The Consumer Mind: Brand Perception and Implications for Marketers

Citation

Parsons, A.L. (2013), "The Consumer Mind: Brand Perception and Implications for Marketers", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 310-311. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363761311328982

In recent years, marketers have turned to the world of neuroscience to help them further understand how consumers think and feel. The emerging field of neuromarketing is frequently discussed in marketing and advertising circles. Neuroscience is the study of the brain. Neuromarketing is a combination of neurology, cognitive psychology and marketing that is being used to help us to further understand brands, communications, consumer behavior, and decision making. Using neuroscience techniques, researchers can now directly record consumer thoughts and emotions, which provides additional and perhaps more meaningful insights than standard marketing research techniques. This book provides an introduction to the world of neuromarketing by presenting fundamentals of neuroscience and how the brain works and applying them to both brand and consumer contexts.

This book consists of 16 chapters. The first few chapters introduce the concept of neuromarketing and explain how the brain operates. Excellent visuals in these chapters help to clearly illustrate the brain's important functions. Chapter Four provides an insightful discussion of perception and illustrates key points with a visually enhanced analysis of different brand logos. Chapters Five, Six, and Seven elaborate on the concepts of attention, memory and emotion and the relationship between these concepts and communication. A Spanish study is presented in the sixth chapter about consumers' ability to recall advertising slogans that shows that low percentages of people are able to recall advertising slogans of even well‐known brands. These findings suggest a need to develop slogans that are not only short, striking, and catchy but also relevant to the target audience.

Chapter Eight explains the concept of intelligence and discusses changes in how intelligence is evaluated. Social intelligence, which is how we relate to others, is also discussed. The ninth chapter presents a discussion of consciousness and perceptions of self and the need to understand who we are as individuals. Chapter Ten examines the relationship between the rational and emotional parts of the brain and explains how the brain works when consumers make decisions.

Chapter Eleven elaborates on the concept of happiness, including the psychological and biological view of what it takes to achieve happiness. Findings from a Millward Brown study on happiness indicate that the top three indicators of what happiness means are enjoying life, having harmony and peace of mind, and being comfortable with others. Chapter Twelve discusses the importance of rest and relates remembering dreams to advertising recall. Chapter Thirteen provides a summary of the brain's mental functions, doing, feeling, talking, and thinking, and relates them to developing marketing communications.

Chapter Fourteen provides an extensive discussion of the relationship between brands, communications and the mind. The analysis includes challenges for brands, what makes brands successful, and what it takes to build a brand. Also included is a list of the ten most powerful brands compiled by Millward Brown as part of their global brands survey published in 2011. The last sections of the chapter discuss the digital revolution, rules for brand engagement, the impact of social media on brands and behavior, and the role of brands in social media.

Chapter 15 illustrates how the author's company, Millward Brown is pioneering the use of neuroscience in marketing research and how neuroscience is making contributions to marketing research. Some interesting applications of neuroscience for marketing research are presented at the end of the chapter. Finally, Chapter 16 looks at the relationship between philosophy and the mind and suggests that understanding marketplace reality requires an understanding of biology, psychology, social pressure, and history.

At the end of most chapters there is a bulleted summary of key learning points from the chapter about brands. Most of these insights have been discussed in the chapter, but some appear to be just insights that can be inferred from the information in the chapter but are not directly stated in the chapter. They are interesting, however, and help to make practical sense of the material covered in each chapter.

The book includes many interesting and helpful visual aids that serve to offer further clarification and break up the text. While many of the topics in this book may be covered in psychology and consumer behavior textbooks, this book explains the topics in a clear and concise manner and effectively applies them in a marketing context. It is easy to read and follow.

The book seems current because it incorporates the digital world into many of the examples it uses to illustrate established theories and concepts. These examples would be especially useful for college educators because of their currency and clarity. One particularly helpful example compares memory to Google searches. Since students today routinely perform Google searches this analogy seems appropriate and relevant. For practitioners this book provides a concise explanation of neuroscience and the emerging field of neuromarketing and may help them to think differently about how to solve marketing and marketing/advertising communications problems. Marketing researchers may also find this book to be a helpful resource for understanding new developments in the field.