University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Buyology
Book

Buyology

Truth and Lies About Why We Buy

Martin Lindstrom
Broadway Books, 2008
Buy book or audiobook

Read offline

Amazon Kindle

Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

This fun, useful and occasionally scary book demonstrates that author Martin Lindstrom is both well-versed in marketing practices and deeply engaged in academic research into neuromarketing. As a result, he can discuss findings from the latest studies involving brain scans, measured attention and recall – and explain how they relate to sales and purchases. This book could be twice as long and still be hypnotic; its main weakness is that Lindstrom breezes through study after fascinating study, giving each one only a few pages. However, that said, those interested in rationality, free will or communication will find much of interest here. getAbstract recommends it to them and, of course, to anyone making sales and marketing decisions.

Summary

Why People Buy What They Buy: The Promise of Neuromarketing

Every day you see, hear, read and sometimes smell countless messages that are trying to persuade you to buy...and you forget most of them immediately. These messages were designed to influence your behavior. Why don’t they work? And why do some messages stick better than others? Asking people directly doesn’t help, because they really don’t know. They may try to offer conscious explanations for their purchasing choices, but, in reality, a complex array of subconscious thoughts and feelings drive buying decisions.

For a long time, researchers who wanted to explain and influence consumer behavior were limited to “quantitative and qualitative” study methods. Now, “neuromarketing,” which uses brain scans, offers the new possibility of learning what’s really happening inside people’s heads and why they act as they do. Some fear that this approach threatens individual freedom; others see it as just one more tool which, like any other, people can use either ethically or unethically.

The most extensive neuromarketing study to date focused on smoking. It clearly showed the method’s inherent possibilities. Cigarette...

About the Author

In 2009, TIME magazine named Martin Lindstrom as one of the world's most influential people. He is an adviser to top executives at Fortune 100 companies and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Economist, New York Times, The Washington Post, and more. The Wall Street Journal acclaimed his previous book, BRANDsense as one of the five best marketing books ever published. Buyology, a New York Times and The Wall Street Journal bestseller, has been translated into more than 30 languages.

Comment on this summary