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Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy | 
| Author: Martin Lindstrom
Publisher: Broadway Books
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.38
You Save: $10.57 (42%)
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Rating:  64 reviews
Sales Rank: 685
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0385523882
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.834
EAN: 9780385523882
ASIN: 0385523882
Publication Date: October 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20090105231050T
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Product Description
How much do we know about why we buy? What truly influences our decisions in today’s message-cluttered world? An eye-grabbing advertisement, a catchy slogan, an infectious jingle? Or do our buying decisions take place below the surface, so deep within our subconscious minds, we’re barely aware of them?
In BUYOLOGY, Lindstrom presents the astonishing findings from his groundbreaking, three-year, seven-million-dollar neuromarketing study, a cutting-edge experiment that peered inside the brains of 2,000 volunteers from all around the world as they encountered various ads, logos, commercials, brands, and products. His startling results shatter much of what we have long believed about what seduces our interest and drives us to buy. Among his finding:
Gruesome health warnings on cigarette packages not only fail to discourage smoking, they actually make smokers want to light up.
Despite government bans, subliminal advertising still surrounds us – from bars to highway billboards to supermarket shelves.
"Cool” brands, like iPods trigger our mating instincts.
Other senses – smell, touch, and sound - are so powerful, they physically arouse us when we see a product.
Sex doesn't sell. In many cases, people in skimpy clothing and suggestive poses not only fail to persuade us to buy products - they often turn us away .
Companies routinetly copy from the world of religion and create rituals – like drinking a Corona with a lime – to capture our hard-earned dollars.
Filled with entertaining inside stories about how we respond to such well-known brands as Marlboro, Nokia, Calvin Klein, Ford, and American Idol, BUYOLOGY is a fascinating and shocking journey into the mind of today’s consumer that will captivate anyone who’s been seduced – or turned off – by marketers’ relentless attempts to win our loyalty, our money, and our minds. Includes a foreword by Paco Underhill.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 59 more reviews...
 Bland with an Egotistical Author January 6, 2009
Quasi (New York, NY)
This is a lame book. I found myself skipping paragraphs at first, pages after a while, and then the last third of the book entirely. Three problems:
1) There's not much new here.
2) The author can't shut up about how awesome he is.
3) Padding padding padding.
 Insights Into Marketing and the Human Brain January 5, 2009
Gregg Eldred (Avon Lake, OH USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Three years and millions of dollars later, Martin Lindstrom presents you with a book on neuromarketing, a technique using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and steady-state typography (SST) which measures conscience and subconscious reactions to marketing, advertising, products and brands. SST provides real-time information from the brain, while fMRI maps the areas of the brain that are active at the time of the stimulation. Together, these techniques provide insight into the motivation for items that we buy. Neuromarketing goes beyond the simple interview process, focus groups, and the like, and determines the actual triggers in the brain that cause us to feel the way we do toward brands, advertisements, and marketing.
Contents:
A Rush of Blood to the Brain: The Largest Neuromarketing Study Ever Conducted
This Must Be The Place: Product Placement, American Idol, and Ford's Multimillion-Dollar Mistake
I'll Have What She's Having: Mirror Neurons at Work
I Can't See Clearly Now: Subliminal Messaging, Alive and Well
Do You Believe in Magic?: Ritual, Superstition, and Why We Buy
I Say A Little Prayer: Faith, Religion, and Brands
Why Did I Choose You?: The Power of Somatic Markers
A Sense of Wonder: Selling to Our Senses
And the Answer Is . . . : Neuromarketing and Predicting the Future
Let's Spend the Night Together: Sex in Advertising
Conclusion: Brand New Day
Appendix
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Martin Lindstrom, the author of Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, reports on the results of his study of brands, advertising, and marketing using a combination of fMRI and SST. This new technique, neuromarketing, delves in the mind of the consumer to determine which areas of the brain are affected and then to develop a campaign that leverages the real reasons why a person chooses a particular brand over another. In Lindstrom's study, he used his volunteers to examine some very popular brands, discovered why warnings on cigarettes are actually contributing to a rise in smoking, and looked at subliminal advertising (it is alive and well), among other things. The result is an incredibly interesting look at the base reasons why we buy; the subconscious is making the decision for you even before you have time to recognize that you are looking at competing brands of soda. Further, Lindstrom shows that combining smell, touch, and sound has an effect on our purchasing patterns.
This is more than a simple marketing or business book. Lindstrom shows how advances in technology are allowing companies to leverage specific feelings toward products and people to separate you from your hard earned dollars. While some of the results are startling, such as the rise in smoking due to warnings on the packages, others reveal a lot about the way people think and remember, and how that affects our buying patterns. Lindstrom also shows how YouTube is changing the way that companies market, specifically by allowing fans of a product to produce their own advertisements. This is a powerful new medium, as it allows people to connect with similar individuals, which helps the brands and products. But the most fascinating aspect is when he goes into the lab to see how brands affect specific areas of the brain. This book is all about the results of the lab work, very little time is dedicated to the actual data or the science. For those that need additional information, Lindstrom provides very good Notes (all accessible on the internet) and a Bibliography. Both are excellent resources for those that need more of the science involved.
While this book may frighten you, as it reveals new methods of marketing and advertising, it also provides you with the tools to recognize neuromarketing and allows you to gain some insight into how your brain works. You may not be able to combat neuromarketing, but you may be able to distinguish it and curb some of its effects. After reading this book, I have a new appreciation for the shopping experience as well as a better understanding of the advertisements I see on television and in print. I also know why there is major brand placement in movies and television shows. Buyology has provided valuable insights into the mind and marketing.
All Sizzle, No Steak January 4, 2009
Dugan (Chicago)
This book discusses a few interesting ideas, but did very little to actually substantiate the claims. It's full of anecdotal evidence with no time spent on correlation.
 As a magician's trick: entertaining but fake December 30, 2008
Philip Spriet (Belgium)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For sure, a good read, a real page turner.
But a complete waist of paper if you want to know something about neuromarketing, above the simple fact that it is a fascinating idea. The book is full of contradictions, makes the one unfunded statement after the other, and even in a mercifull moment you cannot call this science or even a scientific approach. Any experiment, oh wonder, confirms the hypothesis, there is no noise in the data, no false positives, no biased observations, no neuromarketing is doing research in paradise. It reminded me of Rorsach observations: you read in it what you want to hear.
And is not because Lindstrom is stating his "facts" with a lot of aplomb, that we should believe him. HIs book and its content have someting of the act of a magician: entertaining, but fake, shallow and an empty box. The subject deserves better. But we should have known: marketeers that write books seldon do better than car sales men, they promise and overpromise, and you leave them with a worhless car.
Influenced More Than We Know December 28, 2008
Vincent Harris (Trenton, MO USA)
By now, most anyone who is interested in influence is aware that many of our decisions are manipulated by keen marketing. Buyology will show you just how much you didn't know about this subject. Whether you are simply looking for an edge in how you currently market, or wish to have a greater understanding of the many ways in which you are influenced, you'll be happy with this book.
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