The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind (33 page)

Size:
We have consistently observed across categories a deep subconscious
connection between size, perceived value, and price acceptability.
Simply put, the higher the price paid, the bigger the expected package. The more valuable the product is perceived to be, the bigger the package is expected to be. Even for products whose value is represented by its “smallness,” the packaging is expected to be “bigger.” The core NeuroMetrics we use to evaluate size are Attention and Purchase Intent.

The strength of the correlation between price and size creates interesting opportunities for manufacturers. Varying the size of the package provides room for price flexibility. We have found it useful to evaluate the Deep Subconscious Response connection between price points and packaging size to find the boundaries of price reasonability, and then reverse-engineer the optimal package size to match the optimal price.

In cases where the product package will spend its useful lifetime in a particular location (for example, laundry detergents), size must also be aligned with the spatial dimensions of that location. We have found that consumers automatically and implicitly estimate the “fit” of such packages with their expected locations, and summarily and instantly reject the package when there is a perceived mismatch.

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Interplay of Imagery and Semantics:
Many times, we find that packages with very poor responses in terms of neurological effectiveness have one thing in common: words are written over interesting image backgrounds. Anytime you have important and relevant semantics overlaying an interesting image background, the brain appears to ignore the semantics in the forefront while taking in the imagery in the background. The brain evidently views the overlaid semantics as “distraction,” and tries to suppress them. Subsequent testing reveals that the distracting semantics had poor recall and weak memory processing associated with them.

NeuroMetrics we have used to study the interplay effects of imagery and semantics are Attention, Effectiveness, and Memory.

Patterns of Eye Movement:
While I have focused primarily on brain responses in this discussion of the Packaging Effectiveness Framework, and not on peripheral physiological measures, there is one interesting physiological correlate worthy of mention. In our analysis of packaging, we have found that placing imagery, iconography, semantics, and branding elements in a pattern that naturally facilitates a
curvilinear eye gaze
path
is superior to those that are strictly linear across the package. Our observation has been that when the same creative elements are arranged in a curvilinear pattern, packages achieve superior effectiveness scores compared to packages where the same elements were arranged in a linear pattern. Similarly, we have found that arranging elements to stimulate
clockwise
eye movement is more effective than arrangements of the same elements with
counterclockwise
eye movement.

Product Reveal:
In our testing of packaging across categories, we have found another interesting phenomenon: Packages that reveal the actual product
perform better
than packages that do not reveal the product.

By “reveal,” I mean the variety of ways a product can be seen or experienced through the package—sight, sound, taste, smell, or touch. Packages that enable a sensory interaction with the actual product performed better uniformly. The core NeuroMetrics that we use to compute the product reveal factor are Attention, Emotion, Purchase Intent, Novelty, and Awareness.

Aisle Connect:
How well the packaging connects with advertising and displays surrounding it in-store has been found to be an important component of effectiveness. When packaging is designed in isolation from advertising and display design, the results are rarely connected. But we have found that when the elements of the packaging and surrounding displays connect in a meaningful way,
package effectiveness increases,
especially in cluttered aisle contexts. The primary NeuroMetrics that we P1: OTA/XYZ

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use to analyze the level of aisle connect are Memory Retention and Awareness.

Messaging Congruence:
This is a vital component of the Packaging Effectiveness Framework. Implicitly, the package must convey the essence of the product and brand to the consumer explicitly stating that message
in words
on the package. We use the Deep Subconscious Response technique to test the extent to which this congruence is occurring.

To do so effectively, the package must reinforce the key elements of the Brand Essence Framework. It is vital that the package has a very significant match with the Brand Essence elements of Feelings, Values, Benefits, and Metaphors.

Neurological testing in the packaging category reminds us that the brain absorbs fully the entirety of the world around it but, also, simultaneously captures and processes the tiniest details in that world. That ability is one reason why humans stand atop the food chain. We see, recognize, react, and adapt to the big picture. At the same time we live amid the endless details that comprise that picture. Packaging is a good representation of that duality—the brain absorbs the package as a whole, but at the same time breaks it out into individual elements and assesses each both independently and as a part of the whole.

