Expenditures and testosterone

The results of a study1 led by Gideon Nave, professor in Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, showed that the testosterone’s rate influenced men purchases2.

The initial hypothesis, which has been confirmed by the results of the study, is that the male slumbering in us tries on one hand to attract the eye of the females in the vicinity (like the bird who shows his most beautiful plumage to be spotted by potential sexual partners) and on the other hand to discourage his potential rivals, which are the other males circulating in the surroundings … You know, like dogs which raise the leg to urinate as high as possible, just to persuade the others that they are very big and thus very sturdy!

Well, the idea is that with man, the brands of the products which he raises can play this role.

The idea of the study is rather direct: products of the same quality but with different brands of which the prestige is different were proposed to a group of 243 men from 18 to 55 years old, half of them having beforehand received a dose of testosterone, the others a dose of placebo. And, guess what, the men who took a dose of testosterone were more sensitive to the brand than the others!

Well, then of course, the experiment is finer than that (the prestigious level of the brands was estimated before the experiment by a poll, the saliva of the participants has been checked to see if other hormones did not influence the tests, they were forbidden to have a contact with a woman just before the examination etc.).

It is a remarkable result, isn’t it? In any case, it helps us to understand the advertisings for fragrances or cars which, rather than to speak to us of the product, prefer to show us images which make raise our testosterone’s rate!

Notes

1■ Nature Communications, n°9, Article n°2433, “Single-dose testosterone administration increases men’s preference for status goods“, publié le 3 juillet 2018

2■”Testostérone rimerait avec achat premium“, article taken from Stratégies, 4th July 2018

 

Are the personal data of French pupils going to escape Google?

 

 

An “internal note” spread in May opened the possibility to the companies of the digital technology to collect school data. Minister of Education plans to revise the policy on the subject.

Plainly it means that Google, Facebook, and other companies of the digital technology would have been able to collect pupils’ lists with their names, their classes, even their marks within the framework of on-line made works. These data can yield money.

Read full article in french on 20min

 

Your brain does your shopping


WHAT

Today, you do your shopping. You know what you will buy.
Today, you do your shopping. They know what they are going to sell you!

WHY

Actually and generally speaking, if companies try to sell you services or tools, we can think that, in a way, they are useful to you, which means that they meet one of your needs. Thus it seems fair to you to pay them back. It is just about an exchange. Besides; we all know the social benefactions of having local shopkeepers, as a good shopkeeper is someone who maintains good relations with his customers, which really tries to answer their needs, not necessarily in a business logic: the efficiency of his business is finally a side effect of his natural altruism.

In this context appeared what we call the “marketing” science (“marketing” literally means “to merchandize”, “to make saleable”). The practical objective of this discipline is to optimize the sale of products or services of a company. It stands out in two sub-domains: analyzing the needs of the potential customers at first, and then managing to sell them the product or the service of the company that is supposed to meet the need.

The last evolutions of marketing designed what we call the neuro-marketing. This term was invented by the researcher in neurosciences called Read Montague. This term means the application to the marketing of the acquired knowledge in the field of neurosciences. Briefly, neuro-marketing does not try to sell products to your person, but to your brain.

HOW

Nowadays, we actually know that the perception we have of the world takes more after an intellectual construction than after a direct knowledge acquired by our senses. As an example, we know that nine on the ten neural connections binding the eye to the brain are used to send information from the brain to the eye. Only the one remaining is used to push the eye information to the brain1.

But if the customer isn’t your person anymore, but your brain. What does it mean? It means many things … If we call back the both sub-domains of marketing that we defined above, the neuro-marketing tries at first to identify the needs of your brain, and then to sell to it services or products. The needs of your brain are scientifically defined, no more by trying to know how live, but by categorizing you (with your age, your sex, your social memberships …), and then they try to meet them by “packaging” the product or service. Roughly, in neuro-marketing, your real need completely disappears, and it is not something concrete that is sold to you, but an image that was forged for your brain.

The marketing in itself is only a tool, neither good nor bad. It can cleverly make you discover a very good product (which can really improve your life) or urge you to buy some shit (addicting, dangerous material, etc.). The ethical question is situated after the marketing part.

WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH IT

As an example, Read Montague and his team showed in one of their studies that if, in blind test, consumers preferred Pepsi to Coke, they would prefer consuming the Coke when they see the product2. All the power of neuro-marketing is illustrated here.

In brief, because they say that your worst enemy is yourself, please, make sure that’s you and not your brain who’s buying products when you go shopping!

Today, you do your shopping. They know what they will sell to you. Today, you do your shopping. You know what you are going to buy!

Notes

1■ Idriss Aberkane, « Libérez votre cerveau », Ed. Robert Laffont, 2017, p.67.

2■ The Guardian 29 juin 2004

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