1장
Step One: Interrupt the Pattern
The Volkswagen "The Force" commercial featuring a child as Darth Vader became a global phenomenon by interrupting familiar patterns. Released before Super Bowl XLV, it garnered 54 million YouTube views and was named the greatest commercial of all time. Neurological research showed it achieved the highest "neuro-engagement score" ever recorded, with brain scans revealing intense activation when the predictable pattern (Force not working) was interrupted by the car starting.
Perception isn't passive recording but active construction by the brain-we see with our brain, not just our eyes. Vision dominates our senses, with over one-third of the brain processing visual information. When observations match our mental models, processing becomes unconscious. Only when expectations are violated do we become consciously aware, like when driving becomes automatic until something unexpected happens.
To embed new brand ideas, we must first engage focused attention-something surprise and novelty do exceptionally well. When something unexpected happens, it interrupts our anticipated perception patterns, triggering neurobiological processes that command our notice. Our brains are fundamentally attracted to difference because it's evolutionarily advantageous-we're wired to ignore the familiar and focus on the new. Research shows novelty activates the brain's dopamine system, improving memory and learning.
Pattern interrupts work through two neurological mechanisms: pleasant surprise and unexpected distress. Old Spice's campaign with Isaiah Mustafa masterfully used seamless transitional interrupts-from bathroom to sailboat to horseback-delighting viewers with dopamine rewards while capturing attention. The campaign generated 1.4 billion impressions, 32.4 million YouTube downloads, and a 55% sales increase.
While pattern interruption is essential, marketers must do more than just interrupt-they must make people receptive to doing business with them. Failed examples like Outpost.com's gerbil-firing cannon and Quiznos' rat-like creatures demonstrate that not all attention is good attention. Effective pattern interruption must connect products with appropriate associations that motivate consumers to purchase.
2장
Step Two: Create Comfort
Before consumers can embrace your brand, you must first reduce their apprehension and build trust. This critical step follows pattern interruption by easing tensions and opening minds to new possibilities. When shoppers are relaxed rather than stressed, they ascribe higher value to products-willing to pay up to 15% more-and can envision abstract benefits beyond concrete specifications.
When GM faced bankruptcy in 2009, agency Deutsch LA was tasked with helping announce Chapter 11 while convincing Americans the company deserved a second chance. Through focus groups, I discovered that beneath consumers' stated indifference toward GM's fate lay intense emotion-people weren't indifferent but deeply disappointed. GM symbolized the American dream itself, and its decline represented national vulnerability in a competitive global marketplace. The breakthrough came when we tested a speech emphasizing transparency, responsibility and action. The concept of having leadership "man-up" by publicly acknowledging mistakes and declaring GM's rebirth created an immediate shift in the room-arms uncrossed, brows unfurrowed, and authentic smiles emerged.
Our brains unconsciously scan for inconsistencies in information, equipping us with "bullshit radars" that detect deception. When actions don't align with words-like Wagoner's private jet trip contradicting his plea for taxpayer money-our brains release stress chemicals warning us to be wary. We're not just programmed to detect deception but to challenge it through "tit for tat" responses, an evolutionary strategy ensuring fairness in societies.
Trust isn't just a conscious choice but a feeling generated at deeper levels by oxytocin, the "love drug" neurotransmitter. This chemical facilitates bonding between mothers and infants, between mates, and surprisingly, enables successful economic exchanges. Dr. Paul Zak calls oxytocin the "social glue" binding societies and the "economic lubricant" enabling transactions. Research shows societies with higher trust levels like Norway have more stable governments and higher incomes-"social capital" begets "economic capital."
Despite our attraction to novelty, humans fundamentally seek homeostasis-stability and predictability. Psychologist Robert Zajonc demonstrated this through his "mere exposure effect" experiments, showing that people develop preferences for shapes they've seen more frequently, even without conscious awareness of the exposure. This unconscious preference for familiarity extends to economic decisions, from investments to brand choices.
