CA Blog; Mirror Neurons and Consumerism

Like most other good-to-do Americans, I frequent my local movie theatre from time to time. When a movie ‘catches my eye’, whether it be a 30 second trailer in between the new episode of Mad Men, or an overly enthused rant from my one of my buddies, I make a some-what serious attempt (nothing I do is really that serious) to go see it. Recently, I saw Drive, a movie featuring Ryan Gosling, which tells a tall tale of a race car driver who gets in with the wrong people for what he sees as the right reasons. Let’s discard the IMDB synopsis, though. What is important, however, is the feeling I came away with after leaving the theatre- I felt like a bad-ass. Why? Because Ryan Gosling is a boss, and not only is he a boss, he is a boss driver. Did you see the jet-black mustang? Did you see his craftsmanship in handling that magnificent beast? Of course you did. And of course, if you are a creature built of testosterone, you envied Gosling’s skill at driving, and what’s more, you envied the medium in which he performed this action- his mustang. Needless to say, my drive home (which in a dinky Civic is usually as thrilling as drinking my morning tea) was the most exhilarating of recent memory. Take a look:

This imitation on my part, my desire to be like Gosling, connects to our text, Buy-ology, by Martin Lindstrom, in regards to what the author cites as mirror neurons. Lindstrom explores this phenomena by relating our consumer potential to what we view, whether in movies (like my current obsession with black Mustangs) or in windows, and how the latter impacts the former. In an attempt to visualize mirror neurons at work, Lindstrom portrays a theoretical teen passing by Abercrombie models, and the effects it has on the consumer; “Let’s say you’re a socially uncertain fourteen-year-old. As you pass by the store, your mirror neurons fire up. You can imagine yourself among them: popular, desired, at the center of it all” (Lindstrom 65). What’s vital to our understanding of mirror neurons is not simply that we like to imitate other’s belongings; we strive to imitate the behaviors of those we see as “cool”. Companies that can successfully exploit our desire to be cool indeed exploit our behavior. We like ‘cool’: That kid is cool. In addition, his Converse are cool. I am going to buy a similar pair.

Earlier in the book, Lindstrom also touches on the consumer’s behavior that emotion trumps reason. In a study highlighting the difference between Pepsi and Coke, unknowingly consumers preferred Pepsi over Coke, but once known which of the two drinks volunteers would absorb, almost always Coke trumped Pepsi. Thus, we can appropriate Pepsi to our ‘rational thinking’, and Coke to our ‘emotional’ thinking. Lindstrom says, “…two areas in the brain were engaged in a mute tug-of-war between rational and emotional thinking” (Lindstrom 26). Lindstrom also touches on product placement and the often-failed attempts that companies commit to this phenomenon. In order for product placement to be successful, Lindstrom says that the specific product must be fully “integrated into the program” (Lindstrom 49).

 
Do you think that the concept of mirror-neurons and their use in advertising is bound to be the next big thing in the world of marketing, or do you think the traditional methods of 30-second commercials will retain their hold on commercial America?