I created a draft for this post over a week ago but I thought I’d wait a while to wait for enough second hand opinions to emerge on Martin Lindstrom’s new book Buyology (link to Neuromarketing.com’s take on the book) before I’d post my impression on it. I haven’t read the book (I might in the future) and I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of giving my opinion on it just based on a few reviews and the book’s sleeve text. But it’s been featured in Neuromarketing enough times that I think I know what the book is about and what its main strengths and weaknesses are. Here’s a consolidated list of reviews on it

The book seems to be getting mixed reviews: academics dismiss it and criticize it (I’d guess a bit unfairly too, since Lindstrom himself is not an academic but a, gasp, popular writer), magazines and blogs handle it with more praise and they seem to be buying into the hype. It has always been my impression that Lindstrom is a very good salesman (hell, you have to be if you get to promote your book on the Today Show), in that he knows the topic du jour and is not ashamed to ride the wave: in early 2000 he was hyping sensorial branding (his book “Brand SENSE” is bible of sorts for many advocates of Emotional Branding) and now he has turned his attention to neuromarketing, which some see as the next Holy Grail of marketing. So in short, it seems like one of those books that create a lot of buzz but eventually fail to make a lasting impact or change the field of marketing. We’ll see how my prediction fares in the long run.

But back to why wanted to write about Buyology in the first place. When the book came out, this was the first paragraph from Lindstrom’s newsletter:

It is probably one of the most controversial scientific findings of 2008. In his $7 million neuroscience-based research study, Lindstrom has spent over four years peering into the minds of 2,000 consumers across five countries to discover if there’s a parallel between brands and religion. Without disclosing too much (the findings will be published on October 20th), we can reveal that brands indeed activate the same areas in the brain as religion. By analyzing brands like Harley Davidson, Apple, Guinness and hundreds of other commercial icons, Lindstrom discovered that we are hardwired to believe in some brands. Lindstrom went further, interviewing religious leaders from across faiths and cultures. He discovered that the ingredients that create powerful religions may also be invaluable for branding of the future.

I can’t see how this is news to anybody who has been studying marketing beyond reading a few books by Seth Godin. Branding has become more and more about managing meaning, and religion is to a lot of people the ultimate path of seeking meaning, so it’s not hard to see parallels between the two. Jesus Christ is as much a cultural icon as is a bottle of Coke or a Harley Davidson. Also, people have valued the same kind of behavior in brands and religion: purity of intentions and non-profiteering motifs.

I’ve posted this link before, but Douglas Holt’s “Why do brands cause trouble?” (PDF) is an absolute must read for any marketer. In it, Holt outlines the historical change that has undertaken the world of branding from “cultural engineering” (from a time when people actually trusted brands somewhat) to the post postmodern paradigm where the best brands get a strong following by appearing “disinterested” in making money, and are more mission and meaning driven. In later works Holt has detailed what kind of missions and meanings are appealing to people through brands like Harley-Davidson, Apple etc. (like Lindstrom did above), and I’ve blogged about the subject here many times, but let’s not get into that. As for religion, it’s fairly obvious that the same kind of criticism that brands receive about profiteering and purity of intentions would be devastating to any church. For example, the church of Scientology is vilified for being nothing more than a money-making scheme, and people oppose it with a passion. People have a need to believe in something, but people also absolutely love to expose somebody as a false prophet. Hey, doesn’t the word “sellout” actually originate from what Judas did to Jesus (anyone care to fact check)?

I think by claiming this revelation of brands being similar to religion to be so “shocking”, Lindstrom had failed to do what I wrote in my previous post that brand thinkers need to drill deeper to uncover the “why” of a phenomenon. If Lindstrom had drilled deeper, he would have realized that brands and religion both are about meaning, and the similarities in neurology they create shouldn’t have come as a shock (a cynic might argue that this “shock” is feigned to create interest in the book). Of course, I’m not arguing that brands can be as strong as religious movements (and I doubt that Lindstrom isn’t arguing either), but I do think that brands and religion fit on the same scale (along with other cultural products, such as books and films) where religion sits a the top and everything else comes after it.

If any ad has been dissected and talked about more the past year than this ad, I’d like to know what it is. Much has been written about Crispin landing the unenviable yet so intriguing task of rebranding Microsoft, and after the Microsoft Mojave campaign, what you see above is finally the first TV-spot.

The casting of Jerry Seinfeld seems very un-Crispin when you first think about it. Hiring a superstar, and a fading one at that (like Antti said in this Jaiku thread “Jerry belongs to the 90s”) seems like a go-to move from the mind-share branding playbook. But while Seinfed (both persona and TV-show character) is not as current or “hip”, he still packs a lot of cultural meaning. Also, how they’ve scripted the ad and treated Jerry as a character is what makes the choice intriguing.

Grant McCracken had a fairly comprehensive rundown of the ad and its meaning. Small excerpt:

The meaning mechanics of the ad are wonderful: Jerry’s shoes squeak like a cartoon character. A store called Shoe Circus. A family gathered outside the store window in solemn and learned reverence for shoes within. The meaningful glance between Jerry and Bill that makes no sense. Seinfeld’s lunatic advice that Bill try wearing his clothes in the shower. The starring role give churros. The idea that anyone would want to earn points in a store like this, especially when the card calls them a “shoe circus clown club member.” The idea that computers could ever be “moist,” “chewy,” and edible. The idea that Jerry suspected this “all along.”