Our brains are wired to synchronize with others, transcending individual boundaries. While the conscious mind thinks "I," the unconscious feels "we." This explains our attraction to collective experiences-singing at concerts, cheering in unison at sports events, and joining brand communities. Through mirror neurons, we unconsciously imitate others to share experiences, creating deep connections without words. Great brands function as surrogates for this desire to connect, becoming extensions of our identity.
Michelangelo's approach to sculpture-"Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it"-provides a perfect metaphor for effective marketing. Like the artist who released figures from marble rather than imposing forms upon it, marketers must identify and release people's inner, authentic selves rather than dictating who they should become. This insight drives enduring campaigns like Call of Duty's "There's a soldier in all of us," which featured ordinary people as battlefield heroes rather than showing gameplay footage, and Nike's "Find Your Greatness" campaign that celebrated everyday athletes.
3장
Step Three: Lead the Imagination
Great persuaders understand that before people act in the real world, they first act in their minds. Shirley Polycoff's 1956 Clairol slogan "Does she...or doesn't she?" transformed hair coloring from taboo to mainstream, boosting sales from 25 million to 200 million by letting women privately interpret its suggestive meaning. Similarly, Dan Wieden's "Just do it" for Nike elevated the brand from 18% to 43% market share within a decade by being artfully vague, allowing people to apply it to their personal goals.
Images speak the language of the unconscious more powerfully than words. Apple's "Silhouettes" campaign for iPod demonstrates this brilliantly-using stark black silhouettes against colorful backgrounds with white iPods and minimal text. By replacing real people with silhouettes, the ads invited viewers to project themselves into the experience, creating personal meaning. This approach helped Apple achieve $1.2 billion in quarterly sales (90% market share) despite analysts predicting only $400 million.
Our imaginative abilities emerged about fifty thousand years ago during the Upper Paleolithic era, enabling religion, science, art, and other human singularities. This cognitive capacity allows us to combine dissimilar concepts through "double scope blending"-what cognitive scientist Mark Turner calls "the engine of human imagination." This mental process lets us combine two distinct conceptual worlds, seeing ourselves in better lives potentially aided by brands.
Imagination occurs at the watermark of our metaphorical iceberg-the confluence of external world and internal state, conscious and unconscious. Neuroscientist Chris Frith describes it as "a fantasy that coincides with reality." This two-way communication channel allows conscious thoughts to infiltrate our unconscious motivation, while the unconscious responds through dreams, intuitions, and new ideas.
Storytelling is fundamental to human thought and communication. As Mark Turner explains, "Narrative imagining-story-is the fundamental instrument of thought... our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining." Our brains, designed to lead with emotion before logic, naturally create stories to interpret bodily sensations. After hundreds of thousands of years telling stories around fires, we've become disconnected from this natural pattern through spreadsheets and PowerPoints.
Unlike signs that directly represent concepts, symbols require emotional interpretation with multiple layers of meaning. As Carl Jung explained, "The sign is always less than the concept it represents, while a symbol always stands for something more than its obvious and immediate meaning." Great brands function as symbols rather than signs, standing for something beyond the product itself. Throughout history, powerful symbols like religious emblems have guided movements and altered human history by embodying missions that drive people at the highest levels of identity and spirit.
4장
Step Four: Shift the Feeling
Emotions move us toward making our imagined intentions real. Just as football legend Vince Lombardi-who began his career at St. Cecilia's Church-understood that leadership is "the power to inspire others to follow," marketers must grasp what it truly means to inspire. The word's origins connect to breathing life into something, infusing with feeling, or guiding through divine influence-suggesting marketers are already drawing from religious persuasion models without realizing it.
The Catholic Church exemplifies how organizations can shift feelings to change beliefs and attract loyal followers. As the largest Christian denomination with 2.2 billion "customers" worldwide, Catholicism demonstrates remarkable brand success. The term "catholic" means "universal," positioning the religion as available to all.
