NeuroMarketing: This is crazy, but I'm @GoDaddy, So Use Me Maybe?

Hey! I just met you - and this is crazy - but I'm @GoDaddy, so use me, maybe?

It all connects - we just have to look beyond the cells of our limbic panopticons to see how.

Hack the Hippocampus: Memory Principles for Ads

Rita J. King

EVP, Science House

 

You may never forget the GoDaddy kiss, but were any of the Super Bowl ads memorable for the right reasons?

“The GoDaddy kiss is pretty hard to shake,” Adam Albrecht, Chief Creative Officer at Engauge, told me. “It featured a passionate, if not shocking kiss between two complete opposites. Depending on which side of the lunchroom you sat on in high school the kiss was either horrifying or a fantasy come true. But this uber-awkward kiss demonstrated exactly how GoDaddy wants you to think about their brand. And as hard as I try, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to erase the image or the message behind it from my memory.”

Yes, that kiss will be hard to shake — but does such a technique create a memorable message, or just a memorable ad? With ads costing $3.8 million dollars per thirty second spot (that’s over $4,000 per frame) can companies afford to overlook the ad’s sole mission: highlighting the product, service or brand and not just the ad itself?

I’ve recently been collaborating with Memory Layer, a company that works with brands and ad agencies on creating memory in ads. Memory experts James Jorasch and Chris Harwood have designed a system for improving the memorability of ads. Memory Layer “hacks the hippocampus,” (the part of the brain that lets memories in) through five principles of memory. Here’s a glimpse of the Principle WHEEL of Memory (weight, harmony, entanglement, engagement and leveraged attention) from Memory Layer, and how these principles relate to a few of this year’s Super Bowl spots:

Weight  The brain evolved to see the world through the senses, so abstract ideas that cannot be directly sensed carry little value. Instead, tangible weight must be given to an idea. Two commercials this year demonstrated this principle well. Tide’s “Miracle Stain” took the lowly stain and raised it to exalted levels - creating a solid image in the mind of the audience.

Although the first GoDaddy ad is getting all the attention, its second spot, “Your Big Idea,” succeeded in turning an abstract notion into a concrete vision. It takes the possibility of someone else stealing a great idea and filing for a domain name before you and turns into the vision of what could have been if only you had acted. By showing people in other parts of the world all talking about the same idea, the spot makes the rush to move first on an idea tangible. In classic GoDaddy style, the reward is obnoxiously portrayed by a cackling winner on his private jet--but the point is made.

Harmony  Like a crew rowing in unison, the elements of an ad should operate toward a single key message. When the elements are more organized and harmonious, the brain is better able to process the message. One of the best examples of this principle in this years lineup of ads is Best Buy’s “Asking Amy” spot. Amy Poehler has lots of questions about the products. The Best Buy employee dutifully follows her around to answer them. While most of the answers are never shown, they are implied, and Amy leaves the store happy and thankful. Best Buy is advertising the expertise of their staff, which shows in the knowledgable and patient service provided in this commercial.

Entanglement  A commercial may be memorable without it being valuable, if what ends up being remembered is the content rather than the product or brand. You may remember a wish granting genie played by Kaley Cuoco, helping an average suburban family live out their wishes. But who or what was it for? Without firmly entangling the message to memorable content you end up with a $4 million showcase for the Big Bang Theory star and not an ad for the Toyota RAV4 in “Wish Granted.”

On the flip side is the Meatloaf-belting candy-coated commercial “Love Ballad.” The protagonist of the commercial is itself an M&M wrestling with the idea of love. In the first half, the M&M claims he would do anything for love and we see scenes of what that means to him. This is followed by what we humans want to do to the M&M’s we love: eat them in a variety of ways. This is something that he won’t do. You cannot remove the M&M from the story without ruining the narrative, as the narrative is dependent on the candy.

Engagement  In order for an advertisement to be truly experienced it must engage the audience. The more the viewers imagine, the more of the brain is used and in turn the more memorable the message becomes. The Mercedes-Benz “Soul” ad for their all-new CLA car succeeded brilliantly here, encouraging viewers to dream along with the protagonist as he envisions a future of the benefits associated with the car: riches, love, fame and adventure, offered to him in a deal with the devil played by Willem Dafoe. The audience is right there with him as a vision of the future (which includes Usher and Kate Upton) unfolds. In the end he sees, through the window, a billboard with the car’s reasonable price on it. Since he realizes that the glories promised by the car are within his reach and budget, he doesn’t need the tempting deal with the devil to own it.

