Direct marketers learn neuroscience -- thoughts on the IDM lecture

But what has this got to do with the IDM Annual Lecture?

Well, everything! Because Susan Greenfield astutely linked her area of expertise, brain development, with the way technology is rapidly changing the way we gather and absorb information.

Her main premise was that we are becoming "People of the Screen" rather than "People of the Book". With the result that screen culture may be creating an answer-rich but question-poor society where education, and therefore brain development, is driven more and more by experience rather than traditional learning.

This almost certainly will start to change how people respond to marketing programmes and the way they relate to brands, which in turn means we in the industry will have to reconsider how we develop marketing strategies and implement communication programmes.

So why were Susan's thoughts relevant to direct marketing?

If "screen people" are going to be increasingly orientated towards experiences rather than learning, then relationship marketing must be one of the key disciplines through which these can be deepened to strengthen their relationships with brands and therefore create higher levels of genuine, emotionally driven loyalty.

And the icing to this fantastic evening was the sheer brilliance of the presentation -- challenging, entertaining, insightful and spot on in terms of relevance.

Justin Anderson, managing director, Frontwire
Susan Greenfield's whirlwind trip through the powerful and unprecedented influence that new technologies will have on our minds, and those of our customers, created a highly charged audience at the annual IDM lecture.

Her argument was built from exploring the impact of rich housing on mice and smart fabrics that play music, through to levels of brain organisation and the potential loss of self through excessive technology consumerism.

She proceeded to deduce that to engage the consumer of the future a brand must activate a maximal number of "meaningful" pre-existing associations by accessing novel combinations under conditions that minimise distraction.

She then made the "Eureka!" link. To engage the customer, brands need to create an experience of creativity, to engender a feeling of individuality.

The Oxford University neuroscientist professor, who holds no fewer than 25 honorary degrees, then further opened the eyes of the leaders of the direct marketing industry to how this could be done by looking again at how our brain develops and makes connections.

Specifically, she looked at the roots of creativity in the brain, where an abnormally small neuronal network triggers larger ones both in itself and others.

To simplify Susan's conclusions, but at risk of missing the finer nuances of her thinking, we must maximise the chance for consumers to mix together components of their products, eg colours, shapes and objects.

By doing this we move from delivering static intrinsic properties associated with our products to interactive experiences that can trigger a greater personalised significance.

As Greenfield said: "Our 21st century society has already been the victim of both extreme fundamentalism and excessive materialism. Perhaps our biggest concern should be that we see the gradual annihilation of the individual as we move from consumers of technology to being consumed by technology. To counter this, marketers could benefit from helping engender the "self" in their customers through delivering individual creative
experiences."

Peter Mouncey (F IDM), independent marketing consultant and formerly general manager, Customer Relationship Information Strategy, at the Automobile Association.
I went to see Baroness Greenfield for three reasons. Firstly, some of my market research industry colleagues are getting very excited about "neuromarketing" as the new challenge for market research and I wanted to find out more from a leading neuroscientist.

Secondly, I'm also currently undertaking research on how organisations use data to support/facilitate their CRM strategies and discovering that organisations find the application of 'soft' data a particular challenge. And the third reason? She was recently a guest on the Radio 2 Jeremy Vine lunchtime show (us 'homeworkers' need to get out more!).

I thought it was a very interesting and provocative lecture, underlining why it is important to expose direct marketers to experts from other fields. One hour does no more than scrape the surface, and I think a trip down to Amazon maybe now necessary to get the detail from one or other of her books (I noticed many scribbling down the details).
 
I think it demonstrated that we seem to know an increasing amount about how the brain works, but why humans do what they do still remains largely, and tantalisingly, elusive. Some thoughts on the implications:

We need to encourage advocacy, and use it more as a key measure of brand success to help with the 'answer rich, question poor' information overload ('truth is not delivered by authors and authorities but is assembled by the audience').

Marketing communications need to be much more stimulating, challenging and invite participation - too many follow a (sector) formula.

How do we capture and use the 'state of mind' and factors such as emotion, experience, individualism etc in a customer database or recognise it when in contact with a customer?
 
A single segmentation of a market or customer base is no longer adequate -- the goal should be "one to one" or mass customisation. A further challenge in terms of understanding customers and their needs/wants -- addressing the "see what everyone else sees, but think what nobody else thinks".

Investigating to what extent our traditional thinking of the relationship between the brand and status is being replaced by factors such as personalised significance and appealing to creative instincts (presenting new and idiosyncratic associations).
 
Recognising how important the overall experience is in terms of brands, products and services -- needing to stretch the mind and increase all those inter-brainal connections and associations, and perhaps taking a lesson from cognitive therapy.

This may need new thinking about how the effect of marketing is measured.

Encouraging active participation -- learning more about how to create this by studying existing & successful examples around us (eg owning a Morgan car or Harley Davidson motorcyle is much more than purchasing a form of transport, it's about gaining entry to a whole parallel universe).

Overall, how to create the "wow" factor... however that is defined by the individual consumer.

The 2005 IDM Lecture, delivered by Baroness Susan Greenfield, was titled 'Customer Evolution - Survival of the Fittest'. It can be viewed in full on the IDM's website.