Catholic indoctrination exemplifies "unconscious branding" through three key ingredients. First is authority, where the subject perceives the presenter as authoritative through environmental control and status markers. Second is doctrine/paradigm/translogic, establishing credibility through written proof from higher authorities, visual models explaining how something works, or other rational evidence. The third and most crucial ingredient is overload of feeling-overwhelming sensational experiences that preoccupy the conscious mind and allow direct access to the unconscious, generating visceral reactions.
Successful brands, like Disney, transcend physical products by creating powerful emotional experiences that turn fantasies into reality. As Roy Disney noted, Disney stands for "something real and meaningful" beyond balance sheets-they are "bringers of joy" through storytelling and creating lasting memories. Similarly, Costco creates "treasure hunt" shopping experiences by intentionally designing stores without clear signage, turning mundane shopping into exciting expeditions of discovery.
Emotions and feelings, while often used interchangeably, represent different processes. As neurobiologist Antonio Damasio explains, emotions begin unconsciously as "automated actions," becoming conscious only when sensed by the body as feelings. This distinction is crucial for marketers-successful branding must generate emotions that transform into feelings, then into intentions, and finally into purchases.
Our purchasing decisions often defy logic, revealing our emotional nature. We buy whitening toothpaste yet rinse with dye-filled green mouthwash because our unconscious associates green with freshness. Similarly, we cherish new car smell despite it being a "potpourri of poison and toxic gases" linked to serious health issues. Even when the scent fades, we voluntarily extend our exposure by purchasing chemical-laden air fresheners.
5장
Step Five: Satisfy the Critical Mind
While the unconscious mind provides ancient wisdom, our conscious mind gives us the unique ability to shape our futures through self-awareness. Consciousness transforms dreams into skyscrapers and enables space travel through rational planning. This process begins with feelings-our awareness of automatic emotional responses-which trigger conscious contemplation. Through language and "self-talk," we weigh advantages and disadvantages of choices, including brand decisions.
The debate between rational versus emotional marketing approaches is pointless from a cognitive science perspective-these systems are inextricably linked. While emotions primarily drive behavior, rational decision-making requires emotional input. Facts and statistics can excite our sensibilities, as demonstrated when wine drinkers enjoyed identical wine more when told it had a higher price. Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign and the UK's beloved Andrex puppy commercials succeeded by appealing to both rational and emotional faculties.
James Dyson transformed vacuum cleaners into fashion statements through straightforward, fact-based marketing rather than glitzy campaigns. His anti-marketing philosophy focused on engineering and design, with products made from beautiful polycarbonate plastic with aluminum accents. Dyson's genius was making product benefits visible-consumers could see the dirt collected in his transparent, bagless vacuum. His advertising focused on a simple marketplace weakness: "Bags and filters lose suction." By emphasizing technical facts-5,127 prototypes, patented Cyclone technology moving air at 924 mph-Dyson made his premium-priced vacuums seem worth every penny.
Our brains are inherently lazy when it comes to critical thinking. Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman observes that conscious rational problem-solving requires demanding cognitive effort and glucose, making us economize our thoughts. When tired or depleted, we're more susceptible to persuasive messages. The Trident gum campaign brilliantly leveraged this with simple statistics like "4 out of 5 dentists recommend sugarless gum" and "The average American eats five times a day and only brushes twice."
Too much information backfires in marketing because the mind leaps to conclusions based on partial information. Kahneman calls this "What you see is all there is"-where consistency and coherence matter more than quantity or quality of information. Confidence comes from constructing a coherent story, not from comprehensive data. Dyson's marketing exemplifies this principle with its consistent narrative about James Dyson's frustration with his vacuum losing suction, leading to 1,500 attempts before creating a better product.
Facts can transform brand rejecters into advocates by providing rational justification for emotional desires. In focus groups, die-hard Asian car loyalists who swore they'd never buy German vehicles changed their tune when learning the new Volkswagen Jetta was priced at just $16,000. Similarly, a Bentley owner dismissed Lexus until learning about its hybrid option priced over $100,000. The Trident "Chew on this" campaign succeeded by giving people permission to indulge in gum chewing-reframing it from a stigmatized behavior to a health-conscious choice.
