Brandwashed

Martin Lindstrom,  Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds ; 2011, Martin Lindstrom Co. Ltd, 260 pp. 

Back in the early 60s I read Vance Packard's classic “The Hidden Persuaders”, 1957.  “Brandwashed”  is a modern version, documenting how sellers-of-products obscure the truth and manipulate our minds to induce us to buy.  Author Martin Lindstrom was considered one of the foremost marketing wizards until he turned to become a consumer advocate.  He has advised companies such as McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, and Microsoft. 

Some highlights:

   • New findings that reveal how advertisers and marketers intentionally target children at an alarmingly young age – starting when they are still in the womb!

   • The first ever neuroscientific evidence proving how addicted we all are to our iPhones and our Blackberry’s and that this addiction can be harder to shake than addictions to drugs and alcohol.

   • How companies of all stripes are secretly mining our digital footprints to uncover some of the most intimate details of our private lives, then using that information to target us with ads and offers ‘perfectly tailored’ to our psychological profiles.

   • How certain companies, like the maker of one popular lip balm, purposely adjust their formulas in order to make their products chemically addictive.   

   • What a 3-month long guerilla marketing experiment, conducted specifically for this book, tells us about the most powerful hidden persuader of them all.

My Notes:

Pg.  44:  A recent study found that Pharmaceutical companies spend nearly twice as much on promotion and advertising as it does on research and development.  American overall sales of domestic prescription drugs total $235.4 billion.

Pg. 101:  Ever been shopping for a pair of jeans and find a pair that fits and how please you were to discover you wear the same size as many years ago?  You’ve likely fallen victim to “vanity sizing,” a devious ploy by which stores make clothes bigger so we think we can fit into a smaller size.  This has been going on for years for women clothes and is now starting on men clothes as well.  When Esquire magazine sent a reporter into various stores with a tape measure, he found that pairs of men’s pants with so-called 36-inch waists actually ranged in size from 37 inches (at H&M) to 38.5 inches (at Calvin Klein) to 39 inches (at the Gap, Haggar, and Dockers) to a generous 41 inches at Old Navy.

Pg. 106:  Research suggests that humans flock like sheep and birds, subconsciously following a minority of individuals, and that it takes a mere 5 percent of “informed individuals” to influence the direction of a crowd of up to two hundred people.  The other 95 percent of us trail along without even being aware of it.

Pg. 121:  Studies have shown that when tweens ask for a pair of Hollister jeans, they’re asking for more than the latest, hippest product; what they’re really asking for is a dose of self-esteem.  A University of Minnesota study of 250 kids ages eight though eighteen asked the children to select among one hundred words and images and create a collage answering the question “What makes me happy?”  Results showed that the children with higher self-esteem chose words that represented nonmaterial activities and achievements, like getting good grades or skateboarding with friends, whereas the children with lower levels of self-esteem chose possessions, like new clothes or an iPod.

Pg. 136:  A study determined that most of us end up playing and loving the music we’re exposed to when we’re around twenty years old (or younger) for the rest of our lives, and that if a person is over the age of thirty-five when a new pop music style makes its mark, there’s a greater than 95 percent chance he or she will never listen to it.

Pg. 176:  It’s an intriguing truism that more choice often leaves consumers less satisfied and less likely to buy something.  This is why a twelve-page restaurant menu makes you want to walk right out.  This also works for book display tables in bookstores, less choices results in more sales.

Pg. 177:  Interestingly fMRI studies show that when we receive “expert” advice the parts of our brains involved in considering alternatives became almost completely inactive.  It seems that receiving “expert” advice shuts down the areas of our brains that are responsible for decision-making processes, especially when the situation involves risk (interestingly, the areas of the brain responsible for skepticism and vigilance also become less active when a person is engaged in prayer).  Because so many of us are so in awe of fame and fortune, the line between expert and celebrity can be surprisingly thin.

Pg. 193:  Most people think that dietary supplements and herbs are closely regulated to ensure that they are safe, effective, and truthfully advertised. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although some aspects of marketing are regulated, the United States Congress has concluded that "informed" consumers need little government protection. This conclusion was embodied in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994—commonly referred to as "DSHEA"—which severely limits the FDA's ability to regulate these products.  (see: http://www.quackwatch.org/02ConsumerProtection/dshea.html)

Pg. 230:  Facebook is an incomparably rich database of information about every detail of our lives, and its business model is completely reliant on its partnerships with advertisers. 

Pg. 247:  In writing this book, Lindstrom carried out his own experiment. He hired a family — called the Morgensons — from Laguna Beach, Calif., and filmed them as they had friends over from the neighborhood and talked about 10 specific brands they were using. Their mission was to frequently mention these brands without letting their guests know of their secret motive. 

Lindstrom was skeptical at first, but then realized that word of mouth is extremely powerful.  In fact, it was so successful that "nine out of 10 exposed to the family definitely bought at least one out of the 10 brands."

Even after Gina Morgenson, the mother, mentioned the brand Kiss My Face for the 10th time, people didn't realize it was part of a setup. Lindstrom says that's because we spend so much of our time talking about brands that it didn't seem unusual.

"You and I are talking about brands 25 percent of our entire time.

Pg. 251:  Lindstrom predicts that in the future companies will hire and plant thousands of Morgenson-like families in communities everywhere, tasking them with the mission of promoting a brand or an entire family of brands. 

Pg. 252:  The good news is that in our hyperconnected world of Twitter and YouTube and WikiLeaks—a world in which a single trick or deception or secret can be immediately broadcast to the world with the click of the mouse—the consumer is more empowered than ever. 

www.martinlindstrom.com