Neuromarketing & More

Our brains are amazing. And even if you’re not aware of it, your brain is like a code-cracking machine. I’m sure you’re familiar with the paragraph below, where the first and last letters of the word are correct but the rest of the letters are muddled. And you can still read it, right? “Aoccdrnig to […]

You might have known that an ad have a very short amount of time to attract consumers. But what you didn’t know is that a Dutch study of the brain’s electrical responses shows that you have 0.3 seconds. The study’s most striking insight is the processing speed of the human brain. Within 0.3 seconds, a […]

Is it possible that an ad that has made “most annoying of all time” lists and been dubbed the worst ad ever actually be one of the most engaging and effective? We all have ads that make us cringe, or even reach for the remote. My personal least-favorites are “screamer” ads, usually run by local […]

Nate Decker, Ph.D. Behavioral Scientist and Partner at Straylight’s partner Sentient Decision Science is  regularly asked what exactly “emotional association” data looks like and what to do with it. While the answer varies a lot by client, medium, and industry, understanding the basics is important. Decker wanted to provide some details on how to interpret […]

Disney’s new Pixar release, Inside Out (image: Disney.com) The launch of Pixar’s latest animated film, Inside Out, is imminent. While most will watch the film for its story and animation, there’s an interesting backstory. Much of the story takes place inside the head of the main character, the 11-year-old Riley. Five emotions interact there, voiced by […]

Every year, consumers spend more time using digital devices. Every year, more media is consumed digitally. Naturally, advertising dollars are increasingly flowing to digital as well. But, don’t pull the plug on that direct mail campaign just yet. New research has again shown that content on paper affects our brains in different and more powerful […]

Shopping is a complex experience that begins with goals and expectations in the mind of the shopper and ends with a decision to buy or not to buy. In between, it’s a physical experience that involves navigating through physical space, activating all our senses, and weighing lots of alternatives. Shopping can be, and often is, […]

Neuromarketing can make a contribution to website design in three powerful ways: Help designers understand how people’s brains actually consume web pages Eye tracking applied to website viewing has shown that gaze patterns are determined by two types of attention: Bottom-up attention: This type of attention is involuntary and automatic. When viewing websites, bottom-up attention is […]

Imagine if behavioral science was as easy as asking people explicit questions about their behavior–we wouldn’t need the disciplines of psychology, sociology, neuroscience, behavioral economics and cultural anthropology.  If asking people why they do what they do isn’t good enough to reveal true insight within the behavioral sciences, why would we expect it to be […]

I’ve noticed that Neuromarketing as a word still frightens a lot of people. To avoid this I prefer to talk about “unconscious behavior” and “consumers saying one thing but doing another” since it’s easier to relate to.Let’s be honest. All marketing departments and agencies are talking about it – Don’t trust what consumers say.Traditional research […]