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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >> In its study, the Munich team hooked up 20 healthy, well-educated young men and women to fMRI. Then the researchers presented them with the logos of either well-known or more obscure automakers and insurance companies. Born did not disclose the actual brand names, calling such disclosure "not useful at present."
Watching the participants' real-time neurological activity, it became clear to the researchers that the better-known brands acted on the brain in a way that was quite different from that of less-familiar logos.
Better-known brands stirred up areas of the brain's cortex and elsewhere that are "involved in positive emotional processing and associated with self-identification," Born said. This activity was specific to the better-known brands and occurred independently of the category of product -- cars or insurance plans.
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The participants' brains seemed to have more trouble processing lesser-known logos. In these cases, their working memory kicked into gear and processing took much longer, the researchers found.
Sanberg said that the findings, while interesting, don't tell us anything definite about consumer's shopping preferences or behaviors. "This is just showing that the brain is lighting up," he said. "But clearly, people's responses to brands -- I would imagine that there would be other behavioral correlates of this."
Besides demonstrating that strong branding does matter, neurologically speaking, the fMRI results "suggest that a benchmark test for strong vs. weaker brands is possible," Born said. That could open the way to further research into what makes great brands great. "Further investigations are necessary to define in detail the conditions for optimal branding," she said.
However, this research, which was funded by the university, isn't just about maximizing profits for industry, Born stressed. When the needs of consumers from different backgrounds, age groups or cultures dovetail smoothly with the launch of commercial products, everyone wins, she said.
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