Ads by association
Faced with limited media in which they can brandish their logos,
tobacco companies still have managed to craft clever brand
strategies. Marlboro's solid sponsorship of Europe's Formula One
racing has made the brand's red Ferrari cars iconic. Could it be
that cigarette cravings can be triggered by images, such as those
red Ferraris, that are tied to a brand of cigarette but not
explicitly linked to smoking? Does a smoker need to read the word
Marlboro to feel compelled to tear open a pack?
The answer can be found in a small region in the brain called the
nucleus accumbens -- the craving spot, which controls our pleasures
and addictions. It is a lie detector. You may claim to be
unaffected by tobacco ads, but your nucleus accumbens will reveal
the truth.
One of Britain's leading scientists, Oxford's Gemma Calvert, and I
set out to find out what really goes on in the subconscious mind
when it is exposed to cigarette-advertising imagery. The subjects
of our neuromarketing study were smokers, former smokers and people
considering smoking. All were asked to refrain from smoking for two
hours before the test, to ensure that their nicotine levels would
be equal.
First they were shown subliminal images that had no overt
connection to cigarette brands -- a red Ferrari, a cowboy on
horseback, a camel in the desert. Next, they were shown explicit
images such as the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel, the Marlboro and
Camel logos, and branded packs of cigarettes. In both cases, we
used MRI to look for activity in the nucleus accumbens. We wanted
to find out if the subliminal images would generate cravings
similar to those generated by the logos and the clearly marked
Marlboro and Camel packs.
The results
To no one's surprise, the MRI scans revealed pronounced responses
in the craving region of volunteers' brains when they viewed the
cigarette packs. But when the smokers were exposed to the
nonexplicit images -- Western-style scenery, etc. -- there was
almost immediate activity in the exact same region. In fact, the
only consistent difference was that the subliminal images prompted
more activity in the subjects' primary visual cortexes -- as might
be expected, given the more complex task of processing those
images. There was a similar response among former smokers (but no
response among people who had never smoked before).
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Martin
Lindstrom is author of five books, including the recent
bestseller "Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy," based on a
three-year, $7 million neuromarketing study.
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More fascinating still, when Dr. Calvert compared the responses to
the two different types of images, she found even more activity in
the reward and craving center when subjects viewed the subliminal
images than when they viewed the overt images. In other words, the
logo-free images associated with cigarettes triggered more cravings
among smokers than the logos themselves or the images of cigarette
packs, a result that was consistent for both Camel and Marlboro
smokers.
What does this mean in practical terms? When the contour Coca-Cola
bottle was invented, in 1915, the original brief was to develop a
bottle so distinct that if you dropped it on the floor and it
smashed into dozens of pieces of glass, you'd still be able to
recognize the brand. Move on from the logo and begin to develop
"smashable" components -- color, shape, sound, smell -- indirect
signals that tell a story about the brand without the logo. Such
components engage the consumer in figuring out who's behind the
message and, most importantly, speak to the subconscious mind. You
won't find a logo on the front of an iPod, yet its iconic look is
enough for you to know what brand it is. The same is true for a
McDonald's roof, a blue Tiffany box and a Marlboro cowboy. The logo
isn't dead yet, but I would bet its days are numbered.
