The Branded Mind

I previously expressed some concern about the credibility of neuromarketing – the application of psychology, neurology, and other pseudoscientific disciplines to advertising and branding. While it is self-evident that marketing is about affecting the behavior of consumers, concepts such as subliminal advertising and emotional branding have about them the scent of snake oil.

With this in mind, I read The Branded Mind – subtitled “what neuroscience really tells us about the puzzle of the brain and the brand” – and came away with a more rational and sober perspective on the topic. All things considered, there is some kernel of valid science among a great deal of disinformation – though it is likely years or decades before the science will have evolved enough to yield reliable results that can be put to practical application.

Much of what is billed as science actually is not. The theory of subliminal advertising, specifically, is predicated on a hoax perpetrated by a marketer with no credentials in any scientific discipline (James Vicary) that was further sensationalized by a journalist (Vance Packard) in a book that sent the entire marketing industry in the wrong direction.

But also, some of what seems like hokum actually has a scientific basis. The theory of emotional branding, for example, is substantiated by medical evidence, the use of MRI and EEG have demonstrated that certain portions of the brain believed to be involved in emotion “light up” milliseconds before other sections that are believed to be involved in rational thought.

The problem is, even the science is weak. The instrumentation, while far more sophisticated than what was available in the past, is still severely limited (the MRI requires the subject to be immobilized for a significant amount of time and the EEG is vague, providing a general measurement of activity in large sections of the outer layer of the brain) and that much of the findings are interpreted through the filter of theory and beliefs that are not scientifically demonstrable (a certain section of the brain is believed to be involved in a given kind of thought, but not proven to be so).

As such, the current state of progress leaves us very deep in Plato’s cave, with the sense that what we do perceive, vague and oblique as it may be, signifies the existence of much more that we cannot.