6장
Step Six: Change the Associations
Brands exist not on store shelves but in people's minds, where associations are both arbitrary and malleable. In 1999, deep in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, I discovered knockoff Tommy "Halfmaker" merchandise being worn with the same pride as authentic Hilfiger items in America-demonstrating how brand perception transcends reality.
Tommy Hilfiger transformed his brand from preppy, white middle-class appeal to urban street credibility by strategically aligning with hip-hop culture. By providing free wardrobes to influential rappers like Notorious B.I.G., Method Man, and Treach, Hilfiger gained product placement in music videos and concerts. When Snoop Dogg wore a Hilfiger rugby shirt on Saturday Night Live in 1994, sales skyrocketed overnight.
Hilfiger recognized that beneath suburban life was a desire for defiance, which hip-hop culture embodied. His logo became synonymous with "urban cool," spreading beyond inner-city youth to diverse demographics worldwide. From 1991-1995, the company achieved a sixfold increase in sales to $321 million while competitors struggled. By 1999, Hilfiger was the highest-valued clothing commodity on the stock exchange, grossing over half a billion dollars.
In 1924, Philip Morris introduced Marlboro as a women's cigarette with a red-banded filter to hide lipstick stains and the slogan "Mild as May." The 1954 transformation began when health concerns about tobacco emerged and Marlboro sought to leverage its filtered cigarettes to a wider audience. Leo Burnett conceived the Marlboro Man after asking his team for "the most masculine symbol"-a cowboy. This campaign featured rugged masculine archetypes that embodied traits appealing to both sexes: independence, defiance, adventure, and romance. When launched nationally in 1955, Marlboro sales jumped 3,241 percent, and by 1972 it became the world's leading tobacco brand.
Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller observes that consumerism parallels narcissism-our self-esteem unconsciously links to brands that help us show off to social groups. Like peacocks displaying tail feathers to demonstrate genetic fitness, humans advertise attractiveness through brands that signal health, wealth and status, often without conscious awareness. Great brands communicate through implication because our minds process information through inference.
When brand associations change, market shares shift because we make decisions largely through associative memory. Humans possess the largest association cortex, giving us cognitive advantages for complex mental functions. Marketing stimuli trigger multiple simultaneous thoughts, with only a few reaching consciousness. Information storage and retrieval occurs through neural networks of association, making one thought elicit a vast network of interconnected thoughts, ideas, images, words, and emotions.
Brands require reference points to establish meaning and value-there are no absolutes in brand perception, only relative comparisons. Intel's groundbreaking "Intel Inside" campaign exemplifies this principle. Before 1991, Intel's processors remained invisible to consumers despite powering personal computers. The cooperative marketing program convinced manufacturers to include Intel's logo in their materials, creating countless brand exposures through association with leading computer brands like IBM. Within a year, sales rose 63%, and by 1998, Intel controlled 90% of the world's PC microprocessor market.
How information is presented fundamentally shapes how it's received. This framing effect creates cognitive bias, allowing the same information to feel different depending on presentation. The National Pork Board's "The other white meat" campaign brilliantly leveraged this principle, repositioning pork by associating it with leaner poultry through their shared characteristic of turning white when cooked. Launched in 1987 to combat pork's fatty reputation, the campaign capitalized on the fact that 40% of consumers already subconsciously viewed pork as white meat.
7장
Step Seven: Take Action
Milton Erickson, who would become a revolutionary psychotherapist and expert in medical hypnosis, discovered as a young boy how people tend to mindlessly follow established patterns. After creating a zigzagging path through fresh snow instead of walking straight, he returned to find others had followed his meandering trail rather than taking the direct route. This early observation revealed how people often act without thinking, living on autopilot by following paths created by others.
Despite digital media's rise, television remains dominant for major advertisers because it engages our neural pathways more effectively in a less cluttered environment than the internet. Yet true branding happens through tangible human experiences, not just screen time. Marketing should transform both thought into action through advertising and action into thought through experience. When we adopt new behaviors, our conscious mind creates consistent narratives to justify them, often believing we made deliberate choices when our actions were actually prompted by environmental circumstances.
