Every year billions of dollars are spent on marketing research. Through mostly surveys and focus groups consumers are asked to provide a variety of insights with the hope that these might help firms become more competitive. Some of this research is no doubt useful. Unfortunately, a good portion of it is wasted as people’s answers do not necessarily translate into how they actually end up behaving.
Building on his experience as a behavioral change therapist and a marketing career at top advertising agencies, most recently Deutsch L.A., author Douglas Van Praet’s new book Unconscious Branding suggests that this mismatch has to do with the focus of marketing research: The latter over-emphasizes the social science aspect of consumer behavior while virtually ignoring its equally important natural science side. Whereas humans are typically considered logical, objective and free-willed thinkers, and marketing research therefore attributes any behavioral discrepancies to a variety of external socio-environmental factors, science increasingly suggests that human behavior is largely internal, biological and thus unconsciously driven. As the author indicates:
As consumers, we make choices without understanding their foundations, and as marketers, we sell and brand products without understanding how to truly connect them with people. We are all playing a game, and we don’t even know how that game is being played. It’s time to throw out the old playbook. It’s time to reveal the hidden depths behind our behaviors and to see how our most basic instincts, emotions, innate dispositions and unconscious learned behaviors can be better used to connect brands with humanity (p. 13).
Unconscious Branding consists of ten chapters organized into two parts. Its first part, The Science Below our Deeper Behavior, provides the theory behind the neuro-biological view of consumer behavior. This part consists of three chapters. Chapter 1, The Myth of Marketing, addresses how marketing has come to neglect the biological origins of human behavior in detriment of the field’s effectiveness. Chapter 2, Humans, Not Consumers, suggests that mainstream marketing should think of consumers less as entities that merely purchase and consume products and more as individuals with deep-seeded needs and aspirations. Chapter 3, The Biology of Behavior, goes into what the different parts of the brain do in terms of behavioral guidance, and how emotion, not rationality, largely drives consumer’s actions.
Unconscious Branding’s second part, The Seven Steps to Behavior Change, puts the book’s first part into practice. Applying the behavioral change sequence used on individuals to the aggregate market level, it lays down a framework of positive neuro-pattern reinforcement that is conducive toward brand preference and loyalty. The end result is brands that are deeply rooted in the unconscious, strongly connected to consumers.
Chapter 4, Step One: Interrupt the Pattern, suggests catching consumers’ attention by having brands do something interesting, different and ideally unexpected. Chapter 5, Step Two: Create Comfort, advises keeping those novel brand interruptions within familiar contexts, so that consumers do not feel alienated but assured. Chapter 6, Step Three: Lead the Imagination, advocates in favor of inspiring consumers through the possibilities that brands might offer them. Chapter 7, Step Four: Shift the Feeling, recommends aligning those brand possibilities with the strong positive emotions that consumers might derive from accomplishing them. Chapter 8, Step Five: Satisfy the Critical Mind, suggests reinforcing/legitimizing emotional brand benefits through rational arguments. Chapter 9, Step Six: Change the Associations, advises instilling and reinforcing new positive brand associations through emotionally laden Marcom repetition. Chapter 10, Step Seven, Take Action, advises further reinforcing these new positive brand associations by stimulating repeated consumer actions and sensory experiences. To illustrate this last step, and bring it together with the prior six ones, the chapter closes with an in-depth case study of successful unconscious branding, as done by energy drink giant Red Bull.
Unconscious Branding then ends with an Afterword, Acknowledgements, an ample section of Notes organized by chapter and an Index. A Table of Contents and Introduction precede book chapters.
Unconscious Branding should enjoy a broad audience. While the book’s insights might interest and update as to what is being done in the emerging field of neurobranding, academics will likely require more focus and depth. It is thus practitioners (and perhaps students) who should find the book most interesting and useful. Combining just the right amount of theory, abundant examples and insightful discussion, Unconscious Branding is certain to help them better understand the biological mechanics of branding. More importantly, the book’s easily applicable framework should help improve their branding efforts. To this effect, each implementation chapter ends with a two-to-three-page next steps recap. However, the book delivers a series of tools, not rules. By no means formulaic, the suggested principles are easily adapted to a wide variety of situations.
In sum, Unconscious Branding is both interesting and practical. Without falling into the esoteric, but also not into the excessively shallow like other business books these days, it is certainly worthwhile for anyone interested in updating or complementing their understanding of consumer behavior and brands. Its concise, fluid and engaging style also makes it a great read; hence, it is highly recommended.
