Hugh mentions synapses and biochemistry yesterday and then I see David is talking about 'neuromarketing' and neuroscience as well.
If you put me through an MRI scan you might - although I sincerely doubt you'd even get this much useful data - see a thunderstorm of activity that indicates that I love bohemian coffee shops. Java House on Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland or the Coffee Garden on 9th and 9th in Salt Lake City come to mind. Think funky artwork and 70's couches to sprawl on and customers with multiple body piercings. Starbucks isn't my cup of tea although I am a huge fan of Howard Schultz. (How can you not be with lines like these, below after Schultz' first meeting with the founders of Starbucks):
I believe in destiny. In Yiddish, they call it bashert. At that moment, flying 35,000 feet above the earth, I could feel the tug of Starbucks. There was something magic about it, a passion and authenticity I had never experienced in business. - Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time
So it's (supposedly) inexplicable according to neuromarketing and especially my own stated preferences why I've become extremely attached to a new coffee shop discovery (which is as opposite as it gets from bohemia): The Roasted Coffee Bean on Stevens Creek Blvd in Cupertino.
After a decade of reruns, the defunct TV series Cheers has left many wishing for some place "where everybody knows your name." Since the neighborhood bar has pretty much gone the way of the show, people feel a little lost these days. But for a lucky few who have discovered the Roasted Coffee Bean, bar culture--albeit minus the alcohol--is still alive and well. - Metroactive "Best of Cupertino" review
The owners, Zohreh and Jared, are warm, genuine and it's not a marketing gimmick. They are sincerely happy themselves and extend their joy to everyone they encounter. How you package this, manufacture this, or bottle this is the $64,000 question.
If you've read my blog so far you probably don't really think that folks buy - or do anything for that matter - on a purely logical, analytical, rational basis even if they think they do. So I'm with the neuromarketers on that point.
But I've come to understand there are fundamental assumptions that people - in this case marketers - make about people. And it's these underlying assumptions determine the marketing strategy and tactics undertaken. I believe end-customers sense these implicit underlying assumptions and they respond to that much much more than anything explicit.
Let's take a look at some of the assumptions in the neuromarketing article that David Wolfe links to.
Neuromarketing aims to map brain patterns and provide a more direct path to human decision-making.Because so much of our thought occurs in the unconscious, traditional research methods that mine the surface are likely to miss many of the factors that influence consumer behavior....Bridging the gap between mind and behavior is thus one of the key challenges that face marketers today.
Scientists have shown that this 'reward approach system' exists even in life forms as primitive as amoebas.
I can't agree more that "traditional research" methods have missed many of the factors that influence people.
Neuromarketing and its underlying assumptions riled author Tom Wolfe enough to pen an essay "Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died," which I admit I have only skimmed. I think Mr. Wolfe is upset that there are so many whom would reduce humans to (and thus treat us as) highly-functioning amoebas when he suspects there's much to him than that.
The focus on neuroscience seems to be on delving into the the limbic system, or the "emotional brain". Do you really want to do business with a company or an individual that fundamentally believes that you are simply a passive automaton responding in a stimulus-response patterns reinforced by your uncontrollable addictions to biochemicals? Certainly we (and I most definitely mean we) are more often than not responding in this unconscious reactionary state - but this is not the state of mind where most of us are endeavoring to live our lives from, relate to our friends and family and neighbors from, what we strive for, or what inspires us.
Where is the rational faith in us - your customer, your neighbor, your fellow traveller on spaceship Earth?
"We have faith in the potentialities of others, of ourselves, and of mankind because, and only to the degree which, we have experienced the growth of our own potentialities, the reality of growth in ourselves, the strength of our own power of reason and of love.... To believe in power that exists is identical to the disbelief in the growth of potentialities which are yet unrealized." - Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving
Tom Wolfe's soul and yours and mine aren't in any jeopardy of being measured and weighed whatsover in the unconscious realm. The unconscious is not the realm of the spirit. And besides the soul doesn't go shopping - it's got everything it needs - but that's outside the scope of this blog.
Still I know exactly how Mr. Wolfe feels. It's blazingly clear the lack of rational faith. They're Theory X marketers (that's a whole other nearly done post, but you can grasp the analogy to Theory X management). In case I'm depressing you, Theory Y marketing is making headway.
Fascination with the stimulus-response part of our brains implies something about you and I that cuts through any impressive marketing packaging a marketer throws together. The message is loud and clear: you're clearly uninterested in acknowledging our real needs or engaging and relating to us somewhere at level above amoebas. It's never ever explicitly said - but we know. Despite the validity of the science these implicit assumptions fail these marketing efforts.
Looking at the stimulus-response part of the brain in order to unearth the right buttons (stimulus) to push which automatically trigger conditioned, reactionary response cannot get any more transactional - which misses our deepest human needs entirely. "Push the right buttons on that robot, er customer and dollar bills will spit out." I'm not a means to your end and I know when I'm being treated merely as means.
David Wolfe's 'mature mind' concept - which is somewhat independent of chronological age - is the outcome of anyone on a self-actualizing track. Mature minds intentionally are breaking free of these unconscious stimulus-response patterns that neuromarketers are so vehemently studying.
The entire focus on the "brain's ancient system of reward" centers on the lower and less-evolved brain functions and misses the self-actualizing mind. Basically this "ancient system of reward" is biochemical addiction (more on that in subsequent posts) and hardly what drives the 'mature mind'. In fact, the answer to what or who is the driver separates Theory X and Theory Y marketers. One of the mature mind's chief aims is to make conscious choices.
"Assume that everyone prefers to be a prime mover rather than a passive helper, a tool, a cork tossed about the waves." - Abraham Maslow, Maslow on Management
The focus on the stimulus-response part of the brain reminds me of this old story I'm sure you've heard before.
A women is searching for her lost needle (modern version: car keys) in the street as the sun is setting (modern: under a street lamp). A few neighbors walk by and offer to help. After some time, they ask her if she can recall more precisely where she thinks she lost the needle/car keys. "I lost it inside (modern: darkened corner); but it's since it's easier to see out here I decided to come out here to look."
So at this point, there are many more questions to explore. For those practically minded, one might be, uh, if the soul (and it's really not the target) doesn't shop how do we sell?
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