How Marketing Reshapes Our Brains | Prince Ghuman & Matt Johnson | Modern Wisdom Podcast 180

So really, it's, it's trying to use the, the insights from neuroscience to better accomplish the classic goals of marketing. And so, part of that is understanding the general principles about the brain and how the brain takes in information, how the brain learns, how the brain has experiences, remembers, makes decisions, and, and how to utilize the general principles which navigate that space to better accomplish marketing goals. Uh, and then secondly, it's really about trying to collect as much neuroscientific data as possible to address very specific marketing questions. So if you're comparing which trailer to use, if you're, you're marketing for a, a movie, for example, you can do a classic consumer group where you ask people. There's lots of evidence showing that people's explicit responses are very different from what the brain says and what they will do later on. And, and a much better cue for that can be a direct measure of actual neural responses. So that's sort of the other half of, of neuromarketing is actually collecting raw neuroscientific data.

(wind blowing) Gentlemen, welcome to the show. How are you?

Good. How are you doing?

Doing well.

Very good indeed. This book, this Blindsight that I have in my hands, is one of the coolest things that I've read in absolutely ages. I get sent tons and tons of books, and this is like soft core porn to me, and also to the listeners today, I'm sure, as well. Fans of Richard Shott and Rory Sutherland and some of the other fantastic guests that we've had on today, I think you should have your notepads out because this is gonna be a real special one. So first off, gents, congrats on the book. Really good.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Chris. Really appreciate that. It was a-

How long were you- how long were you working on it?

(exhales) Two and a half. Two and a half years, roughly. I mean, it's still not out yet, so I would say we could even stretch it to three. We were working on it for a long time. I think how the book came about is a, is an interesting story as well.

Tell us. I wanna know.

Uh- uh, Matt, tell your side. His is really funny. (laughs)

Yeah, I mean, so, so, I mean, the, the book really is, is the melding of these two worlds, right? So I come from academic neuroscience. My first ... I was in ... I graduated from, from 25th grade when I, I stopped being in school finally. I've spent, uh, most of my lives in, in labs and, and libraries. Um, and I was really just driven by, uh, a curiosity. I really wanted to understand, uh, how the brain works, why we, we do the things we do, what sort of makes us tick. And, and it was really just driven by pure curiosity, really irrespective of any sort of application. And, and for me, that moment was, was really distilled when I finished my PhD thesis. Uh, what you do is you have your, your actual physical thesis. It's a, it's a bounded document, a bounded book. It's, it's fat, it's 200 pages, and there's a specific library with all the PhD theses go. And when I finished my PhD thesis, they're giving the bounded book and you put it in the library, and I put a $50 bill in that thesis. And I guarantee you that money is still there today-