Strong Brands vs. Weak Brands – Insights from Neuroscience
Neuroscientists have discovered that our emotions have a lot more to do with how we make decisions than was previously thought. Antonio Damasio found that clinical patients who lost the ability to emote also had difficulty making choices. They knew the facts, but couldn’t weigh them. Joseph Ledoux found that emotions promote learning through releasing chemicals that build connections in our brains, called synapses. Furthermore, once we establish those connections, they regularly bypass the rational part of our brain, like when we jump out of the way of a moving car and only later realize what happened. So when we talk about brand associations, we are really referring to synapses that have been established in consumers brains. Strong brands have built up strong synapses that relate to a variety of positive things, while weak brands have weak synapses that conjure up little.
There are two systems that determine our purchase decisions and behavior. Daniel Kahneman, a pioneer in the field of behavioral economics, has come to this conclusion in his work. In his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, he describes two systems that lead us to action. According to Daniel Kahneman’s theory:
There are two systems that determine our purchase decisions and behavior. Daniel Kahneman, a pioneer in the field of behavioral economics, has come to this conclusion in his work. In his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, he describes two systems that lead us to action. According to Daniel Kahneman’s theory:
- System 1 consists of perception and intuition, it is also known as autopilot and is implicit; it involves highly skilled mental activities and it never sleeps, it is fast, processes all information in parallel and is effortless, associative and slow-learning; it is highly emotional and it relies on heuristics.
- System 2 is slower and enables us to make reflective, deliberate decisions; it is highly rational and weighs facts, makes difficult calculations and takes more time and effort; it is referred to as the pilot and is explicit.
In his book Decoded: The Science Behind Why We Buy (read review here), Phil Barden explains this model in terms of consumer decision making. In time, consumers gain experience by using products that they have bought. According to Phil Barden, strong brands activate System 1. Weak brands, on the other hand, activate System 2, which means customers have to “think” about the purchase decision.We only engage our second system when the first one falls short. Research shows that consumers who receive a discount enjoy a product less than those who are exposed to brand marketing. We will pay more to avoid a risk than to have a chance to gain an identical amount. We give more weight to information we see first. For a complete list of cognitive biases that effect buying habits, click here.
When the consumer Internet first emerged, many thought it would make purchase decisions more rational. Shopping in a more information rich environment would allow consumers to research purchases and compare products effectively. However, e-commerce has also flattened the path to purchase, favoring the fast System 1 over the slow and lazy System 2. Consumers are more likely to rely on brand associations built up before they intended to make a purchase than on information provided at the point of sale. So brands will become more powerful in the digital age, not less. Marketers will have to become experts on not only HTML5 and the mobile web, but also on the archetypal software of the human mind.
