Buyology
Truth and Lies About Why We Buy
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A fascinating look at how consumers perceive logos, ads, commercials, brands, and products.”—Time
How much do we know about why we buy? What truly influences our decisions in today’s message-cluttered world? In Buyology, Martin Lindstrom presents the astonishing findings from his groundbreaking three-year, seven-million-dollar neuromarketing study—a cutting-edge experiment that peered inside the brains of 2,000 volunteers from all around the world as they encountered various ads, logos, commercials, brands, and products. His startling results shatter much of what we have long believed about what captures our interest—and drives us to buy. Among the questions he explores:
• Does sex actually sell?
• Does subliminal advertising still surround us?
• Can “cool” brands trigger our mating instincts?
• Can our other senses—smell, touch, and sound—be aroused when we see a product?
Buyology is a fascinating and shocking journey into the mind of today's consumer that will captivate anyone who's been seduced—or turned off—by marketers' relentless attempts to win our loyalty, our money, and our minds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Through extensive and expensive research, Lindstrom provides an adequate primer on what neuroscience studies can tell society particularly marketers about how selling (and more important, buying) works. Whether considering the roles of sex, religion, product placement or contradictions in consumer habits between what they say and what they do, Lindstrom explores how brain-scan studies reveal an avalanche of information about what works and what doesn't. Though the information is intriguing, Lindstrom's disregard for the potential abuses of such information (such as marketers purposely manipulating people to buy products that are harmful, of which there is a proven track record) makes his enthusiasm suspect. Don Leslie provides a good voice for nonfiction material, using a congenial tone with good emphasis to keep the listeners engaged. His gentle but deep voice creates the impression of an older person imparting knowledge upon the youth, which may also lend some authority to the text. A Doubleday hardcover.