The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind

Chapter 15. The Buying Brain in the Aisle

At the end of this chapter, you'll know and be able to use the following:

• What the brain avoids in the retail environment

• The essential framework the brain uses to organize the shopping experience

• Best practices for retail environments

• How to activate Neurological Iconic Signatures at the store

The Problem: How to Rock the Aisle?

A cookie and cake mix manufacturer was going around and around with focus groups on how to design a new concept for a product display that would appeal to shoppers as they approached the end of the aisle. Focus group results kept coming back consistently conflicted (yes, that's an oxymoron, but apt). Should they try the new design or stick with the known way of doing things? The time and financial investment involved was significant, and as we know, shoppers don't want to learn a new aisle configuration unless there is a good reason for it.

It's a jungle in there. Literally, from your brain's point of view, when you walk into a store—let's say, your typical supermarket—regions of your brain react the same way that they did when our ancient predecessors made their dangerous progress across the Serengeti.

For example, what would you guess would alarm your subconscious, setting off a 100,000-year-old internal warning system as you wander the aisles?

The answer is something as common as an end cap (that's the display area at the end of most supermarket aisles). It triggers what neuroscience describes as an avoidance response ...