As far as contemporary advertising goes, this ad is indeed rich with nuances and meanings (I’m especially intrigued by the meaningful glance and the knowing smile Jerry and Bill share) that speak to you more than a traditional ad would. I wrote in my master’s thesis that as people’s media-savviness grows, it opens new opportunities for storytelling because people understand the medium better and you don’t need to be so explicit in your selling. However, this media-savviness (combined with market saturation and clutter) also makes people more resentful of ads that they feel are too pushy, “selling” and simply insulting of their intelligence as consumers. And given that the brand in question is Microsoft, the pushiest and most profiteering brand in its industry, I can definitely see why Crispin went for a more “un-selling” approach.

I wrote in the comments of Grant’s post that I think they will be going back to the “run tight” phrase they threw around a few times in the ad. First when Jerry said it, and when the hispanics outside the shop said it. This might be just a clever and indirect way of introducing the new benefit or value proposition. It’ll be interesting to see if/how they revisit the phrase in future spots. I think these ad spots are not meant to be examined individually, they work as one long commercial, sort of how the Cloverfield ad campaign was all part of the experience, almost like a treasure hunt. I guess some parallels to “Lost” work here, too. Like somebody posted in the comments on Grant’s blog, it’s too early to tell if this is a good campaign or not.

But I’m definitely a fan, if not for the sheer volume of discussion the ad has generated.

UPDATE: Here is the second spot, the longer version.

This came out on top with a rather hefty percentage of the total votes (33.8%):

Now, I’m not going to argue taste and say that the one I voted for was any better. But it’s pretty safe to say that the winner is and was the safe choice. The vanilla of postcards.

I guess most people like bland, they don’t like the ordinary challenged in any way. The other postcards did not look like postcards, so they didn’t get the votes. But where they lacked in postcard-likeness, they made up for in originality. And in my opinion, they told a better story about Helsinki than the winner. Then again, a cynic might say that the blandness is spot on in its truthfulness. Maybe the majority of the people really are just that, bland?

Kauppalehti: Hesburger’s turnout twice that of McDonald’s, more profitable too
Kauppalehti: PlayStation 2 game overall sales trump next gen consoles

The first one relates to me living in Helsinki. In Helsinki, there’s a general dislike towards Hesburger because of their campy advertising and I guess some people in Helsinki still haven’t forgiven them for buying Carrols, a Helsinki-based hamburger brand. But as the number show, Hesburger is reining supreme in the fast food world in Finland. It’s sales are mostly driven by the populace outside of Helsinki – especially through its partnership with gas stations. But you’d never guess it by walking in downtown Helsinki. There are more McDonald’s restaurants (which are generally more populated) and McDonald’s advertising is more prominent everywhere. But the numbers tell a different truth about the balance of power between the two brands.

The other one is a reminder to look beyond newness and hype. The next gen gaming consoles (Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii) get all the media attention, but the reality is that the “ancient” PS2 is still the top seller in Finland. Of course, given the choice I guess anybody would rather be the brand manager for PS3 than PS2, but unless you see the product’s life cycle all the way through, you’re not going be profitable.

Reality can be quite humbling sometimes.

Steve Jobs clearly is worthy of Apple. When he comes on stage at any of Apple’s major conferences and does that little dance of his, within minutes he has the brand fanatics eating out of his hand. He could (and often will) take the brand into many different directions, because of his credibility as the brand’s number 1 spokesman. Steve Jobs can present many changes to the brand and be sure that people will at least listen to what he has to say. Other brands aren’t so lucky.

The guys at Flickr, apparently, are not worthy of their brand. They decided to add video features to the famous photo sharing site, and the heavy users and the fanatics didn’t like it and are up in arms about it. I’m a bit torn on the development myself. I understand the rationale behind both the company and the people opposing the move, but that’s not what this post is about.

When people are really fanatical about a brand, they will seek to take ownership of it. They see themselves as the only “worthy” chroniclers of the brand and its meaning. That’s why it’s sometimes so hard for prominent and popular brands to be managed: the insiders and fanatics are resistant to change (as people usually are by nature), and in this new and connected consumer economy the fanatics can group up and voice their opinions given their lack of geographic restraints. This is why it’s so important to have your brand’s management “on brand” (I hate that expression but can’t think of a better one): to avoid the brand’s control slipping away from the brand’s management.

Changes to the brand are inevitable. The consumers’ acceptance of these changes, however, is not. Some people even feel that in this new economy brand managers can’t control their brands at all anymore and they should just embrace this and let the consumers sit in the brand’s driver’s seat. Echoing this notion, in the book “Authenticity” it was argued that the more consumer-driven a brand feels, the more authentic it is perceived to be. So simply handing the keys to the brand to the customers looks like a tempting idea, but I still think it’s not the best way to approach the problem.

A company controlling its brands’ destinies is still possible, but the rules for brand management have changed, and brand managers have much less room to maneuver now. Brand managers have to convey a profound understanding as to what the brand is about (more than its mission statement and brand guidelines etc.) and show a charismatic voice and a vision that people will at least be willing to hear out. Otherwise the consumers will assume control of the brand entirely and steer the brand towards a more rigid and eventually doomed path.

Because we all know how committees work as decision makers.