Reviewed By:

Sharad Agarwal, Indian Institute of Management Ranchi INDIA

Review Subject: Neuromarketing in Action: How to Talk and Sell to the Brain

Patrick M. Georges , Anne-Sophie Bayle-Tourtoulou , Michel Badoc

Publisher Name: Kogan Page

Place of Publication: London

Publication Year: 2013

ISBN: 978-0749469276

Price: US $39.95

Article type: Review

Pages:240 pp.

Neuromarketing in Action: How to Talk and Sell to the Brain

Neuromarketing is referred to the application of neuro-scientific principles in marketing and

management. It has gained considerable attention from academia and practitioners in the last

decade. Neuro-Marketing in Action, gives the actionable insights, derived from rigorous neuro-

scientific experiments, which can be adopted by marketers to enhance their effectiveness through

the scientific managerial knowledge generated by scholars from the area of neuroscience,

behavioural science, cognitive science, management and other allied fields.

The book aptly explains its concepts through the examples of practices pursued by top European

companies. Though the book is broadly written to make marketing function and actions more

effective, the insights are equally applicable for all other functions such as human resources,

operations, communications, etc.

The books consist of 18 chapters divided into 4 parts. Part 1, “Neuromarketing or the art of selling to

the brain” consists of 3 chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the concept of marketing both from customer

and company’s point of view. It defines marketing as “The art of creating value both for the

customer and the company” (p.10).Chapter 2 appraises the readers with different parts of the brain

and their respective roles in information processing and decision making. It also introduces the

readers with the concept of Ergonomics and explains how it influences the brain of the consumer,

“Intellectual work ergonomics is the science studying human’s intellectual work to increase

productivity, satisfaction and safety” (p.26). Chapter 3 ponders further on the concept of

neuromarketing and defines it as, “It (neuromarketing) is an intelligent, focussed, marketing

oriented interpretation of major scientific text on how the brain works” (p.42)

Part 2, “Selling the marketing and organization strategy to the brains of managers and employees”

consists of two chapters. Chapter 4 focuses on internal marketing in the organization. It introduces

the readers with the concept of ‘marketing cockpit’ and ‘management cockpit’ and explains how this

concept has quickly become the interface between managers and their businesses. Chapter 5

provides advice to marketers on managing their physical and emotional fitness. It provides the

neural explanation for marketers to keep themselves fit for improving their performance of

marketing intelligence. It dwells on overcoming the issues of change and stress created in the

organizations which have even led to suicides in the organizations such as Renault and France

Telecom.

Part 3, “Improving the efficiency of the marketing action: the neuromarketing method”, consists of

eight chapters. Chapter 6 throws light on the role played by each of the five senses while the

consumer makes decision to purchase the product. “Our five senses are like red and humid skin that

must be rubbed at the right rhythm to get the customers’ attention, followed by their pleasure and

memory” (p.91).Chapter 7 elucidates the role of sex and food in meeting the fundamental needs of

consumer while they evaluate the proposition of one product over other. “Sex and Food are the two

most important needs, as they guarantee survival: food for short term individual survival and sex for

long-term survival of the species” (p.102). Chapter 8 discusses the role of six basic emotions, fear,

joy, sadness, surprise, disgust and anger in consumers and describes these as the door to the

consumer’s memory. Chapter 9 recognizes the role of consumer’s memory in their decision to

purchase a product and mentions that Neuromarketing attempts to increase the consumer’s

memory (for a product or brand) through repetitions, stories, pleasure, simultaneous and sequenced

entries. The authors give the example of brands such as Aston Martin, BMW and Dom Perignon

which were able to create successful stories in the minds of the consumers by embarking on the

adventures of James Bond. Chapter 10 deals with the importance of satisfying customers’

subconscious to make a successful sales deal. “You must become accepted by the customer’s

subconscious, because if it blocks your product there will be no sales” (p.125). Chapter 11 reiterates

the importance of satisfying customer’s reason to finally close the sales deal. As the customer is

equipped with genuine intelligence with capability to calculate and compare the value of product

satisfying customer’s conscience is of utmost importance. From the neuroscience perspective the

marketer should create an environment which removes blood from the frontal lobes of the

customer brains by using selective voices, images and décor which would lead the consumer’s

decision making in marketer’s interest. Chapter 12 depicts several examples from top companies on

how they want to apply the principle of neuromarketing in enhance their sales. It also talks of the

case of ‘Sales Point’ neuromarketing methods which is developed in collaboration with ACCOR,

Promod, Credit Suisse and other entities. Chapter 13 rehashes the role of sensory marketing in both

online and physical sales outlet. Neuro-scientifically, the lobes of the brain, located in the cerebral

hemispheres, are the receptacles of the canters responsible for the senses. The authors give the

examples of brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Sephora and Nespresso which focus on selected

ingredients to catch the attention of five senses for creating a genuine sensory experience for the

customers visiting their stores.

Part 4, “Perspective for today…and tomorrow” consist of 5 chapters. Chapter 14 educates the

readers with the importance of ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ and ‘Innovation’ in promoting the future

growth of a company. It explains the concepts of invention and innovation and advocated the

innovation bases business model and positioning. “An invention is largely based on the product

policy. It becomes an innovation when it satisfies the customer’s desire” (p.189). The authors also

explain the role of customer innovation, product innovation, price innovation, distribution

innovation and communication innovation in building successful companies. Chapter 15 introduces

the readers with the concepts of ‘Desire Marketing’ and ‘Permission Marketing’. It then talks about

‘Viral Marketing’ or ‘Buzz marketing’. Through the differentiation strategy and interactive strategy,

Figure 15.1 (p.204) depicts the complete process of viral marketing from creating desire for a brand

among the consumers to influencing their policies. Chapter 16 revolves around building successful

relationships with the consumers. It gives examples of eBay and Amazon who offer a number of

testimonies and evaluations by the consumers who have already bought the product, which helps in

decision making of the new undecided consumer. Chapter 17 uses Antanio Domasio’s (Domasio,

2005) concept of ‘Somatic Markers of the brain’ to neuro-scientifically explain the concept of Brand

positioning, Brand identity and Brand Sensoriality. Chapter 18 focuses on promoting ‘legitimacy’ and

‘sustainability’ to conquer the customer’s trust as the customers brain wishes to have a clear

conscience for whatever and whenever they buy. Customers are not interested to become partners

of the firms who do not treat their stakeholders respectfully. The authors quote the example of

Orange, which apparently received several cancellation requests from customers unhappy with the

suicides happened in its parent company, France telecom.

The book presents a judicious mix of concepts from neuromarketing, marketing and corporate

strategy to educate the readers on not only building successful marketing initiatives but also on

creating sustainable long term growth strategies by satisfying long term needs of the consumers.

The book is written in a very reader friendly style, each unit starts with a brief introduction on what

the readers would see in further chapter. It also presents key points at the end of each unit which

summarizes the previous units for better understanding of the readers. Though the book is targeted

for marketing fraternity , I would recommend it for students and professionals of all managerial

functions as it provides actionable insights into various managerial functions such as managerial

communication, team building, interpersonal communication and, of course, marketing and

branding.

Reference:

Domasio, A (2005) Descartes’ Error, Penguin, New York