The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind (31 page)

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You cannot achieve this knowledge to the same high standard of accuracy through conventional market research methodologies. Throughout this book, you will read the fact that the human brain is structured, and functions, in such a way that relying on its articulated responses, as compared to its earlier registration of information at the deep subconscious level, produces inherently and unavoidably flawed results.

By asking for consumers’ articulated responses as to why they didn’t favor a new product with their pocketbooks, you are by definition accepting the fact that the responses are going to be distorted. In contrast, when you “ask”

the brain, measuring neurological responses at the precognitive stage, you are gaining access to the very source where the most accurate answers are originally formed.

Neurological testing offers consumer products manufacturers a powerful tool to analyze product failures because the methodology allows the “cause of death” to be pinpointed much more accurately. Measurement of consumers’

responses can be made to:

Specific
components
of the product itself, such as taste, texture, ingredients, color, sound, scent

Packaging
elements including artwork, photographs, logos, fonts,
placement and content of nutritional information, and warning labels

Ease
of opening/use

Pricing
“envelope of reasonability”

For brand extensions, the
carryover value of the parent brand
(or
lack thereof)

In the In-store Marketing chapter, you’ll learn about how mobile EEG

testing and Video Realistic technology enables us to study consumers’ subconscious responses within actual retail settings, or in virtual ones. In regard to assessing product failures, this capability offers marketers the means to measure the effects of shelf placement, product displays, competitive product presence, and on-shelf/in-store merchandising and promotional elements.

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Rather than second-guessing the reasons why a particular product failed, or attempting to glean that critical insight by asking consumers to try to recall, after the fact, what they liked or didn’t like about the product, relying on neurological testing can produce the answers straight from the source: the consumer’s subconscious, which is the ultimate arbiter of product selection and purchase.

Making Change? Ask the Brain

If you want the best data, the best solution is to ask the brain for it.

Before undertaking a fundamental change in something as basic and essential as a familiar brand/product’s familiar packaging, it’s advisable to have a very clear and exact understanding of the individual elements that make up consumers’
existing
subconscious perceptions of the brand/product. Only then can you navigate something as potentially treacherous as a package redesign with the utmost confidence that your customer will approve it with her selection at the shelf, and the opening of her purse.

The best that all of the advertising, couponing, merchandising, publicity, slotting fees, and trade promotions you’ve invested in can do is get her to pause at your placement on that shelf. Your package can either push the process to completion, or hinder it at the crucial final stage. Neurological testing offers the means to know—in advance, with clarity, precision, and full assurance—if your package design will stand in the way of sales success, or deliver that ultimate purchase stimulant.

Pricing Framework

Many companies spend resources and energy toward gaining a better understanding of the two components of the Pricing Framework:
1. Sweet Spot
. That certain price that appeals to consumers and makes the product or service seem like a bargain, a good deal, and is also comparable to what other competition offers. We call this the sweet spot.

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2. Envelope of Reasonability
. This “envelope” offers a way to push the limits, safely. How far can the price be pushed before the consumer believes that the price has moved from reasonable to unreasonable? This represents a categorical shift in perception.

Price is an ephemeral quantity; in that, consumers have little idea what it costs to make a product and the associated margins. Consumers do not know what the margins associated with an automobile versus a fragrance are.

It is, therefore, seemingly unreasonable that the consumer would make the determination of what price is adequate. However, whether we like it or not, such determination exists. Not only is there a “valid” price, but there are limits of price elasticity in the consumer’s mind. Once again, though, it is very difficult for that consumer to articulate what those exact pricing parameters are in a way that can assure a marketer of the validity and accuracy of that response.

We have found the best way to capture and understand “sweet spot” is to look through the lens of the
Deep Subconscious Response test.
We showcase products and associated prices to consumers while giving them an explicit task that has nothing to do with the associated product or price. We then look for both the high and low ends of a novelty response; that is to say, we look to see when the prices appear ridiculously low or ridiculously high to them at the subconscious level of their minds.

Both of these points, representing the outer and inner limits, are the

“stretch” of price. We note that if the price appears artificially low, notions of a good bargain usually accompany it or that something is wrong (poor quality).

We also note that if a price is unreasonably high, it triggers incredulity and the associated categorical shift toward unreasonableness. Now you have identified your
price elasticity
and how much you can stretch it.

