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Conflating Neuromarketing, SEO and UX

Sometimes, ideas from Graphic Art of the 1950's resurface as modern science, without considering the time difference between then and now.  The idea is to get the brand into the mind of the consumer.  The more they recognize it, the likelier they are to pick it up off the grocery shelves.

Fast Company has some ideas about the field of Neuromarketing.

And why professionals need to jump on it.

It starts by discussing how SEO is about "Search Engine Optimization", but it should be about "Social Engagement Optimization".  Which becomes problematic when you read more of the argument as it devolves from "quality content" to the conclusion about simplifying everything and appealing to emotion.  Rather than something frivolous, like reason.

 There is some "fuzzy science" about definitions:
"neuromarketing is a science that’s based on the fact that 95% of all thoughts, emotions, and learning occur before we are ever aware of it"

This is true.  In UX, we call this Pre-Attentive Processing, what the eye and brain absorb before our conscious mind catches up.  It gets measured in milliseconds of time, not brain capacity (how did they come up with that, anyway?).

"That means most of us are actually only talking to 5% of our potential customers’ brains!  Fortunately, scientists are able to study just what kind of marketing hits that other 95% of our brains in the right way,"
Since customers make their decisions based on such low bandwidth, we need to DUMB EVERYTHING DOWN.

Advice continues as follows: (paraphrasing slightly)
Make it about them.
Short & sweet.
Play to their emotions.

and here are some quotes:
"Seeing is Better than Reading"
"Stay Simple"

Use pretty pictures, preferably of humans, for that empathy thing, y'know?  And don't use too many words.

To make it worse, it seems the post was inspired by a piece in the New York Times.

"There has also been much discussion lately about the rewiring that is happening to our brains because of our constant interaction with computers and smartphones. This interaction is further reducing our attention spans, which is pushing overworked and overcommitted American consumers to make purchasing and other decisions more quickly. The upshot is that people want information but they want it baby style — pureed to its most basic and served simply."

So in other words, you are "helping" those poor overcommitted consumers/suckers to click the "Buy" button on your product before they have a chance to think about it.

Except that isn't how people purchase things on the internet.  Trust, as displayed in design, is still a huge concept.  Offering advice like "baby style" to the entire marketing, online and information community is just plain irresponsible and underestimates the entire potential audience.  And encourages  even shorter attention spans, because there is just no deeper analysis or content to find.



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