What has neuroscience got to do with branding? The link may not be
immediately obvious, but the fact is, our brains select brands in much the same way that
Google selects websites. So, just as web marketers play on Google’s algorithm to make
sure their site appears as high up the search list as possible, brand marketers should
play on the brain’s algorithm to make sure their brand is at the top of their
customers’ minds at the moment they choose which brand to buy.
This ground-breaking new book brings the proven effects of hard science to the
creative practice of branding. It shows you how to harness this powerful combination to
your own advantage by helping you understand how customers’ brains work when they choose
brands. A strong brand cannot be build effectively without taking into account the laws of
the brain – which, as this book shows, really exist and can be scientifically proven to
work. Once you know this, you can apply the familiar branding laws of relevance, coherence
and participation more precisely, more confidently and to much greater effect. This means
your brand will have a much greater chance of being chosen by customers than your
competitors’ brands.
Branding with Brainsshatters the conventional approach to branding, which is
based on hunches and intuition, by uncovering the hard, scientific truth about why
customers choose some brands over others. Insights into company stories, from Leica to
Innocent Drinks, from Starbucks to Schipol International Airport, give you the fascinating
truth about how the processes that go on in our brain affect our decisions to buy a
particular product or service. All in all, this breathtakingly radical new book from Tjaco
Walvis presents a daringly different, state of the art approach to brand strategy that
will help you build powerful brands more efficiently, more effectively and more reliably
than ever before.
Tjaco Walvis is a partner at THEY, a brand management consulting firm based in
Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Previously, he was a strategy and research director with BBDO.
Tjaco is a leading expert on brand strategy issues, including brand positioning,
extensions, portfolio management and location branding. He has worked with boards and
marketing executives of companies like Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, DaimlerChrysler,
Dorito’s, Getronics, Mars, McKinsey & Company, Nutricia, Robeco and Sanoma
Publishers. He has served clients in a broad range of industries, including fashion, fast
mover consumer goods, financial services, government, insurance, media, pharmaceuticals,
private banking, postal services, publishing, retail, telecommunications and world
expositions. He has published many articles and lectures regularly on branding and holds
two Master degrees, in economics (MSc) and philosophy (MA).
Tjaco Walvis has created a unique book on brand management that will influence the
practice and theory of branding and raise the profession to a new and higher level. The
book is based on his years of practical, high-level branding experience with strategic,
creative and research issues gained in a broad range of companies and industries. He
combines this with a strong scientific interest that has resulted in a meticulous one and
a half year study of the most fundamental neuroscience research on (brand) memory.
By presenting his findings in a practical, accessible and non-technical style and
illustrating them with tools and refreshing new high-calibre case studies, he produces a
unique book on branding that will provide even experience professionals with an
interesting new understanding of the keys of brand management
Contents
Please note that sub-section headings will be worked on. There follows a brief
summary of the key message of each chapter.
Chapter 1: Introduction (± 30 pages)
An increasing number of studies show that strong brands are worth more than weak ones.
Stock price returns on strong brands are higher and lower risk than stock price returns on
weak brands. Given its financial impact, branding is ultimately a CEO issue. The problem
is, however, that branding is often seen as a soft and difficult to grasp field, guided
mainly by intuition, rules of thumb and creativity. Hence, allocating branding investments
is often seen as a fuzzy and largely intuitive exercise – creating uncertainty,
frustration and sometimes even fear.
Chapter 2: The chance of being chosen (± 25 pages)
Brands are networks of associations in people’s minds that influence their behavior.
Therefore, a key to making more sensible branding investments lies in a better
understanding of the brain. In the last 20 years scientists have made enormous advances in
the study of our brain. In 2000, three neuroscientists – Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard
and Eric Kandel – received the Nobel Prize for their research on the brain. Their work
provides vital branding lessons for top executives and marketers that result in a new
model of brand choice. Our brain selects brands much the way Google selects websites in
response to a key word. The three branding laws highlighted by this book together
constitute the brain’s ‘algorithm’ for choosing brands and can be used by branding
professionals to maximise the chances of their brand being chosen by the customer.
Chapter 3: The law of relevance (± 25 pages)
Our brain remembers relevant things better and faster than irrelevant things. Brands
that are more strongly associated with things that the customer’s brain finds of key
importance at the time and place of choice are thus more likely to be chosen. Brands must
obtain deep insight into the drivers of choice at the moments and places their customers
decide, for example by using more ‘empathic’ types of research, and associate their
brands to these drivers.
Chapter 4: The law of coherence (± 25 pages)
Our brain remembers specific things better than vague things. It remembers repeated
things better than new things. Therefore, only brands that stick to a clear, articulate
theme for years can fundamentally increase the likelihood of being chosen. As soon as the
brand deviates from the thread, our brain becomes confused and the brand damages its own
brand equity. The higher the coherence of branding efforts across time and space, the more
likely the brand will be chosen. This means brands must create a long-term strategy that
balances two trade-offs: specificity vs. broadness and repetition vs. surprise.
Chapter 5: The law of participation (± 25 pages)
Our brain remembers things with which we’ve had intense and elaborate interaction
better than things that remain peripheral. Brands that can tempt us to try, play,
practice, learn, exercises, interact, or socialize with them are the most likely to be
chosen. Brands must seek to reach customers with richer media and more intriguing,
engaging forms that create interaction, involvement and dialogue. The richer the branding
environment that is created, the more likely the brand will be chosen. Brands must develop
an interaction strategy that balances richness with reach.
Chapter 6: The process of creating powerful brands (± 25 pages)
This chapter brings the three laws and the tools and techniques previously discussed
together. It outlines a process by which companies can implement the topics in this book
in a systematic fashion. Thus, it shows how to develop a long-term plan or ‘roadmap’
for creating growth through branding, giving top management grip on branding.
Chapter 7: Neuromarketing and corporate social responsibility (± 25 pages)
Neuromarketing is challenged for being unethical. Can medical techniques be used in a
business context? Can firms who practice corporate social responsibility use
neuromarketing? This chapter address these vital issues based on a practical,
non-technical application of three main ethical theories. Thus, it provides managers with
a sound foundation for answering these questions, for the purpose of providing an internal
and external justification/ rejection of neuromarketing.
264 pages, Paperback