coke is just soda tylenol just
acetaminophen
and levi's are just genes yet consumers
go out of their way to select these
specific brands
over others an economist would say how
is this possible
that a rational consumer would be
willing to pay more
for exactly the same thing we love to
think about ourselves as rational that's
not how it works
a very famous study done by colleagues
at duke university it flashed
either the apple logo or the ibm logo
to two randomized groups of participants
the study found that after being
subliminally exposed to the apple logo
compared to when you've been exposed to
the ibm logo
participants performed better on
creative tasks
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and the argument is that apple has been
telling you this story
over and over again that apple
is the brand for hip cool fun
creative people this is the true power
of brands
they can influence our behavior in ways
that extend way beyond the point of sale
so to what degree can the influence of
brands wreak havoc on our ability to
make rational spending decisions
this is your brain on money
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this is americus reid he studies
identity and marketing at the university
of pennsylvania
when i make choices about different
brands i'm choosing to create
an identity when i put that shirt on
when i put those shoes on those jeans
that have
someone is going to form an impression
about what i'm about
so if i'm choosing nike over under
armour i'm
choosing a kind of different way to
express
affiliation with sport the nike thing is
about performance
the under armour thing is about the
underdog
i have to choose which of these
different conceptual pathways
is most consistent with where i am in my
life
and once a consumer makes that choice
their relationship with a brand can
deepen to the point where they identify
with the brand
like family and once you identify with a
brand
it can shape the way you behave and it's
really interesting because they will
also
if someone talks bad about that product
brand or service
they will be the first to go out and
defend why
because an attack on the brand is an
attack on themselves
michael platt is a professor of
neuroscience marketing and psychology
whose research demonstrates how our
perception of brands
influences our decisions there's an idea
in marketing which is that we relate to
brands
in the same way we relate to people it's
like i love this brand
or i hate this brand of course what
people say
right can often be different from what's
really going on in their heads
so we thought well why don't we just ask
the brain directly
michael and his team observed the brains
of iphone users and samsung galaxy users
with an mri machine
while they heard good bad and neutral
news about apple and samsung
apple customers showed a brain empathy
response
toward apple that was exactly what you'd
see in the way you would respond to
somebody in your own family strangely
samsung users didn't have any positive
or negative responses when good or bad
news was released about their brand
the only evidence that samsung users
showed was reverse empathy for apple
news
meaning if the apple headline was
negative their brain reflected a
positive response
you know it really shows us that apple
has completely defined the market here
samsung customers it seems from their
brain data are only buying samsung
because they hate apple
the kicker the samsung users didn't
report feeling the results that mris
showed
what was happening in their brains and
what they reported feeling towards apple
and samsung
were totally different most people just
don't realize
that they are subconsciously choosing
brands because those brands
have some kind of self-expressive value
you can see there's a lot of power here
in terms of shaping consumers decisions
as we learn more and more about that we
have to think much more deeply
about the ethical legal and societal
implications of doing that
so as consumers what can we do to make
informed choices
well the best thing we can do is be
aware of the influence that brands hold
i think it's important to always pause
and think a little bit about okay why am
i buying this product
and like it or not brands aren't going
anywhere i've
heard lots of people push back and say
that i'm not into brands
i take a very different view they're not
doing anything any different
than what someone who affiliates with a
brand is doing
they have a brand it's just an
anti-brand brand
i think about what is it i've learned
about identity over time
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i think a lot of it has to do with
the fundamental need that we as humans
have
to have support systems perhaps it was
the church it was the community it was
these other institutions that existed
now brands have stepped in as pillars
of our identity so i'm very much
motivated to see that in that positive
light
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