Every Entrepreneur Should Study Buyology

My eldest daughter is studying Biology at University while her mama is studying Buy-ology at home.

I had already read Paco Underhill’s Why We Buy a few times, once years ago and again before my book came out. When I first caught a glimpse of Buyology , I assumed it was the latest Underhill book. Then I saw it was branding’s wunderkid Martin Lindstrom and wondered if Paco was peeved. Relieved to see Paco Underhill wrote the intro so all is peaceful in Buyology Land.

But I digress…(Can you really call it a digression when you haven’t even started? Digressing again…)

A few months ago, I saw a fascinating series called Mysteries of the Mind, about the workings of the brain on TV Ontario, mostly documentaries, panel discussions and expert interviews about how our brain really works. Buyology is a report on a 3 year study Lindstrom conducted to prove his conjectures about why people buy stuff. The results are surprising. It’s not what we think or what we say in study groups. Often, quite the contrary.

Wouldn’t any smoker say that a photo of blackened lungs on a cigarette package makes him hesitate for a second before lighting up? But in fact, according to Lindstrom, these package warnings have the opposite effect, actually stimulating cravings. Who woulda thunk that logo free advertising works better than ads with logos? That ingredients like The X9 Factor in shampoo would make it fly off the shelf and elicit protests when this fictional ingredient added by a mischievous employee was removed?

Is your brand “smashable” like Coca Cola, Apple and Ferrari? Lindstrom tells the story about how back in 1915, Coca Cola asked a designer to make a bottle that would still be recognized as Coke even if smashed. Would you know it’s an Apple Ipod without a logo? Yeah you would ’cause the Ipod doesn’t have an Apple logo on it.

Buyology will upset marketing types whose methods may be outed as useless when the rubber hits the road. The rest of us will not only be intrigued but take it as a challenge to learn figure out how to translate Lindstrom’s findings into action with measurable results.