The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind (17 page)

Born empathizers, women have an innate and well-developed talent for seeing the world through others’ eyes. For this reason, female consumers love to hear stories; they love to know how others feel; and, when it’s appropriate and possible, they love to express their support. By being adept at reading faces and judging body language, our female predecessors could detect whether something was slightly amiss or a bit “off.” Early human females needed to be able to read the literal or emotional landscape quickly and accurately to prepare for changes and to protect their children.

Her larger, more connected Mirror Neuron system also gives women superior recall of emotional events, partly because their amygdales are more easily activated by emotional nuance, which in turn leads to far greater memory encoding by the hippocampus. Do you ever wonder why your significant other remembers every word of a fight you had last Christmas?

Blame it on her enhanced hippocampus.

Her greater language capabilities helped early females to communicate with each other as they went about their day, rearing children; gathering nuts, seeds, and tubers; and caring for the sick. They built powerful oral traditions of what works and what doesn’t to guide them, and their society, away from dangerous options and toward time-tested opportunities. Each female didn’t have to learn by trial and error which berry was poisonous, or which grain could be ground into a paste and carried for food for the day. Older females reassured younger ones that a baby’s sickness would quickly pass, or that it required some interaction, or that the situation was dire.

Women have a greater facility for the nuance of language, rely on it more, store it better, and use it three times as often as men do.

However, women no longer raise their children in a close and extended family. Some of that group’s functions have fallen to friends met on Facebook or in playgroups. Still she longs for a feeling of connectedness.

P1: OTA/XYZ

P2: ABC

c07

JWBT296-Pradeep

June 7, 2010

6:39

Printer Name: Courier Westford, Westford, MA

The Female Brain Is Buying

77

The short story is: Tell stories to your female consumers. Don’t be terse.

While men appreciate “just do it,” women appreciate the story of an athlete and how she came to get “it” done.

Best Practices for Appealing to the

Female Brain

Pay attention to facial expressions and tone of voice, not just text or
spoken word.

Because her hemispheres are so connected, and because she filters ideas
through her emotions, present material with some emotional component.

Make sure that the takeaway message is based in positive emotion.

Factual/statistics memories don’t stick as well, for example.

Allow her to show or experience
empathy.
That’s her strong suit.

Women recruit brain areas containing Mirror Neurons to a higher
degree than males do.

Above all, be vigilant as to how you present the brand: It truly is like
a person to her, and she will embrace or discard it passionately and
completely, depending on how well your brand maintains your promise
to her.

Social connections are crucial—help her feel included; appeal to her
through shared stories.

Finesse your attention to detail and subtlety; don’t be callous and overt.

She appreciates and picks up on nuance. Don’t challenge or threaten
her with “Don’t wait!” or “Call now!” messaging.

In this chapter, you discovered the richness and variety of the female brain.

Hard-wired through eons of evolutionary selection, she is more: Verbal

Empathetic

Resourceful

Able to multitask

Nuanced, subtle

Loyal

Altruistic

P1: OTA/XYZ

P2: ABC

c07

JWBT296-Pradeep

June 7, 2010

6:39

Printer Name: Courier Westford, Westford, MA

P1: OTA/XYZ

P2: ABC

c08

JWBT296-Pradeep

June 7, 2010

6:39

Printer Name: Courier Westford, Westford, MA

The Mommy Brain Is Buying

At the end of this chapter, you’ll know and be able to use the
following:

r The difference between a female brain and a mommy brain r Why maternity enhances certain brain functions r What specific consumer behaviors and preferences mommy brains share r What entices and what repels the mommy brain If marketing to Moms hasn’t fully registered on your radar, consider this the next time you walk by a playground or school yard: From diapers to dinner, clothes to minivans, over-the-counter (OTC) medications to the parcel tax that paved the parking lot and the supplies and elbow grease that built the nontoxic play structure, the Moms there
made it all happen.

Step into her circle and you’ll hear Moms discussing in detail what products work, and which don’t. In her e-mail box, you’ll find Mom-to-Mom alerts on everything from the recall of strollers to endorsements of Old Navy to fierce political activism to calls to support sick girlfriends by organizing networks to provide dinner, rides, child care, you name it.

Should a suspicious visitor wander too near, you’ll see immediate protective reactions, ranging from watchful waiting, to packing up the children and alerting the authorities, and, importantly, notifying the Mom network to stay away from the park.

These Moms, and the millions like them across the country, are an army—mobile,
nimble, vigilant, and powerful.

If your product or message hits home with them, you have won over powerful allies who will support you through an enhanced network beyond anything you could create yourself.

79

P1: OTA/XYZ

P2: ABC

c08

JWBT296-Pradeep

June 7, 2010

6:39

Printer Name: Courier Westford, Westford, MA

80

The Buying Brain

Highly connected, super-effective tribal support is hard-wired into the brains of new mothers. They’re predisposed to form communities, to ex-change information, to protect and nurture each other and each other’s offspring. So if they like you, you’re in. If your product or message disappoints this important target group, be prepared to be shut out, and possibly even shut down.
Mothers are much less forgiving than other
groups.
They are living out their ancient imperative to stand between their children and a dangerous world. Very few do-overs are available when marketing to Moms.

Please recall my previous caveat: I am speaking of “typical” maternal brain changes. We all know mothers who differ from the descriptions I’ll present here. And we know Dads are also excellent primary nurturers (although our efforts to locate the Daddy brain are still underway!). But, in general, mothers who go through pregnancy and give birth experience the most significant brain changes of their adult lives.

We’ve been very fortunate to have a “front-row seat” into how new Moms react to products entering their new worldview. An example follows.

Neuromarketing and Baby

Care Products

A Midwestern consumer packaged goods company was wondering about one of its websites.

The product line featured was doing well—not great, but making its numbers. Still, given the growth potential for this market, and the corporate goal for increasing sales through the website, the lingering question was,
Can we
do better?
If so, how?

Just from looking at the website, we believed the answer to the first question was a definitive “yes.” We were confident that neurological testing would provide specific answers to the second. We had already developed a body of neurological best practices for presenting information and messaging on screens—so we knew going in that the website’s performance could very likely be upped by applying those best practices. We also knew that we had the diagnostic tools—brainwave-based measurements—to identify specific new steps that could be taken to better attract, keep, and sell products to visitors to the site.