And the winner of the Buyology giveaway is…Elizabeth Luke.

Elizabeth is a senior at the University of Southern California spending her final semester abroad at the University of Amsterdam. She is a communication major with an interest in persuasion and consumer behavior. She will be graduating magna cum laude in December 2008, and shortly after, she will begin her career as a research analyst for emerging consumer products at Nielsen BASES.

Elizabeth’s book is on the way, thanks again to Martin Lindstrom and publishers Random House.

Here are Martin’s responses to some of the questions you sent in (thanks for all the entries):

Q1. While your findings are quite interesting and counter-intuitive (controversy sells, sex doesn’t; product placement can be ineffective), most know that much of consumer behavior is borne from the subconscious. However, if this is so, how come market research, which often comes from conscious opinions from consumers, is so successful? If buyers are not fully aware of their true intentions, then how come we still get useful answers when we ask them directly? (Elizabeth Luke)

A1. I think the reason why market research is ’so successful’ is because, until today, there haven’t been any alternatives uncovering our subconscious mind. Think about it - most research today is only uncovering the conscious mind - this however is about to change and I think neuromarketing is likely to be the answer.

Q2. I would like to ask Martin’s reaction to the criticism the book has received (such as http://adage.com/print?article_id=132035). Is he confident that his conclusions stand up to scientific scrutiny, and how does he refute the allegations made about his methodology? (Simon Kendrick, commercial research consultant, ITV)

A2. There will always be critical voices when new methods are invented. Neuromarketing is far from the answer to everything - however it is (in my mind) a strong alternative to conventional research - and in particular a powerful tool in order to understand our subconscious mind. I’ve spent around $7 million creating the Buyology study - a 4 year long project involving 2,000 consumers and two of the most respected scientists in the world within the field of neuromarketing. Of course there will always be question marks if things could have been done better that said I’m very confident that no-one has developed similar studies at this high level at this scale. I’d like to stress that nothing is 100% correct in the world of science - this of course will always be the case with our work too. Finally - I do indeed work with a range of the largest anti-smoking organizations in the U.S. and across the world - this may be a good indication of that the results are solid enough to be used in order to improve our communication work.

Q3. I’ve heard it said that a brand can either position itself as good value or high quality, but it’s very hard to be both. Do you think this is true or is there an opportunity – particularly during a difficult economic time – for quality brands to also reposition themselves as value? (Max Willey, Associate Director, Continental Research)

A3. I think it is very dangerous ground and a strategy most companies should avoid. Sorry.

Q4. If everything I believe about buying is wrong, why do I ‘comfort’ buy? And what are your thoughts on shopping habits based on emotional responses? (Marie Greaves, Senior Project Manager, Lightspeed Research)

A4. Shopping habits are in 60% of cases driven by our subconscious mind - and thus “comfort” or habits or rituals - are often the main driver why we buy what we buy. What’s wrong is the way the advertising industry has (over the last couple of years) managed to capture the consumers - the communication has turned to rational and thus misses the opportunity to talk to our subconscious mind.

Here’s the original post… (more…)

A couple weeks ago we ran a marketing book giveaway.

It seems it was quite popular because we received 17 entries, all of them worthy. But of course there can only be one winner.

Choosing the winner was difficult. Now we’re bound to say that, aren’t we? But it really was because we had to choose between an entry that totally ruled our head, and another that pulled at the old heart strings.

In the end we couldn’t/didn’t want to choose between them, so we convinced the generous folks at publishers OUP to send a free book to both of them.

The ‘head‘ entry (which you can see at the bottom of this post) was from Simon Kendrick, a commercial research consultant with UK commercial broadcaster ITV. Simon blogs and previously came to our attention for his comprehensive updates from the recent Research 2008 conference. We asked him for a short bio…

Upon leaving university, I did the apparently normal thing of looking for a job that had nothing to do with my degree. As I studied philosophy, politics and economics this was three times as difficult, but I have managed to dig out a niche for myself within media research. After several enjoyable years learning the tricks of the trade at the agency side, I have now crossed over to the client side. Stationed in the commercial sector of the business, I use a mixture of industry currency, desk research and commissioned projects to make the case for advertisers and agencies to work closely with us.

The ‘heart‘ entry read thus:

Here in South Africa text books are insanely expensive: the exchange rate, together with high import taxes, make purchasing text books onerous. My students and clients both look forward to anecdotal instances to bring the theory to life. I am sure that this would help.

It was from Michele Sohn…

Michele started Grey Matter, one of South Africa’s first new media companies, which she successfully sold to i-africa.com. She now heads up Confluence
Digital Research and holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MBA from Wits Business School. She lectures at Wits Plus and the IMM.

We hope this gift will, in some small way, do some good.

So well done to both of you - your books are on the way (one of which has been signed by the authors because we only expected one winner!). We look forward to Simon’s blog review of the book which we’ll link to once it’s done.

(more…)

UPDATE: This giveaway has finished
Through the fine folks at Oxford University Press, we’re giving away a free copy of their new, 800+ page tome simply called Marketing, authored by Paul Baines, Chris Fill and Kelly Page.

Aimed at marketing and business students, we think it has a much broader utility as a reference tool for agencies, e.g. when putting together those clever sounding pitches!

Having studied from marketing texts many moons ago, it seems very practical, being chock full of ‘marketing’ insights that showcase contemporary brands, scenarios and memes.

You can learn more through the excellent microsite, which includes sample chapters and video chats between the authors explaining how they developed the book.

Here’s the Amazon page so you can see how valuable this is: US, UK.

Right, now for the giveaway. This is open to every member of the ResearchTalk/ MarketingTalk/ AdTalk community (OUP confirm they’ll snail mail to anywhere in the world).

All you need to do is leave a comment in this blog post, or email us at letmetalk@gmail.com, saying why you’d benefit most from receiving the book. We’re open to giving it away to absolutely anyone in our community - agencies, students, or other - simply convince us that you’d benefit most from it, so be creative and sincere.

Other rules
• deadline for entries is midnight (US PST), Fri Jun 6th 2008, so don’t hang around
• OUP is giving away one copy of the book
• you must supply your accurate full name and email address with your entry (this is the way we’ll get in touch if you win)
• maximum one entry per person
• judges decision is final
• we reserve the right to cancel the giveaway at any stage, or to extend it
• E&OE

We’re new to this giveaway thing so if we’re missing any important rules then do tell

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk