The Dawn of the Ad Zombies

Posted on October 9, 2007 | Permalink

By Lane Casteix

"Mind control" has always been the aim of advertising, to convince you, the consumer, that you need a certain product to fulfill your life and generate true happiness, and only XYZ brand is the one capable of supplying said life-fulfilling happiness. In generations past it was the "Mad Man" through his/her "uncanny" understanding of human nature with huge dollops of creativity that designed these "mind controlling" ads that convinced you to buy that XYZ brand and make it your own. Ah, for the good-old days.

Not anymore. Now we have real mind control. All the rage in Europe is something called "neuromarketing" that uses various mental testing techniques to "look inside your brain" (quite literally) to understand what makes you, the consumer, pull out your credit cards. Once focus groups and market testing measured the effectiveness of an ad, but such "old tech" has been replaced by state-of-the-art technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magneto-encephalography, and more conventional electroencephalograms (EEGs) to observe which areas of the brain "light up" when test subjects view, hear, or even smell products or promotions. (I told you we are getting inside your brain!)

Using this process Unilever has discovered that ice cream provokes even greater visceral pleasure than eating chocolate or yogurt. (I could have saved them a lot of money and time and told them that.)

Christian Dior used this technique to test a campaign for the perfume J'Adore featuring Charlize Theron, which turned out to be one of their most successful launches ever. (I would think Charlize Theron could even sell ice to Eskimos!)

You can get the whole story here, but it may be time to get out the tin foil hats.