 "Erik Du Plessis")
When I worked in advertising in the 1970s a popular joke was: "Don't tell my mother I work in advertising; she thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse."
The 1970s was an era when The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard was popular. There was a paranoid belief that advertisers were using subliminal persuasion techniques to make consumers buy things they don't need. This was against a background where brainwashing was a popular topic during the Cold War. Freud's claim that people were not even aware of their desires was popular.
Today more is learnt by neuroscientists about human decision making than ever before. Unfortunately much of this is again reported as that people are driven by sub-conscious desires that they are not aware of and that advertisers exploit these subconscious irrational desires. This creates similar circumstances to the 1970s and could damage the reputation of advertising and marketing in the same way.
When a company's employees believe that the company - or, its marketing department - is basically fooling people into buying an inferior product it becomes more difficult to motivate the staff. On the other hand, when the staff believes they are enriching people's lives they automatically become more loyal to the company and motivated in what they do.
Brand choice decisions are like other decisions people make using the same brain mechanisms. Decisions are driven by dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is often called the reward chemical. It is well known as the brain chemical that underlie many drug addiction. As such it generally gets a negative press. When people read that brand choices are the results of dopamine's actions in the brain this already gives marketing a negative connotation. When one sees a brand, as one walks through a store whilst the brain interprets the environment (brands), the memory of how the brand will make the body feel comes to the fore. This happens in the form of the brain producing dopamine in the nucleus accumbens - situated just behind the forebrain.
Thinking, or consciousness, happens in the frontal lobes. With the interpretation happening from the back to the frontal lobes it means the frontal lobes are presented with two pieces of information based on memories: What the thing you see (brand) is, and how it will make the body feel. With this information available the brain can consider what to do. In many cases the brain does not have to think about which brand to buy - it simply buys the brand that will make it feel best when consumed. Unfortunately, this is also where some misreporting (sensationalising) about the process happens.
The midbrain responds by indicating an approach-avoid (dopamine reaction) feeling and this happens prior to the frontal lobes considering the decision. This mid-brain reaction happens milliseconds before the message reaches the frontal lobes. Many reporters read into this that the mid-brain reaction is the decision. They then conclude that people make their decision before they actually think - that is non-consciously.
This then easily leads to the conclusion that people are driven by something they are not aware of rather than by their rational forebrain processes, and that this is how marketers manipulate people. This is the basis for the most common brand choice decisions: Habit and repeat purchase.
It is important for marketers to understand how advertising interacts with the dopamine system and how this system influences brand choice.
Marketers should explain to the rest of the company that what consumers get from the company isn't just a product that is well made, at a reasonable cost, and easily. Consumers get an experience that includes memories of past consumption, past happiness, and especially future expectations of pleasure (dopamine) and that advertising enhances all this.
Erik Du Plessis
Non-executive chairman, Millward Brown South Africa
Non-executive chairman, Millward Brown South Africa
