Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy
by Martin Lindstrom
|
List Price: Our Price: $11.49 You Save: $13.46 (54%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.22 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy
Book Review: No meat
Summary: 2 Stars
This book was an interesting exercise in marketing. It starts out with an explanation of how totally cool and revolutionary the experiments were. Then, every chapter ends with a promise that in the next chapter you are finally going to learn something really REVOLUTIONARY. But you never do. I kept thinking: "Oh, this next chapter sounds like it's going to be great!" And then, it wasn't, but it looked like the next one might be. As far as I can tell, Lindstrom presents actual results from his much-hyped experiments in chapters 2 and 6. Maybe there are some minor results elsewhere that I have already forgotten. And these results aren't really ground-breaking, they just tend to back up what real psychologists have been writing about for years in much better books.
Anyway, the book has the feel of a short research article that was expanded into a book because it seemed like that might sell. Thus, there's a LOT of fluff, a LOT of space wasted on promising to tell us something really cool really soon, and very, very little actual information. Don't waste your time on this one.
What confuses me is all of the great reviews from places like Newsweek and the like. It makes me actually want to reread the book because it feels like I must have been missing something. I'm not going to, because I thought the book was worthless, but it makes me wonder: do people really not already know this stuff? If you know nothing about psychology, then, I guess, maybe this book could be interesting.
Book Review: BUYology forces us to look at advertising & marketing from a new perspective
Summary: 5 Stars
With his perpetual globe-trotting ways, and front seat access to the practices of leading brands worldwide, Martin Lindstrom has his finger on the pulse of the latest, bravest and best of worldwide marketing, advertising and consumer behavioral trends.
BUYology is a direct product of Lindstrom's futuristic vision for brands everywhere. Before BUYology, we were presented with BrandChild and BrandSense, where in each case, he brought us new concepts, research and theorems that we now take for granted in branding strategies.
In his constant quest to find out ways to build better brands, Lindstrom's BUYology forces us, yet again, to look at branding, advertising and marketing from a new perspective. In this case, through neuroscience, he investigates whether marketers can unlock consumers' subconscious thoughts and better understand their motivations to buy. Through extensive research, Lindstrom demystifies and questions some well anchored tactical advertising assumptions and myths, e.g. does sex sell, really? When it does, he tells us the why and the how.
The book is written in a conversational, approachable tone. It is filled with Lindstrom's colorful storytelling, examples that corroborate each point that he is making. As he mentions, until now, most advertising and marketing has been a guessing game. It seems that the marketing folk as well as the consumer can learn some new tricks with this book.
Book Review: Very interesting reading
Summary: 5 Stars
As time goes on after reading Buyology, the more I love the book. It puts a whole new spin on how we should approach our audiences/consumers in the future. I am going to talk about the section that appealled to me the most. The scare tactic warning labels on cigarettes. As a smoker, i have really been thinking more and more on this subject and analyzing myself. Oprah had a stop smoking show on the other day, I was surprised at how much, just the fact they were discussing smoking, made me want to have a cigarette. I thought back to the book and your study makes absolute sense, those labels dont do anything at all to make me want to stop smoking, and in fact make me want to smoke whenever they are discussed in general conversation. Maybe a simple statement like, "When is my quit date going to be" would work a lot better. To get the idea of planning to quit into the heads of smokers seems a lot more sensible. However Martin has really opened our eyes to how we think, why we think and what we really think. It really makes you look at many things in a different aspect. I think this book is a must read for not only people in the branding and marketing industry, but possibly for the average person to get a insite into themselves and others. Well done Martin. The more time that passes, the more i appreciate your book. I know our company will certainly be changing our strategies in the future and we have you to thank for that. Excellent work.Book Review: brilliant, timely, eye-opening
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm not a marketer, or all that interested in business-type books (though like most people I do like to shop). But this book was being reviewed all over the place and I saw it on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list and I thought it sounded like the perfect business book. Well, it is. I couldn't put it down, and when was the last time I said that about a book about the sly and subtle ways that businesses and advertisers try and get us to buy their stuff? By the time I put this book down, I couldn't even look at my iPod in the same way. Lindstrom carried out a global survey of customers using brain-scanning so he could peer into their minds as they observed various logos and such. Along the way he presents intriguing, and at times devastating, scientific findings on brands and religion (Apple computers light up the same region of the brain as do pictures of rosary beads and churches), subliminal advertising and tobacco, and most startling of all -- AND WHY ISN'T THE WHOLE WORLD REPORTING ON THIS? -- that cigarette warning labels, rather than discouraging smokers, actually make them want to smoke. Hello? I know we're in a crucial election issue, and that the economy is tanking, but the fact this isn't a headline around the world that's causing policy makers to rethink their strategies just boggles my mind. A superb, illuminating read -- easy to read science with fascinating anecdotes.Book Review: A window into the soul?
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a fantastic, intriguing little book. In it, Martin Lindstrom gives a readable, high-level description of the most comprehensive neuro-marketing study ever undertaken. Subjects all over the world submitted themselves to non-invasive brain scans to see how their brains respond to various marketing stimuli. The results are amazing. Turns out, some oft-used techniques of advertising don't really work. But others work so well that our brains react to them the same way they react to religious icons and concepts. That is frightening and, strangely, not at all surprising. This is a quick read -- I highly recommend it.
Even though medicine and science have come a long way in recent years, the brain is still a mystery to us. We would all benefit from advances in treatments for brain cancer, Alzheimer's, etc. Imagine this -- driven by the goal of getting us to buy more stuff, marketing departments around the world start investing millions of dollars in neuro-studies. As a result, a lot more doctors would be looking at a lot more brain scans. With all of the new money flowing in from the marketing departments, new scanning technologies and methods could be developed. In the end, maybe we would buy more stuff, but we would also be a lot closer to understanding the brain and its various pathologies. Have you met my friend, Niccolo Machiavelli?