Neuromarketing

Drugstore, noon, wonderful neat and tidy atmosphere, lovely and recognizable smell of some mysterious aroma, quiet music and tons of women searching for cosmetic products that will make their hair prettier, their skin younger and tanned, their legs slimmer and breasts bigger. Me- searching for a toothbrush.  One glance at overstuffed shell with more than 50 different toothbrushes, my cell rings, I pick it up and start talking. Few minutes later, I realize that I am at the counter, paying for toothbrush that I picked while talking on the phone, I rush out and head home.

Let’s do a quick quiz:
What computer Carry Bradshaw uses to write her column?
What shoes is she obsessed with?
What car James Bond drives in Casino Royal?
What car Mulder and Scully drive in X files?
What store chain sales are Will, Grace, Jack and Karen and all Manhattan characters are obsessed with?

Many marketing courses and books are in focus of purchasing habits: how, when and why do people buy certain products and not others.  Some would settle down for a “brand lovemark” answer: people buy certain brands because they have trust in them, they buy some of the lifestyle that the brand is selling, some promise a better life, better looks, better health, better social status. Others say that consumers have a certain pattern in their decision making process and that consumers will buy whatever promises them better life. True. We all buy to raise our Quality of Life. That is the only reason.

Couple of days ago, I went to a large store to buy some groceries and other home stuff with my mom. We had a shopping list and I was hoping to finish the retail saga in about 15 minutes, but then, we stopped to buy aluminum foil for food storing. The shelf with aluminum foils had about 20 different products, about 5 different brands:  they were all the same, except that they had different length of foil roll and different price. It’s easy to find the cheapest, but hey, guess what, the cheapest is the shortest roll.  “This one is too short, it will go out in a week”, said my mom. Ok, take the longer one-right? There are 5 different brands of longer one, with significant difference in price. “This one?”, I took the cheapest 20m roll. “No, look, for a few bucks more, we can get 30 m roll”, my mom said. I took that one and put it in a cart. Just when I thought we’ve completed the mission of buying such a trivial thing, I saw cheaper 30m roll. I switched it and pushed the cart on, but hey, imagine that, for just a few bucks more, there was 40m foil. We lost patience, and we just took the last foil on the shelf. It was the longest and I think the most expensive one.  Product placement tip: just put your foil at the end of the shelf and your sales will rise just for the sake of shortage in human patience.