Neurological testing functions in very much the same way. Effectively, we mirror the brain’s own mode of operation, capturing consumers’ subconscious responses to the
macro and the micro.
I want to stress the importance of that approach, because there are so-called “neuromarketing” companies that purport to capture brainwave activity, while in reality they are either relying entirely on biometric measurements, or only measuring a very small area of the cortex.

Sometimes science allows us to make definitive statements, and this is one of them, which every marketer considering using neuromarketing needs to know:
Only full-brain EEG-based measurement can capture the necessary
broad scope of brainwave activity occurring across multiple neural
networks
that leads to accurate, in-depth, and actionable research findings.

Don’t be fooled by anything less. If in doubt, ask a leading neuroscientist about that fact.

When you consider how many opportunities there are to make a mis-step and to inadvertently create something that jars the brain and causes a disconnect or otherwise negatively affects the subconscious’s perceptions of a package, the significance of full-brain EEG testing of package designs becomes clear.

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When it comes to products that you put in or on your body, the brain activates a different hierarchy of the senses than it does with other products.

These are very often highly competitive and sometimes low-margin categories, where a significant/unique marketplace advantage can result in outsized rewards in terms of market share and profitability. Neurological testing provides that advantage, by measuring what the subconscious responds to best. Marketers can leverage that knowledge to improve the effectiveness of their packaging.

Neuromarketing is still new enough that the occasional misconception can surface, and size is one of them. The thinking along these lines is that only large companies can afford or could benefit from brainwave measurement of consumers’ subconscious responses.

Allow me to burst that bubble with another case study. One that underscores how asking the brain directly for its take on a critical element like package design, for a new small company that is truly rolling the dice by rolling out a new brand in a mature category, populated by long-established traditional brands, with strong brand loyalties, where perceived major product differences are relatively scarce, can make a big difference.

Olive Orchard Options

California Olive Ranch is a young company founded with a single-minded focus: create and market a premium olive oil that consumers would love.

Creating the product itself was something that they were well suited to do.

It’s delicious and admirably high in quality; in fact, California Olive Ranch leads the development of a new way of harvesting olives that results in the freshest oil. But, making a superior product is one thing.
Launching a new
brand
into an already-full category is another. California Olive Ranch knew that the most effective marketing they could muster was core to their business strategy and goals.

The brain responds to food marketing in some specialized ways. Mirror Neurons, which I explain in Chapter 9, play a key role. When observing someone else consuming a food, the brain actually experiences the same sensations itself, as if it were consuming the food as well. As mentioned above, products that you ingest or apply to your body invoke different sensual hierarchies than other products. Another key point is that the brain prefers to see presentations of “natural” images associated with food; and there are more such distinct neurological characteristics that can improve the effectiveness of food marketing efforts.

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Figure 14.1

California Olive Ranch

Source:
Photo by The Olive Board

Being the savvy business people they are, the California Olive Ranch team sought to leave no potential advantage unused. In a category like theirs, with long-established and entrenched competition, and retailers for whom shelf space is some very valuable real estate, launching a new product presents stiff challenges.

California Olive Ranch had developed two different package design solutions. One we’ll call “Map,” because the labeling featured a stylized map of California, and the other “Orchard” (see Figure 14.1). (That one’s so obvious as to need no explanation.) Diving to the deep subconscious level of the mind would uncover the neurological effectiveness of each of these two options.

We devised a neurological testing scenario that would plumb those depths and discover how consumers would respond at retail to this new olive oil. The first phase would explore consumers’ subconscious responses to the package

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design. The second phase would tease out those deep-seated, precognitive responses to the new brand itself and its perceived attributes.

Test Variables: Two different package designs for California Olive Ranch.

There were four fundamental objectives for the testing:
1. Determine
each package’s ability to score well in our three primary NeuroMetrics: capturing consumers’ Attention, engaging their Emotions, and stimulating Memory Retention.

2. Evaluate
how the packages scored in our derived market performance metrics of Purchase Intent, Novelty, and Awareness.

3. Measure
how well the packages conveyed the intended messaging.

4. Compare
the packages’ performance to two competitors.

While I go into the methodology in more detail in the Brand chapter, I want to take a moment here to touch on the framework that we employ to identify and quantify brand attributes. The process is instructive for a good understanding of authentic neuromarketing and the neuroscience underlying it. See Figure 14.2.