Advertising is a multibillion-dollar industry, with everyone in the industry competing to grab your attention. With so much money at stake, it probably comes as no surprise that there is a large body of research into the psychology of advertising. This is known as neuromarketing. In its simplest, neuromarketing is the practice of studying the brain to predict and potentially manipulate consumer behavior and decision making.

To discuss this topic we are joined by Brett Frieman, the director of marketing at Marpipe, a company that conducts creative experiments for brands. In addition to Frieman’s work at Marpipe, he also studied economics and psychology at Rutgers University and has closely followed the industry for many years.

In this episode, you will learn how the gaze of a model in an ad impacts our purchasing decisions, how fear-based ads evoke mirror neurons triggering an emotional response, and how the famous “Nudge Theory” can influence the decisions we make.

We also discuss the work of famous behavioral economists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman and their popular book “Thinking Fast and Slow” which won them the noble prize in economics. In addition to Tversky and Kahneman, Friedman shares with us how the psychology and marketing research of Nick Kolenda helped him develop his own knowledge and understanding of these subjects.

Furthermore, Friedman also shares what further research he believes needs to be done to advance our understanding of how to effectively use neuroscience to improve advertising.