Not surprisingly, the smokers were on edge, fidgety, not sure what to expect.

Barely noticing the rain and overcast skies, they clumped together outside the medical building in London, England, that houses the Centre for NeuroImaging Sciences. Some were self- described social smokers--a cigarette in the morn­ing, a second snuck in during lunch hour, maybe half-a- dozen more if they went out carousing with their friends at night. Others confessed to being longtime two-pack-a-day addicts. All of them pledged their allegiance to a single brand, whether it was Marlboros or Camels. Under the rules of the study, they knew they wouldn't be allowed to smoke for the next four hours, so they were busy stockpiling as much tar and nicotine inside their systems as they could. In between drags, they swapped lighters, matches, smoke rings, apprehensions: Will this hurt? George Orwell would love this. Do you think the machine will be able to read my mind?

Inside the building, the setting was, as befits a medical lab­oratory, antiseptic, no- nonsense, and soothingly soulless--all cool white corridors and flannel gray doors. As the study got under way I took a perch behind a wide glass window inside a cockpit-like control booth among a cluster of desks, digital equipment, three enormous computers, and a bunch of white-smocked researchers. I was looking over a room domi­nated by an fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanner, an enormous, $4 million machine that looks like a gi­ant sculpted doughnut, albeit one with a very long, very hard tongue. As the most advanced brain- scanning technique avail­able today, fMRI measures the magnetic properties of hemo­globin, the components in red blood cells that carry oxygen around the body. In other words, fMRI measures the amount of oxygenated blood throughout the brain and can pinpoint an area as small as one millimeter (that's 0.03937 of an inch). You see, when a brain is operating on a specific task, it de­mands more fuel--mainly oxygen and glucose. So the harder a region of the brain is working, the greater its fuel consump­tion, and the greater the flow of oxygenated blood will be to that site. So during fMRI, when a portion of the brain is in use, that region will light up like a red-hot flare. By tracking this activation, neuroscientists can determine what specific ar­eas in the brain are working at any given time.
Neuroscientists traditionally use this 32-ton, SUV-sized in­strument to diagnose tumors, strokes, joint injuries, and other medical conditions that frustrate the abilities of X-rays and CT scans. Neuropsychiatrists have found fMRI useful in shed­ding light on certain hard-to-treat psychiatric conditions, in­cluding psychosis, sociopathy, and bipolar illness. But those smokers puffing and chatting and pacing in the waiting room weren't ill or in any kind of distress. Along with a similar sam­ple of smokers in the United States, they were carefully cho­sen participants in a groundbreaking neuromarketing study who were helping me get to the bottom--or the brain--of a mystery that had been confounding health professionals, cig­arette companies, and smokers and nonsmokers alike for decades.

For a long time, I'd noticed how the prominently placed health warnings on cigarette boxes seemed to have bizarrely little, if any, effect on smokers. Smoking causes fatal lung cancer. Smoking causes emphysema. Smoking while pregnant causes birth defects. Fairly straightforward stuff. Hard to argue with. And those are just the soft- pedaled American warnings. European cigarette makers...

 

The author used brain-scan imagery to analyze what parts of our brains "light up" under controlled marketing tests. His results have given advertisers the first neurological evidence that can be used to identify what works in sales, and why. Narrator Don Leslie has a knack for knowing which words to accent in each sentence. Leslie's skill makes the narration seem conversational, thereby increasing the ease with which listeners can pay attention and learn the most. As victims of relentless advertising, we all may want to hear about marketing studies involving the products all around us--like Jockey, Coke, and Ford. The material and presentation adapt well to the audio format, making it easy for on-the-go readers to catch it all in spurts. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

 

"A page-turner"

 

" Lindstrom dishes up results, alongside a buffet of past research, with clear writing and deft reasoning."

 

"Lindstrom ... has an encyclopedic knowledge of advertising history and an abundance of real-world business experience"

 

"Martin Lindstrom, the boy wonder of branding, tells that the future of shopping is all in the mind"

 

"Shatters conventional wisdom"

 

"...brings together a great many strands of research to build a fascinating case. The writing is snappy and the book's a page turner"

 

"Lindstrom's research should be of interest to any company launching a new product or brand"

 

"Lindstrom...has an original, inquisitive mind...His new book is a fascinating look at how consumers perceive logos, ads, commercials, brands, and products."

 

"When someone tells you that a book is a "page-turner," you probably think of the latest top-list best-seller. Now you'll think of Buyology....Pick up a copy of this book and get one of those highlighting thingamajiggies before you fix your ad budget for the new year. "Buyology" is definitely money well-spent."

 

"An entertaining and informative tome"

 

"Why do rational people act irrationally? Written like a fast paced detective novel, "Buyology" unveils what neuromarketers know about our decision making so we can buy and sell more insightfully."

 

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"Move over Tipping Point and Made to Stick because there's a new book in town: Buyology. This book lights the way for smart marketers and entrepreneurs."

 

"Martin Lindstrom is one of branding's most original thinkers"

 

"Full of intriguing stories on how the brain, brands and emotions drive consumer choice. Martin Lindstrom's brilliant blending of marketing and neuroscience supplies us with a deeper understanding of the dynamic, largely unconscious forces that shape our  decision making. One reading of this book and you will look at consumer and producer behavior in an entirely new light."

 

MARTIN LINDSTROM is one of the world's most respected marketing gurus. With a global audience of over a million people, Lindstrom spends 300 days on the road every year, advising top executives of companies including McDonald's Corporation, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Microsoft, The Walt Disney Company and GlaxoSmithKline. He has been featured in The Washington Post, USA TODAY, Fast Company, and more. His previous book, BRANDsense, was acclaimed by the Wall Street Journal as one of the ten best marketing books ever...

Buyology by Martin Lindstrom
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