Showing posts with label Douglas van Praet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Douglas van Praet. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Book Review: Unconscious Branding by Douglas van Praet


Modern marketing entails the embedded secrets of unconscious branding. The book Unconscious Branding: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and inspire) Marketing by Douglas van Praet delves into the influences of the unconscious on human behavior and marketing effectiveness. The understanding of neuroscience explains how feelings lead to choices that that result in product sales.

Advertisers and product designers spend billions of dollars every year on creating the right advertising mix to lure potential buyers to their products. Hidden desires and needs seem to drive much of human behavior even though we are often unaware of why we are purchasing products or how it enhances our self-perception. Yet these unconscious forces are pulling us to fulfill these undiscovered needs from morning until evening….perhaps even beyond. 

When Freud discovered his sense of the unconscious, it had a vast effect on the climate of the times. Now we are discovering a more accurate vision of the unconscious, of who we are deep inside, and it’s going to have a wonderful and profound and humanizing effect on our culture –David Brooks

The essence of all marketing is the feeling of being appreciated. This appreciation is based in our need to be part of a biological and cultural network that is connected together to ensure mutual survival. We constantly seek to purchase items that raise our status and fulfill subconscious cravings in order to raise our biological opportunities in society. Appealing to these subconscious cravings encourages the fulfillment of deeply held needs that are not manifested fully on the conscious plane. 

The book will bring you three seven steps of designing a successful marketing campaign. They include interrupting patterns, creating comfort, leading the imagination, shifting feelings, satisfying the critical mind, changing associations and taking action. In essence, the steps are designed to draw people’s attention and then lead them from feeling to action while satisfying any logical misgivings. 

The book doesn’t appear to have a lot of research included in the pages but it does provide some thought provoking explanations on marketing. The theoretical research support is available to intelligentsia and it appears to be a sound understanding of how the subconscious creates motivations and actions. The concepts are broad so don’t expect any specific marketing success advice but it does lead you into some useful concepts that can be beneficial for rounding out marketing plans. 

Van Praet, D. (2012). Unconscious Branding. NY: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-0-230-34179-1
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