In addition to spotting the inner and outer bounds of the extent of pricing reasonability, we also perform minor variations from a price to figure out whether the appropriate changes in the subconscious response are minor or great. Simply put, a sweet spot of pricing is defined as a point in the pricing continuum where minor deviations in price do not produce substantive deviations in the associated subconscious neurological response. That is to say, it is a stable point. Price points that are not the stable point, in that minor deviations from prices produced major deviations in subconscious responses, represent a price point that is not the sweet spot. We calibrate the price point continuum to figure the points of stability and points of instability. Points of stability—our sweet spots—are like a valley floor; you always roll toward the valley floor from the sides of the surrounding mountains. Points of instability are like the top of the mountains, where a minor shift in one direction or the P1: OTA/XYZ

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other moves you away from the price points. This is how, using the methods of neurological equilibrium, we determine the sweet spots of pricing.

The Bundling Framework

There are many kinds of product bundles. We have found it effective to measure them through the Bundling Framework:

r Based on product features and characteristics r Based on product shape and size

r Based on product consumption occasions

r Based on segments of the population that use the product r Based on the product’s quality, price, handling, and storage So the real question is: How will consumers perceive a product bundle?

How will this product bundling affect or impact the notion of inherent value associated with the bundle? When the consumer subscribes to or buys a product bundle they are hoping that it provides more than the sum of the parts. Instead of buying each of the product items one at a time, a bundle provides value.

That value may have nothing to do with the product itself, but it may have to do with the ease of product storage, carrying the product, accessing the product, restocking the product, and the variety of ways in which the product lives with the consumer for the rest of its life cycle.

The consumer perceives
value in the product items being together
and presented together by the manufacturer rather than buying them one at a time. This is a very deep subconscious perception of inherent value, and can rarely be articulated logically and rationally by the consumer. Many times we find that the act of picking each product, while apparently an act of eminent ease, may appear difficult to the consumer in the store; and thus, the minor act of making things comfortable through bundling may provide a level of value that is not apparent to logical and rational reasoning. However, we know that there is a deep subconscious connection to the ease and simplicity associated with bundling and the perceived inherent value of the bundle. The subconscious feelings are rarely articulated and, therefore, we evaluate product bundles through the means of the Deep Subconscious Response Test.

Takeaways:

r Neurological testing can illuminate exactly how consumers respond to products at the subconscious level, along the entire product consumption/experience pathway.

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r The brain actually “marks” the high points of these experiences. These Neurological Iconic Signatures can be leveraged in product design and packaging, across the full spectrum of marketing materials, and in the retail/point-of-sale (POS) environment.

r Brainwave activity measurement can be applied to gain a comprehensive understanding of consumers’ subconscious responses to a planned new product introduction
before
substantial investments are made in product design/formulation, naming, pricing, and marketing campaign concepts and materials.

r Neurological testing can reveal the core reasons why a new product or brand extension failed in the marketplace.

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Packaging

At the end of this chapter, you’ll know and be able to use the
following:

r How well-understood and marketplace-proven neuroscientific principles can be put to use to create the most effective new package designs, or improve existing ones

r The set of specific Neurological Best Practices to apply during the package design process

r How neurological testing enables companies to perfect the use of package design as a core element of brand positioning—especially in highly competitive categories

The Problem: Declining Market

Share

It’s about the most frustrating thing that can happen to a brand: launch a new product that establishes a new subcategory, watch sales shoot up, only to watch them drop down as your largest competitor launches a similar product that eats up your market share. Needless to say, our client was not pleased.

Since these were similar products with similar market share, the client decided to focus on an area they could change quickly: the package.

Besides, they suspected that the competitor’s package was better, more appealing at the shelf and with better messaging about the new product.

Their question: How did the brain view their package next to the competitor’s?

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Your Brain Is a Hunter

It is, in fact, a highly trained hunting machine, the likes of which the world has never seen. Hundreds of thousands of years and countless trillions upon trillions of evolutionary advances have honed the organ inside your skull into an ideal pursuit device.

“Jaws” is a squeeze toy compared to what you carry around in your cranium.

Improvements in brain structure and functions enabled early humans to learn the patterns of the world around them, for example, to identify the best berries, single out the most desirable prey, shape the weapons that would secure food—survival. Even though we no longer have to skulk through the jungle or pace the Serengeti in search of sustenance, the brain has lost none of its exquisitely developed skills.