Leveraged Attention  With millions of people watching a Super Bowl ad, this attention is far more valuable when it is leveraged to help remember the message. Hyundai had two commercials that used their attention in vastly different ways. The first, “Epic Playdate”, squandered most of it. It lent its focus to the guest band and the crazy antics an average suburban family can have in a day. Only after the frenetic action of the commercial do we really focus on the car, and then only for a couple of seconds. Hyundai’s “Stuck” commercial, however, took advantage of attention to bring the feature of the Sonata to the fore, illustrating why the turbo feature is helpful by having the action of the ad focus on the car passing other highway nuisances.

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Stress Response and Emotional Inoculation

"It took me a second to figure out what was happening ... I saw the lights in the distance. My mind was to alert the train," Abbasi said.

This is a tragic story about an unnecessary loss of life.  It's also a fascinating look at how people react.  The man who took this picture has responded to questions about why he took a picture by instead focusing on how upsetting he found the behaviour of people closer to Mr. Han than he was.  Why did he feel this necessary?  Probably because he's got some internal cognitive dissonance between what he knows would have been "moral" behaviour (help Han up) vs. what he actually did.

 

Hindsight is a funny thing; it forces us to offer logical rationalization for reactive behaviour that is more gut instinct than logical reasoning.  Reactive behaviour relies on pre-programming, which happens much more quickly than abstract thought.  It shouldn't really be a surprise that a photographer would respond to an uncomfortable situation by turning to comfortable, established behaviour - like taking pictures.

 

Police, soldiers, fire fighters, even CPR students all go through test-case scenarios that help build familiarity with the sorts of stressful scenarios they could encounter in their jobs; consider it a kind of emotional inoculation.  While some people are more naturally inclined to react well under pressure, everyone can learn to handle prescribed situations better.  This principle underlies everything from cognitive behaivoural therapy to improv class.

 

There will be a lot of focus on what didn't happen in this situation; it's an instinctual approach to take.  A more useful one, though, might be to think about what could be learned to prevent such tragedies in the future.

Sexual Economics

 

Dr. Baumeister’s argument is that “men will do whatever is required in order to obtain sex” – and that, historically, society has made them do quite a lot. To qualify as good marriage material, a young man used to have to show he could work hard, compete successfully, commit to family life, be a good provider and gain respect in the community. “The fact that men became useful members of society as a result of their efforts to obtain sex is not trivial,” he says.

 

 

Periodically, I find myself in conversation with the odd laissez-faire libertarian who insists that financial economics is the be-all and end-all of everything, and that we've landed on the best system - if only people would stop being people and let it work.  For some odd reason they don't take kindly when I suggest, most often in kinder terminology, that they're as delusional about their system as communists were about theirs.

 

The whole point of life is to continue, not profit.  Title, land, means of production, knowledge, wealth and charm are all just means to attract the "fittest" possible mate to ensure one's genes are carried on in the strongest possible package.  The "weak" packages stand less chance of reproducing, meaning that over time, undesirable traits are minimized and desirable ones are expanded upon.  Everything else we do as living creatures - territorialism, resource hoarding, tribalism, oppression of others and puffing ourselves up simply serves the purpose of increasing our desirability and ensuring the best possible access to quality mates and, therefore, strong offspring with a strong chance of carrying on our line.  Fashion and social activities like dance and dating are part of the same, instinctual drive.  Of course there is more to society than this - social evolution charts a different course than biological evolution does.  Because we're not conscious of how the more engrained, limbicly-derived behaviours are formed, though, we have less control over them.

 

It is the economy, stupid - just not the one you thought it was.

 

Great Leaders Decide With Their Guts, Not Just Their Brains (By Mark C. Crowley)

The limbic centre of our brain is ancient; it is the repository for both genetic memory (fear the dark, fear snakes) and learned experiences.  The limbic system allows us to react to stimuli by pulling out related memories from the hypothalamus and filtering them through the amygdala, centre for reactive emotions.  If you had a bad experience with a tattooed man in your past and meet someone new with tattoos, it's this process that will give you a negative bias.  It's an incredibly useful tool, but it doesn't allow us to overcome reactive urges - that's where the neocortex comes in.

