message or positioning — yet they continue to stay on message. Constantly re-inventing the message is a third and final step, Lindstrom emphasizes. This is a never-ending progression that explains why authors keep publishing new books, why provocative musicians keep provoking the media, why talk show hosts prefer intriguing topics and talking to intriguing interviewees. This is their technique to continually attract attention, keep the buzz and train the fuss on them.
Clearly identifying an area of competence is key to personal brand development. And critical to doing so is creativity, which Lindstrom defines as the combination of two ordinary components in a totally new way. Funny enough, he says, this is the way we’ll find our area of competence as well. He picks his own life as an example. He says he has always focused on branding. However, he has always combined branding with something new. “Fourteen years ago I focused on Internet branding, 10 years ago on Kids Branding, five years ago on Sensory Branding and today on NeuroScience and branding. The way for me to stay new and keep attracting attention around the world of branding is to consistently identify new trends within the world of branding — often things which have been around for a long time — yet combine these with the world of branding and thus create a totally new discipline,” he relates.
People are brands. Some may be raw, waiting and wanting to be polished, others may be weak or long-winded today, but can be strong and concise later if the branding game is played out well. Personal branding is growing. Lindstrom believes that people will not only become more aware of their looks, engage in more serious self-development programs, and heighten their intellectual standing and knowledge of the world to be able to compete well. We will likely see people “merchandise” themselves, toot their own horns or do shameless self-promotion, with social media networks like Facebook and Twitter as major engines driving the trend.
We need to stand out, be different, and be distinctive. We need to develop our competitive advantage, and be people that others can’t do without. To do this, determine what our publics are looking for, and then project ourselves around them. The trick is to stay true to our capabilities and skills, soul and essence, to be able to cut through and stand out.
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E-mail bongosorio@yahoo.com or bong_osorio@abs-cbn.com for comments questions or suggestions. Thank you for communicating.
