MIDDLE EAST
PROFILE 11
21 December 2008
Lindstrom himself isn’t averse to the odd superla- the logo—that bedrock of brand value—is a device
Buy me: I’ll change your life forever
tive when discussing his work. “Buyology is the larg- whose time has passed.
est NeuroMarketing project in the world,” he says, Lindstrom insists that his ideas, far from being
Five pseudo-scientific books about marketing
speaking from a hotel room in Zurich. “We scanned sensational for the sake of it, are based on solid sci- and advertising
2,000 consumers’ brains and found 85 per cent of ence. “The logo is going to die,” he says firmly. “When
everything we do is controlled by our subconscious we did our experiments, we found that when people
mind. The focus of Buyology is to understand what look at a logo they see a warning disclaimer that says Naomi Klein
really goes on inside our ‘blank box’ and what really ‘do not buy me’. For example, take the iPod—you No Logo
affects us.” cannot see the logo on the front but we still know it’s Angry Klein rails against the all-
an iPod from its brand and encompassing power of the mega-
the signals it sends out.” brand in an extended rant that has
In Lindstrom’s opinion, remained a best-seller since it was
the fastest way to a con- first published in 2000. Wal-mart,
sumer’s heart is through his Blockbuster, McDonald’s—the du-
ear, followed by his nose. “If bious practices of these and other
I play you a sound from a multinationals are laid bare, with
Nokia phone, this element the author exposing how compa-
will be more powerful than nies ‘create’ brand culture, even
any logo,” he says. “Sensory infiltrating schools to brainwash
strategy is very important.” message-susceptible tots. While Klein’s book is hardly a
While Buyology has made balanced argument, you can’t help but be moved her im-
Lindstrom a darling of the passioned and articulate rhetoric.
mainstream media, not ev-
eryone buys his ideas. In Noam Chomsky
October, industry heavy- Media Control: The Spectacular
weight Advertising Age ran Achievements of Propaganda
a feature filled with dissent- The uber-intellect of Chomsky can
ing voices. The Washington be hard going sometimes; here he
Post, for its part, suggested turns his formidable mind toward
that Lindstrom’s next ex- media and the foundations of
periment “should look at modern PR. Encompassing gov-
why those pictures of the ernment propaganda, this mer-
cortex produced by brain- cifully short but perfectly formed
scanning experiments can tome provides a ‘bigger picture’
make people believe such perspective about the role that opinion-engineering
silly things.” plays in society.
“Buyology has done its
own work,” Lindstrom Sergio Zyman
sniffs when asked about The End Of Marketing As We
such criticisms. “It is on the Know It
New York Times’ best seller Marketing’s ‘angry child’ (why
list, number three in the are people who write about ad-
Wall Street Journal and was vertising always so angry?) fo-
number two on Amazon a cuses his wrath on traditional
few weeks ago. The book advertising. The ex-chief market-
is controversial and differ- ing officer for Coca Cola believes
ent so it has been selling in brand relevance, and is a bit
itself—and in 35 different cross that marketing people are
languages.” more concerned with raising
One apparent believer is ‘brand awareness’, which every-
BBDO CEO Andrew Robert- one knows does not lead to more
son, who snapped up 2,000 sales, the golden grail of admen, among whom Zyman is
copies of Buyology and a leading light, says Zyman.
sent them to his clients. A
similar order was made by Wally Olins
Saatchi & Saatchi, says Lind- Wally Olins On Brand
While Buyology was by no means a straightforward strom. On the client side, he is an advisor to the likes One of the biggest shapers of
endeavour—its findings rest on a $7 million global of McDonald’s, Microsoft and Unilever, suggesting popular culture is branding, says
study, Lindstrom says—the payoff is a collection of that the industry is ready to have a few of its tallest the man credited with inventing
insights that will change the way we look at brand- pillars toppled. the concept of corporate identi-
ing and marketing. At least that’s the way Lindstrom “I expected everyone to hate Buyology, because it ty. Sage words from brandfather
sees it. “No-one has raised these questions before,” does raise questions about what people are doing,” Wally Olins, who reveals the del-
he says. “I think this is groundbreaking work, but we Lindstrom says. “But marketers are saying that good icate science and fine art of ad-
won’t know for another 20 years exactly how much.” branding is more than a logo and that it’s time to vertising in a manner that tends
move on.” He adds, “We’ve reached the point where to be slightly less angry (market-
something new is needed—because we estimate that ing isn’t capitalism!) than other
The logo is going to
between 50 and 80 per cent of all advertising invest- brand-scribes.
die. When we did our
ment has been wasted.”
experiments, we found
Given the current economic situation, clients will Malcolm Gladwell
likely be highly receptive to suggestions on how to The Tipping Point
that when people look at reduce such wastage—meaning that 2009, like this Gladwell’s book explores the
a logo they see a warning
one, is shaping up to be an “amazing year” for Lind- science behind seemingly ran-
strom. And, ever the contrarian, the author suggests dom social ‘epidemics’, from
disclaimer that says ‘do
that marketers could enjoy a bumper 2009—if, that gang violence to the sudden re-
not buy me’.
is, they don’t respond to the global economic crisis surgence in popularity of Hush
in predictable ways. Puppy shoes. This ‘tipping point’,
“Companies should increase their marketing bud- the moment when a new trend
get,” he says. “Worldwide, [ad spend] has gone down or behaviour becomes com-
One of the more interesting—and controversial— 30 per cent over the last two months, so it’s easier to monplace in society, is brought
opinions in Buyology is the idea that brand loyalty is get a strong message out there because there is not as about by three rules: ‘the law of
based on the same kinds of emotions and brain func- much noise. If you spend money now you will be in the few’, ‘the context factor’ and
tions as those that fuel religious devotion. His book is the spotlight and the returns will be higher. There’s ‘stickiness’. While the dots connecting Gladwell’s theories
the first, Lindstrom rightly points out, to fully explore also a much greater awareness among consumers might seem a touch muddled, he manages to maintain
the link between product placement and rapture. In right now.” reader interest without getting too angry.
another counter-intuitive flourish, he tells us that Could be a book in there somewhere.
www.mediaweekme.com
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