 

The neocortex permits us to apply executive function, overriding instinct, take risks, innovate.  This is the part of our noggin that humans have to a larger degree than other species and has allowed for social development, science, etc. 

 

The best decisions, of course, are made through a balanced approach of reaction and foresight.  It's a tricky line to walk, but one we can do when we do it consciously.

 

Great Leaders Decide With Their Guts, Not Just Their Brains

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Mark C. Crowley

 

“Dig up all the information you can, then go with your instincts. We all have a certain intuition, and the older we get, the more we trust it… I use my intellect to inform my instinct. Then I use my instinct to test all this data. ‘Hey, instinct, does this sound right? Does it smell right, feel right, fit right?

General Colin Powell

 

 

The idea of using intuition when making important decisions is greatly frowned upon in business.

We’ve been taught that conscious reasoning alone is the sure-fire way of choosing the best course of action, and that our intuition is impulsive and inherently misguiding. Stand up in a meeting and say, “I feel this is the right decision even though the financials don’t fully back me up,“ and expect an immediate backlash.

 

While we’ve all learned to be publicly dismissive about intuition, I’m absolutely certain you can quickly recall an experience when an inner voice steered you away from a disastrous outcome. Is it logical that this voice doesn’t also speak up when workplace dilemmas need resolution? Is that inner guidance untrustworthy in our jobs but fully reliable in our personal lives?

 

I’m guessing you have a hunch on the answers to both these questions, but if your mind isn’t yet fully able to reconcile the conflict, I have good news. Science is coming to your aid.

 

According to Dr. Rollin McCraty, Director of Research at the Institute of HeartMath, human intuition – flashes of insight that can’t be judged by reasoning – is real. More importantly, there’s compelling new research that proves leaders who act on their intuition achieve greater success.

 

Through the research performed by HeartMath and other organizations, we now know there are three unique types of intuition:

 

(1) Implicit Knowledge: We learn something and forget we learned it. While we’re taking a shower or are out for a run, it sneaks up from our unconscious into our conscious. Voila, the insight we need in the moment pops into our heads. About 95% of what’s written about intuition relates to “implicit knowledge.”

 

(2) Energetic Sensitivity: Our nervous system literally is sensitive to environmental signals (it’s like a big antenna). Psychologist, Gary Klein, tells the story of a team of fire fighters that entered a house where the kitchen was ablaze. While hosing down the fire, the commander suddenly heard himself yell, “Let’s get out of here!” without knowing why. The kitchen floor collapsed immediately after– but not before all firefighters escaped. Only after the experience did the captain recall the impressions that prompted his “sixth sense of danger.” The fire had gotten unusually hot and quiet, and his intuition discerned it.

 

(3) Non-Local Intuition: “Everyone has an experience of it,” says McCraty. “You drive down a road you travel all the time and have the sudden impulse to slow down. As you round the corner, you see a small child in the street or an accident that just has happened. In situations like these, the heart senses the nature of events ahead of time, before they actually occur…. This intuition stuff about unknown future events that you cannot explain through implicit learning is nevertheless real. The central core of every religion on the planet is the heart is our primary access point to wisdom and courage. Science is now supporting what’s always been believed.”

 

For many years, the Australian Graduate School Of Entrepreneurship has been studying repeat entrepreneurs, people with long careers who’ve built businesses multiple times with great success.

In looking for common characteristics, the researchers discovered something amazing – and especially useful for business leaders. 80% of the entrepreneurs acknowledged relying on their intuition when making important decisions. When weighing their options, in other words, they relied on their cognitive capacities and intuitive capacities – heart and mind.

 

In his recent book, Onward, Starbucks CEO and hugely successful entrepreneur, Howard Schultz, admits to routinely consulting his intuition and to taking frequent action on the guidance it gives him. Overruling financial analysis that strongly panned both these ideas, Schultz chose to remove a very popular breakfast item from the menu and to close all Starbucks’ stores for three hours of employee training. Had he relied on his mind alone to guide these actions, he never would have pursued them. Perhaps not coincidentally, Starbucks’ stock is up 400% over the past decade while the S & P 500 average return is a mere 60%.

