MIDDLE EAST
10 PROFILE
21 December 2008
BRAIN
Branding guru Martin Lindstrom
invites Media Week into the weird,
SELLS
wonderful and sometimes scary
world of ‘Buyology’
By PAUL MCLENNAN
artin Lindstrom isn’t the first per-
M
son to apply psychology to the
business of marketing. For de-
cades, titles like Psychodynamics of
Psychotropic Advertising have tried
to pick apart the dynamics of consumer decision
making, with varying degrees of success.
More recently, author Malcolm Gladwell has
achieved cult status by taking a more accessible
approach—his books Blink and Tipping Point have
pretty much cornered the market when it comes to
marketing theory presented as pop philosophy.
Lindstrom, shrewdly, has carved a niche for him-
self by assuming the role of die-hard contrarian. In
his most recent book, Buyology: Truth and Lies About
Why We Buy, he has garnered international atten-
tion by debunking conventional wisdom at every
turn—health warnings on cigarette packs encour-
age smoking, 99 per cent of product placements are
ineffective and fear—not sex—is what really sells.
His findings are given a sheen of authority, mean-
while, through the application of impressive-sound-
ing research techniques—his website is peppered
with digital illustrations of the human brain and
references to MRIs and EEGs. “NeuroMarketing,” he
tells us on martinlindstrom.com, “is where science
and marketing meet.”
The Lindstrom brand is rounded out by an oft-told
folksy tale about the event that sparked his interest
in advertising—a precocious 11-year-old Danish
boy creates a Lego village, invites people to come
see, no one does, so boy places an ad in the local pa-
per, thereby attracting—cue crescendo of strings—
streams of curious townsfolk … oh, and a couple of
attorneys, there to warn the lad that his use of the
term ‘Legoland’ is trademark infringement.
Whether true or not, Lindstrom’s story demon-
strates a masterful grasp of effective brand building,
a talent he put to use in the 1980s at BBDO, where
he founded BBDO Interactive Asia before being ap-
pointed global COO of British Telecom/Looksmart,
aged 30.
Nowadays, Lindstrom spends 300 days a year on
the road, wowing audiences at speaking engage-
ments around the world (he will be in Dubai in April
to deliver a ‘Buyology Symposium’). His five books
to date have been translated into dozens of languag-
es, with his previous effort, Brand Sense, being ac-
claimed by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best
marketing books ever published.
VITALS
Martin Lindstrom
Occupation: ‘Brand Futurist’, author
Age: 38
Nationality: Danish
Lives: Sydney, Australia
Drives: Porsche
First job: BBDO in Denmark
www.mediaweekme.com
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