I Can’t See Your Brain When I’m With You

fmri2bigMy band, Five South, (yes, Orange County’s Most Wildly Immature Over-40 Cover Band) just learned to play the popular song (with the kids) I Can’t Feel My Face. by The Wknd. nike air max 90 We joked, “I don’t know about feeling my face, but I sure as hell can’t remember anything anymore,” You know, old rock guy humor. But it’s true. And we don’t know why we can and can’t remember things. I use my LinkedIn password a lot,but just a few days ago, it completely escaped my memory. nike air max 90 It was gone and I have zero idea why or how that happens. The good news is, that the rest of mankind has no earthly idea either. Yet in marketing, our shared assignment is to “create awareness” and “change opinions” and “introduce new concepts” into the black hole that is the audience’s minds. And no one really understands it. Here’s an uber creepy example. It’s called the fMRI or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. It can “see” what you’re thinking. Not really, but it can track the electrical impulses shooting through your brain like a Disney-inspired end of the theme park day light and magic extravaganza. (and without the huge crowds, too.) A new study reported in the Harvard Business Review says “If you knew that the brain patterns of only 30 people could predict the spending decisions of hundreds of thousands or even millions…” So we’re going to hook 30 peeps up to the electrodes and use their cognitive or behavioral decisions to base our lovely marketing campaigns and try to predict their behavior. LOL — Good luck with that! And if there was a way to make marketing MORE sinister and feared—congrats, they just found it. Here’s one thing I know for sure, mainly just from raising my kids. Human behavior is not completely predictable and we are all different — like snowflakes or the toys in the claw machine. I do applaud the effort though. nike internationalist Most marketing moves on completely ignorant and caring even less about the audience’s needs, wants, fears, etc. soldes nike air max pas cher Most marketing is about the SENDER first and maybe (if there’s time) we’ll get to the receiver. But usually not. Quick tip — Flip that. Here in the creepy-focus-group-brain-watching year of 2015, your marketing MUST be much more about the receiver than you or it has ZERO chance of working. And I don’t need a fMRI machine to see that. Just a little bit of empathy, trust and respect. Try it. You cannot always predict human behavior, but you can market LIKE a human being and have a much better shot at hitting your mark.