The Brain Sell: How the new mind sciences and the persuasion industry are reading our thoughts, influencing our emotions, and stimulating us to shop

What and how much we consume stems more from unconscious choices than from mindful deliberation. Advertising capitalises on this automaticity

the brain still functions faster, more fluently, and with less effort when processing images.

One of the brain’s strengths is its capacity for making connections between objects, words, events, visual patterns, and different ideas. This involves the process of categorization.

Consumers do the shopping to meet their needs. They go shopping to satisfy their wants.

What works with color in bricks-and-mortar retailers also produces similar effects when shopping online. Studies of the way computer users respond to internet pages have shown that they feel most relaxed and that time is passing more quickly when the web page is brightly colored with a predominance of blue. Stress and tension, together with a perce

fast, nonconscious kind “automatic activation”5 and the slower, reflective kind “conscious processing.” I employ the terms System I (for Impulsive) and System R (for Reflective) to describe the two.

Laboratory studies that my company and other researchers have undertaken demonstrate that scarcity, like cutting a deal, exerts a profound effect on physical and mental arousal. The more people are competing for a product, the greater is each individual’s eagerness to acquire it.

Create a scarcity

Encourage playfulness When people are busy playing, they are far more likely to be in a mood for buying.