Organisms without movement don't need brains-the sea squirt actually consumes its own brain after finding a permanent home. Our brains exist primarily to produce complex movement, with most of our neocortex involved in controlling voluntary action. With three types of neurons (motor, sensory, and interneurons), our nervous system is designed to perceive environments and take action. When marketing engages people physically rather than just mentally, it activates more neural pathways, embedding brand memories more deeply through multiple sensory systems.
Marketing aims to generate sales through positive brand experiences that transcend the product itself. Starbucks succeeded not just by selling coffee (which humans naturally find bitter and unpleasant) but by creating pleasurable rituals and environments that transform a commodity into a premium experience. The most successful brands leverage physical experiences-Disney with its parks, Target with chic discount shopping, Nike with athletic participation, Apple by focusing on what technology enables rather than the technology itself.
The ultimate goal of marketing is creating powerful memories, as purchase decisions are made by the "remembering self" rather than the "experiencing self." Red Bull's success formula combines three key experiential ingredients: novelty, physical action, and emotional stimulation. Marketers are memory architects, not just advertisers. Our brand judgments depend on our memory of experiences, particularly the peak moments and concluding impressions-what behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman calls the "peak-end rule."
Humans uniquely can consciously change themselves by taking action that transforms both mind and body. Branding isn't just about changing opinions or behaviors-it's about changing our being. Like becoming a pianist or chess player, becoming a loyal brand patron happens through repeated action until it becomes part of our identity. The brand becomes embedded in our somatic markers and muscle memory. Brands serve our existential needs too-as the only species aware of our mortality, we seek to make the most of limited time. Great brands prompt us to take action and live life more fully, making purchase choices easier while connecting us to something beyond the product.
Our emotional states profoundly affect our decisions and brand relationships through misattribution and transference. In the famous 1974 bridge experiment, men who crossed a scary suspension bridge were more likely to call an attractive female researcher afterward than those who crossed a stable bridge-they misattributed their physical arousal to attraction. Similarly, we unconsciously transfer feelings from experiences to brands.
There's a profound difference between vicarious and live experiences. Mirror neurons allow us to empathize and imagine others' actions, but they function at only about 20% capacity when observing versus doing. Ramachandran's research on "Gandhi neurons" reveals that our separation from others is merely our skin-we're neurologically connected in a shared consciousness. This explains why live events feel more intense and memorable than watching them alone; the power lies in shared experience.
Humans are fundamentally social creatures whose neurons interact directly with others, creating experiences that are more stimulating and memorable in groups than in isolation. This explains why live concerts and sporting events create such vivid memories compared to watching alone. We deeply seek these connecting experiences-as Harvard's 70-year study concluded, "The only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people." Brands function as social currency, physical embodiments representing social acceptance. The most successful brands don't merely connect people to companies but connect people to other people, dissolving barriers between us.
The journey that began with curiosity about the unconscious ironically revealed that true power lies in consciousness. Through neuroplasticity, we can literally change our brains and create new realities through conscious effort and experience. Though nature favors the status quo of unconscious patterns, we possess the unique gift of conscious thought that can reshape our destiny.
The business world often operates from the primitive, reptilian brain that seeks domination, but this self-serving mindset actually diminishes our capacity for novel solutions. Marketing's future depends on shifting from competitive thinking to creative thinking-moving from fear-based strategies to the conscious presence of the frontal lobe that envisions expanding possibilities for everyone rather than fighting over limited resources.
By understanding the seven steps to behavior change-interrupt the pattern, create comfort, lead the imagination, shift the feeling, satisfy the critical mind, change the associations, and take action-marketers can create brands that truly resonate with human nature. But more importantly, this understanding gives us all the power to become more conscious consumers, making choices that align with our deeper values rather than unconscious programming.
The greatest insight from cognitive science isn't that we're unconsciously driven-it's that by becoming aware of these unconscious forces, we gain the freedom to consciously choose our path forward. In both marketing and life, this consciousness represents our highest potential.
