The Marriage of Marketing and Neuroscience Brad VanAuken, President of BrandForward, Inc. vanauken@brandforward.com

Earlier this year, the Gallup Organization surveyed 16 women in Japan regarding brand loyalty while their brains were scanned. Result? Three areas of the brain associated with visual memory and emotion lit up when the women responded to certain brand loyalty questions in very positive ways, indicating that emotional connection to the brands had become ‘hard wired’ in the women’s brains. I believe that this is just the beginning of a new type of marketing research that will become a mainstay of information in the future. The bottom line: establishing emotional connection is very important to brand loyalty.

Frame of Reference in Brand Positioning
How does ‘frame of reference’ affect a brand’s positioning? Let us take Coca-cola as an example. Consider each of the frames of reference outlined in the following table:

Consider how the competitors and possible ‘points of difference’ change as the ‘frame of reference’ changes. Broadening your brand’s frame of reference can help you:

• Identify a strong point of difference within your current narrower frame of reference (for instance, Pepsi chose to ‘own’ psychological refreshment as a point of difference over Coca-cola when Coca-cola defined its category as human liquid consumption).
• Identify logical areas for brand growth.
• Identify potential substitute products and other competitive threats.

The Importance of Color
Color is an important consideration in your brand identity system. Colors have a significant impact on people’s emotional state. They also have been shown to impact people’s ability to concentrate and learn. They have a wide variety of specific mental associations. In fact, the effects are physiological, psychological, and sociological. For instance:

• Non-primary colors are more calming than primary colors.
• Blue is the most calming of the primary colors, followed closely by a lighter red.
• Test takers score higher and weight lifters lift more in blue rooms.
• Blue text increases reading retention.
• Yellow evokes cheerfulness. Houses with yellow trim or flower gardens sell faster.
• Reds and oranges encourage diners to eat quickly and leave. Red also makes food more appealing and influences people to eat more. (It is no coincidence that fast food restaurants almost always use these colors.)
• Pink enhances appetites and has been shown to calm prison inmates.
• Blue and black suppress appetites.
• Children prefer primary colors. (Notice that children’s toys and books often use these colors.)
• Forest green and burgundy appeals to the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans and often raises the perceived price of an item.
• Orange is often used to make an expensive item seem less expensive.
• Red clothing can convey power.
• Red trim is used in bars and casinos because it can cause people to lose track of time.
• White is typically associated with cool, clean and fresh.
• Red is often associated with Christmas and orange with Halloween and Thanksgiving.
• Red and black are often associated with sexy and seductive and are favored by porn sites.
• Black clothes make people look thinner.
• Black is also associated with elegance and sophistication. It also seems mysterious.
• Black is the favorite color of Goths.

Colors also have a functional impact on readability, eye-strain, ability to attract attention, ability to be seen at night, etc. This is important in choosing colors for signing, website pages, prints ads, and other marketing media.

• The most visible color is yellow.
• The most legible of all color combinations are black on yellow and green on white followed by red on white.
• It is no surprise that most traffic signs use these color combinations.
• Black on white is the easiest to read, on paper, and on computer screens.
• Hard colors (red, orange and yellow) are more visible and tend to make objects look larger and closer
• They are easier to focus upon. They create excitement and cause people to over-estimate time.
• Soft colors (violet, blue and green) are less visible and tend to make objects look smaller and further away. They aren’t as easy to focus upon. They have a calming effect, increase concentration, and cause people to under-estimate time.

Usually, it is advantageous for a brand to consistently “own” certain colors, which provide an additional recognition cue. The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York has taken a different, but equally effective approach. They intended to communicate that they are a fun and vibrant organization that features much more than artistic black and white photography. So, the “e” icon in their logo appears in a rainbow of colors. Each business card features the logo with a different color. The name itself always only appears in black and white.

Obviously, colors are an important part of any brand identity system. Testing the affect of a new brand identity system’s colors is well advised. It is important to consider that color associations will vary by individual, and especially culture, due to the cultural context and previous experiences with the colors. All of the impacts of colors are equally true of music, scents and sounds. For instance, studies have identified that music has an impact on supermarket sales, mental concentration, achievement on standardized tests, factory productivity, clerical performance and staff turnover, among other things.

Favorite Colors of American Consumers

1. Blue
2. Red
3. Green
4. White
5. Pink
6. Purple
7. Orange
8. Yellow

Source: Carlton Wagner, founder of the Wagner Institute for Color Research in Santa Barbara, CA.

Brad VanAuken is president and founder of BrandForward, Inc., a full-service brand management consultancy with clients throughout the world. Previously, Brad was the vice president of marketing for Element K, a leading e-learning company and director of brand management and marketing for Hallmark Cards, Inc. During his tenure as Hallmark’s chief brand advocate, Hallmark received the Brand Management of the Year award. Recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on brand management and marketing, Brad is a much sought after speaker and writer. He wrote the books The Brand Management Checklist and Brand Aid. His free online brand management and marketing newsletter is read by thousands of marketers throughout the world. Brad has a BS degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Email: vanauken@brandforward.com
Company Profile: BrandForward, Inc.
Company URL: http://www.brandforward.com

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