 
|
|
Hardcover
Publisher: Broadway Business
Paco Underhill
ISBN13: 9780385523882
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
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.
| Customer Reviews: |
|
| |
| Buy-ology |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
 |
|
I enjoyed the perspective of "Buy-ology" although it was not quite as insightful as I had hoped. I appreciated "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely an alternative book with a similar theme a bit more than "Buy-ology".
|
| so much more potential here. |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
|
|
This book was a fascinating study of why we buy what we do involving MRI feedback versus standard market research most of us know about. The author does a fine job writing about an interesting subject enough to educate as well as entertain me. I do not regret buying the book.
However, since the nature of the title already had me thinking somewhat defensively (hm - why DID I buy this book?), I had to wonder what the author might have modified in his approach to avoid offending his likely readers (and purchasers). He took a very big but commendable risk by calling out the behavior of Apple people as akin to that of dedicated followers of an organized religion, something I've mentioned once or twice that only got me defensive sneers of derision down at the Starbucks. But he saved this till mid way thru the book, just to be safe.
Also striking was the complete absebce of any discussion of Barack Obama in the section where he discussed subliminal messages in political branding. There were a couple of gratuitous swipes at Republicans of course, but nowhere in this book about buying and branding was the phenomenon of Obama discussed. Even by the time the type was set, Obama won the primary and was obviously not just going to be handled like an ordinary candidate, yet he leaves him out. The author may not have wanted to gamble on calling the election wrong or simply didn't want to take away from someone he and his readers wished to see win the election. In either case, Obamas total absence from this book was conspicuous and disappointing.
Early on, the overly detailed and unflattering description of the author in the foreward and the authors obsession with anti-smoking (ok, we get it already - you don't like smoking...) were a bit tedious, but these are forgivable annoyances in light of the substance of the overall work. I particular, the part describing the mini cooper and the appeal to certain buyers, which inadvertently (perhaps) also explained the cars popularity with gay men.
Thus, this was an enjoyable but cautious book that in spite of several great examples missed one of the bigest brands of the century and made other obvious attempts at pandering to the purchaser. Then again, the book is about why we buy, and the author knows how far he can go without taking a bite of the hand that feeds him. In that sense, it was well done.
|
| Long winded, self-aggrandising. |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
 |
|
As others have said this book is almost unreadably self-promoting and long winded. His self indulgent and wildy self-promoting style obscures his arguments which are thin on actual evidence. I don't understand how it got all the positive reviews from the magazines listed... amazing! The research that the book is supposedly based on is not clearly presented so that it is impossible to make any assessment of his approach and how he came to his conclusions.
|
| buyology |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
 |
|
this is a relly practical and updating book, very interesting contents for people related with communication, publicity and marketing.
|
| deceptive, simplistic and nothing but marketing for his consulting business |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
|
|
martin lindstrom is a great marketer for his consulting business and for himself and this 200 page book is a nothing but an advertisement for his business. like most marketing projects it is full of exaggerations, false conjecture and prose that consists mainly of hype. to top it all off his conclusions are simplistic and oftentimes flat out wrong. i highly recommend you do not buy this book.
to start off, he is being deceptive, as many marketers are, when he tells us the books is based on the world's largest neuromarketing experiment. he describes this as multimillion dollar project funded by a number of big corporations. what it actually is, he has compiled a number of neuromarketing studies his company has done for several big corporations and is repackaging it under the umbrella of one big giant study he took on. like most people i don't appreciate deception and dishonesty, so he's off to a very bad start.
one of the first studies he examines involves getting a number of cigarette smokers, having them not smoke for 4 hours and then scanning their brain activity as they are shown anti-smoking warnings in cigarette packs. the result of it comes out that when the smokers see these warnings areas of the brain that are associated with cravings light up. he then jumps to the conclusion that the cigarette warnings actually encourage smoking and are in itself great marketing for cigarettes. wow, that is such a simplistic and wrong conclusion it's shocking. if you make a group of nicotine addicts not get their fix for four hours, then show them images of anything related to cigarettes, good or bad, they will think of smoking mainly because they are craving the nicotine and they are being reminded of that craving. it does not mean that the anti-smoking warnings encourage smoking, all it means is that you are reminding the smoker needing a fix of cigarettes.
the book is filled with these types of ridiculous jumps to premature conclusions along with a never ending self-patting on the back and hyping of himself and his business and blowing up his ego (i won't even go into the introduction which spends about a page describing him physically as some sort of handsome cherubic young man --which he is not).
if you were expecting a malcolm gladwell type of incisive research, you will be very disappointed. do not be fooled by the cheesy marketing, this book is not worth reading.
|
|