 

As Daniel Kahneman points out in Thinking Fast And Slow, making important decisions tied to intuition alone can prove disastrous. But what science now has proved is that we have two sources of human intelligence, and letting them both have a say is a very wise move.

What Happens When We Don't Think Before We React:

“I didn’t mean to cause such an alarm and I apologize if I did,” you said in a statement sent to this newspaper. “I just want women to be safe.”

Responsibility is a conscious choice - one that few of us make instinctively.  How can we focus so exclusively on individual ownership when we still have so much work to do on ownership of individual action? 

 

Eyes on the Brain

A neurobiologist explores the amazing capacity of the brain to rewire itself at any age.

by Susan R. Barry, Ph.D.

What the Brain Tells the Eye.

 

Do we see what we want to see?

 

 

Published on August 30, 2012 by Susan R. Barry, Ph.D. in Eyes on the Brain

 

 

Have you ever picked up a gallon milk bottle that you thought was full when it was empty instead? You realize your mistake as soon as you begin to lift the bottle because your hand and bottle fly over your head. Your brain assumed that the bottle was heavier than it was and thus instructed your muscles to exert more force than was necessary. Before we make any voluntary movement, a great deal of planning, which is largely unconscious, takes place in our brain.

 

The same is true for perception. Since our eyes sense what is around us, it’s easy to think that our visual system is quiescent unless stimulated by something from the outside. However, what we see is governed to a large extent by what we expect to see. As with our movements, our brain sets us up in advance for what we will see.

 

This idea came home to me one morning when I glanced out my kitchen window at the bird feeder outside. Small woodland birds, such as nuthatches, juncos , and chickadees, were the usual visitors to the feeder. But on this day, I happened to glance up from the kitchen sink and saw five enormous wild turkeys, one male and four females, looking in on me. The male was so tall, he practically looked me in the eye. Despite their large size and distinctive appearance, it took me a full second to figure out what I was seeing. Had I glanced outside and seen the usual juncos and chickadees, I would have recognized and distinguished these birds, despite their small size, in much less time.                  

 

So why did it take so long to see the big wild turkeys? Because I didn’t expect to see them. What we see depends to a large extent upon what we anticipate seeing. The first area of our visual cortex to receive input from our eyes is called the primary visual cortex. It was once thought that neurons in this area respond almost exclusively to stimuli coming from the eyes. But we now know that the activity of these neurons is affected by “higher” brain centers which are involved in prediction and planning.

 

 

When the brain can predict what will be seen, it can prime the appropriate circuits in the primary visual cortex and other regions, allowing us to interpret visual stimuli more quickly. So, when I looked out the kitchen window that morning, my brain may have readied the circuits in my visual cortex for what I expected to see – the usual small birds at the feeder. The image of turkeys threw my visual system into a momentary state of confusion. Some circuits had to be suppressed and others activated in order for me to make sense of the surprising view outside my kitchen window.

Harper is No Lion

 Why should you care? Does it matter? It matters. Billion-dollar fighter jets and super jails, before a pittance for a radio station that subtly promoted democracy, and decency, around the world. In small but undeniable ways, the Conservatives are chipping away at the notion of what Canada was, and what it is. It is thoughtless, it is ideological, it is done without any appreciation of our history or our shared culture: the Harper regime are denuding us of the things that make us uniquely Canadian. To ourselves, and to the world.

Funny how things connect.  I had just finished my last post about, essentially, the biology of behaviour and how aggressive behaviour requires broader energy conversation to be sustainable when I read the above piece on Harper's continued efforts to shrink government services yet expand personal control and institutions of security.

Neo-Cons want people to be tough or fade away; therefore, they reduce services expecting that the strong will survive.  Not much thought is given to those who are less able under whatever circumstances, but neo-Cons tend to be limited in scope like that.  Funny enough, Neo-Cons see the national defense and aggressively positioning Canada on the world stage as the only legitimate roles of government.

The more virulent these folk get, the more enslaved they become to their own genetics. 

Personally, I wouldn't call that freedom.