Neural Advertising: The Sounds We Can't Resist

Neural Advertising: The Sounds We Can't Resist

By Jeffrey Kluger Monday, Mar. 01, 2010 <<< I have no idea why this says a future date ? ?






If you're like most people, you're way too smart for advertising.
You flip right past newspaper ads, never click on ads online and leave the room during TV commercials.

That, at least, is what we tell ourselves. But what we tell ourselves is hooey.

Advertising works, which is why, even in hard economic times, Madison Avenue is a $34 billion a year business.

And if Martin Lindstrom--author of the best seller Buyology and a marketing consultant for
FORTUNE 500 companies, including PepsiCo and Disney--is correct,
trying to tune this stuff out is about to get a whole lot harder.


Lindstrom is a practitioner of neuromarketing research, in which consumers are exposed to ads
while hooked up to machines that monitor brain activity, pupil dilation, sweat responses and flickers
in facial muscles, all of which are markers of emotion. According to his studies, 83% of all forms of
advertising principally engage only one of our senses: sight.

Hearing, however, can be just as powerful, though advertisers have taken only limited advantage of it.


To figure out what most appeals to our ear, Lindstrom wired up his volunteers,
then played them recordings of dozens of familiar sounds, from McDonald's ubiquitous
"I'm Lovin' It" jingle to birds chirping and cigarettes being lit.

The sound that blew the doors off all the rest--in terms of interest and positive feelings--
was a baby giggling.

The other high-ranking sounds were less primal but still powerful.

The hum of a vibrating cell phone was Lindstrom's second-place finisher.
Others that followed were:
an ATM dispensing cash,
a steak sizzling on a grill
and a soda being popped and poured.


If history is any indication, marketers will keep getting more manipulative,
and the storm of commercial noise will become more focused.
Even then, there may be hope: Lindstrom's testing shows that people respond to
a sound better when it's subtler.
If nothing else, smart marketers may at least keep the volume low.



LINK to full story

I won't be thrilled nor swayed until I can see, hear, taste & smell ads, some of them that is

advertising is pretty lost on me.

They put a huge amount of money into trying to manipulate us psychologically. Then we wind up paying for it as "cost of goods sold" when and if we buy the advertised products.

java wrote:

They put a huge amount of money into trying to manipulate us psychologically. Then we wind up paying for it as "cost of goods sold" when and if we buy the advertised products.

i totally tone out commercials. and what they pay for air time is outrageous. pay these load actors less and bring down the costs

Quote :

Clicking the play button below will produce a tone that is generally only heard by people under the age of 25.

It has been used as a deterrent device to keep teenagers from loitering in malls and shops,
and sounds similar to a buzzing mosquito.
The elderly and people with hearing damage often cannot hear the sound.

LINK____Teenager Audio Test