Genomic brands

The book is structured on the genome itself, which comprises 23 chromosomes, on each of which there are numerous genes (20 000 - 25 000 in total). His book has 22 chapters; one for each chromosome plus the X and Y odd-men-out. For every chapter he has chosen a single gene appropriate to the story he wishes to tell. Do you know that the entire genome is replicated endlessly throughout our body contained within the nuclei of the millions of minute cells that we comprise? I simply could not get my mind around something so complex yet so infinitesimally small. Then I saw a fully functioning ant walk across my desk, intent on its task, and all became possible.

Oh yes. This is about brands.

Caught my attention

The connection that caught my attention is the 22nd chapter which, of course, refers to the 22nd chromosome in the genome. Ridley explains there are actually 23 but that this includes the X and Y chromosomes which he has placed together in an unnumbered chapter after chromosome seven. That is when it gets complicated so read the book.

Chapter 22 is titled Free Will. In a book about genes, this chapter is notable for not being about genes. In it the author explains that our genetic makeup determines a great deal about us but it leaves us free to make up our own mind. Our instincts to breath, eat, find a mate, procreate, speak to each other, smile, frown, fear danger are all instincts the source of which can be traced to chromosome number seven.

Memory is the product of the genome which supplies the nerves to fuel your responses. For example, it is the nerves that tell you that your hand is hot. Your stored-up knowledge in memory prompts you to remove your hand from the hot plate of the stove.

So we have genetically controlled instincts and we have a brain that operates apart from the genes to acquire information from our external environment, process it in flashes of time and store it in memory. There it remains ready to be retrieved when cued. Given those powerful tools, we are free to act upon what we know. No gene determines how we should behave.

Not precisely correct

Well, that is not precisely correct because to some extent, genes determine our personality. We might therefore be sunny, glum, extrovert, introvert, gregarious or solitary. This is not fully attributable to our genes - it is as well acquired from our peers; more so than our parents. (A phenomenon I described earlier this year about alcohol consumption).

What I gather from this is that humans are genetically disposed to drink, eat, find a mate, socialise, protect our family from danger and ensure our progeny grow to maturity. In all of these and many more genetically driven impulses, we are free to make the choice of how. Brands offer choices. Once we have the instinctively inspired need, brands provide the how.

A few years ago, together with my colleague Thebe Ikalafeng, I went round the country with Danish marketing adventurer, Martin Lindstrom, promoting his concept of Brand Sense. Martin told me then that he was planning a worldwide neuro-scientific study into how our brains deal with brands and brand messages.

I tried to get the medical school at Wits University involved and it was quite keen, but in the end that didn't happen. The study did and Lindstrom's new book, buy-ology [sic] has just been published. I think, for people who manage brands, it should become the companion to the Genome book. Whereas Ridley's account deals with the genetic base for brand selection (my interpretation - the book has nothing to do with brands), Lindstrom enters the mind.

Persuade

To do this, he had to persuade a number of companies to sponsor US$7 million in costs to employ specialist neuroscientists and their massive, state-of-the-art brain scanning machines. The 32 ton fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imagining) scans the brain and shows up activity in specific areas. Relating the area of the brain that lights up on the computer screen to a particular input, the experts are able to explain aspects of human behaviour.

In one study, conducted among a sample of smokers, the results were, to say the least, unexpected. While in the machine the subjects were exposed to pictures of cigarette packs, health warnings and the graphic drawings that adorn packages in Europe now depicting diseased lungs, sores, bad teeth and other results of tobacco inhalation. Not only did these images have no effect on the smokers' craving for a puff, but the really awful images actually stimulated that part of the brain where the craving takes place. In other words, instead of scaring smokers off their drug, health warnings appear to be having the opposite effect.

Humans have a genetic instinct for pleasure, security and suppressions of fear. In some of us, smoking is the choice we make to deal with those instincts. We don't have to do it, but having made the decision we immediately fall under the influence of our peers and the marketers as to which brand, how much, where and when.

Lindstrom is, by his own admission, not a smoker, and I'm certain it is not his intention to aid marketers of cigarettes to build their business. In fact, this result is of most use to the health professionals. But marketers can benefit from others of his interesting and frequently surprising findings.

Does work

For example, contrary to what we were led to believe in the 1960s and 1970s, subliminal messaging does work and is being used. It seems that showing people doing attractive or emotive things is more motivating than showing the brand itself. A slew of concentrated advertising was ineffective for Ford during the America Idols series compared to the more subtle, environmental imaging of co-sponsors Coca-Cola and Cingular. And, sex doesn't sell; controversy does.

The book sets out to knock over established beliefs about how advertising and marketing works. That's what Martin Lindstrom does. When you cut through the breezy, highly readable style and clever argumentation, not every finding is new. Benson & Hedges in the UK knew in the 1960s that you didn't have to show a logo and pack to sell its gold wrapped cigarettes; David Ogilvy invented the idea of image in which the atmosphere sells more than product presentation. And, setting up admirable stereotypes that consumers use to reflect their own self-image, is as old as advertising itself.

But you have to listen when he presents credible evidence that the Nokia ring tone is switching people off the brand. The reason is, he claims, that the well-known sound has negative connotations because it disturbs a pleasant movie experience; it interrupts a romantic dinner; or it brings the news you don't want to hear. I know the phone should be turned off, but that is yet another reason to hate the tune.

Among the obvious and the common wisdom there are some revelations. What appeals to me is that the book is based on science.

A place in history

The think tank that sponsors and promotes much of the marketing industry's groundbreaking research is called the Marketing Science Institute (MSI). The word science is significant. Many of the working papers that result from its patronage ultimately appear in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Marketing. To be accepted, submissions must conform to norms of scientific and academic rigour. Over the years, scholarly researchers have published findings that have become basic to the way marketers go about their task.

But we are still searching. We really still do not understand how people make purchase choices and the role marketing plays in this. There has been no Einsteinian General Theory that guides marketers in what they do. And we need this.

One of the subjects that has topped the list of MSI research priorities for many years is the bridge between marketing and management. It is constantly stated that marketing fails to provide management with valid and credible metrics by which the effectiveness of its activities can be measured and reported. To achieve this we have to have a sound, scientifically based explanation of how humans turn needs (basic or indulgent) into buying decisions and we need to provide an irreducible theory of how marketing influences this deeply embedded biological process. On that we can impose measurement devices. But the base would be rock-solid.

My reaction to these two fascinating books is that they might hold the answer to how the General Theory of Human Behaviour and Marketing Effectiveness could be developed. Who wants to go down in history?