This document provides a review of the book "Neuromarketing in Action: How to Talk and Sell to the Brain" which discusses applying neuroscientific principles to marketing. The book is divided into four parts that cover topics like how the brain processes information, using neuromarketing internally, improving marketing efficiency, and developing future growth strategies. The reviewer recommends the book for both marketing professionals and other business functions as it provides actionable insights into areas like communication, team building, and branding.

1. Reviewed By:
Sharad Agarwal, Indian Institute of Management Ranchi INDIA
Review Subject: Neuromarketing in Action: How to Talk and Sell to the Brain
Patrick M. Georges , Anne-Sophie Bayle-Tourtoulou , Michel Badoc
Publisher Name: Kogan Page
Place of Publication: London
Publication Year: 2013
ISBN: 978-0749469276
Price: US $39.95
Article type: Review
Pages:240 pp.

2. Neuromarketing in Action: How to Talk and Sell to the Brain
Neuromarketing is referred to the application of neuro-scientific principles in marketing and
management. It has gained considerable attention from academia and practitioners in the last
decade. Neuro-Marketing in Action, gives the actionable insights, derived from rigorous neuroscientific experiments, which can be adopted by marketers to enhance their effectiveness through
the scientific managerial knowledge generated by scholars from the area of neuroscience,
behavioural science, cognitive science, management and other allied fields.
The book aptly explains its concepts through the examples of practices pursued by top European
companies. Though the book is broadly written to make marketing function and actions more
effective, the insights are equally applicable for all other functions such as human resources,
operations, communications, etc.
The books consist of 18 chapters divided into 4 parts. Part 1, “Neuromarketing or the art of selling to
the brain” consists of 3 chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the concept of marketing both from customer
and company’s point of view. It defines marketing as “The art of creating value both for the
customer and the company” (p.10).Chapter 2 appraises the readers with different parts of the brain
and their respective roles in information processing and decision making. It also introduces the
readers with the concept of Ergonomics and explains how it influences the brain of the consumer,
“Intellectual work ergonomics is the science studying human’s intellectual work to increase
productivity, satisfaction and safety” (p.26). Chapter 3 ponders further on the concept of
neuromarketing and defines it as, “It (neuromarketing) is an intelligent, focussed, marketing
oriented interpretation of major scientific text on how the brain works” (p.42)
Part 2, “Selling the marketing and organization strategy to the brains of managers and employees”
consists of two chapters. Chapter 4 focuses on internal marketing in the organization. It introduces
the readers with the concept of ‘marketing cockpit’ and ‘management cockpit’ and explains how this
concept has quickly become the interface between managers and their businesses. Chapter 5
provides advice to marketers on managing their physical and emotional fitness. It provides the
neural explanation for marketers to keep themselves fit for improving their performance of
marketing intelligence. It dwells on overcoming the issues of change and stress created in the
organizations which have even led to suicides in the organizations such as Renault and France
Telecom.
Part 3, “Improving the efficiency of the marketing action: the neuromarketing method”, consists of
eight chapters. Chapter 6 throws light on the role played by each of the five senses while the
consumer makes decision to purchase the product. “Our five senses are like red and humid skin that
must be rubbed at the right rhythm to get the customers’ attention, followed by their pleasure and
memory” (p.91).Chapter 7 elucidates the role of sex and food in meeting the fundamental needs of
consumer while they evaluate the proposition of one product over other. “Sex and Food are the two
most important needs, as they guarantee survival: food for short term individual survival and sex for
long-term survival of the species” (p.102). Chapter 8 discusses the role of six basic emotions, fear,

3. joy, sadness, surprise, disgust and anger in consumers and describes these as the door to the
consumer’s memory. Chapter 9 recognizes the role of consumer’s memory in their decision to
purchase a product and mentions that Neuromarketing attempts to increase the consumer’s
memory (for a product or brand) through repetitions, stories, pleasure, simultaneous and sequenced
entries. The authors give the example of brands such as Aston Martin, BMW and Dom Perignon
which were able to create successful stories in the minds of the consumers by embarking on the
adventures of James Bond. Chapter 10 deals with the importance of satisfying customers’
subconscious to make a successful sales deal. “You must become accepted by the customer’s
subconscious, because if it blocks your product there will be no sales” (p.125). Chapter 11 reiterates
the importance of satisfying customer’s reason to finally close the sales deal. As the customer is
equipped with genuine intelligence with capability to calculate and compare the value of product
satisfying customer’s conscience is of utmost importance. From the neuroscience perspective the
marketer should create an environment which removes blood from the frontal lobes of the
customer brains by using selective voices, images and décor which would lead the consumer’s
decision making in marketer’s interest. Chapter 12 depicts several examples from top companies on
how they want to apply the principle of neuromarketing in enhance their sales. It also talks of the
case of ‘Sales Point’ neuromarketing methods which is developed in collaboration with ACCOR,
Promod, Credit Suisse and other entities. Chapter 13 rehashes the role of sensory marketing in both
online and physical sales outlet. Neuro-scientifically, the lobes of the brain, located in the cerebral
hemispheres, are the receptacles of the canters responsible for the senses. The authors give the
examples of brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Sephora and Nespresso which focus on selected
ingredients to catch the attention of five senses for creating a genuine sensory experience for the
customers visiting their stores.
Part 4, “Perspective for today…and tomorrow” consist of 5 chapters. Chapter 14 educates the
readers with the importance of ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ and ‘Innovation’ in promoting the future
growth of a company. It explains the concepts of invention and innovation and advocated the
innovation bases business model and positioning. “An invention is largely based on the product
policy. It becomes an innovation when it satisfies the customer’s desire” (p.189). The authors also
explain the role of customer innovation, product innovation, price innovation, distribution
innovation and communication innovation in building successful companies. Chapter 15 introduces
the readers with the concepts of ‘Desire Marketing’ and ‘Permission Marketing’. It then talks about
‘Viral Marketing’ or ‘Buzz marketing’. Through the differentiation strategy and interactive strategy,
Figure 15.1 (p.204) depicts the complete process of viral marketing from creating desire for a brand
among the consumers to influencing their policies. Chapter 16 revolves around building successful
relationships with the consumers. It gives examples of eBay and Amazon who offer a number of
testimonies and evaluations by the consumers who have already bought the product, which helps in
decision making of the new undecided consumer. Chapter 17 uses Antanio Domasio’s (Domasio,
2005) concept of ‘Somatic Markers of the brain’ to neuro-scientifically explain the concept of Brand
positioning, Brand identity and Brand Sensoriality. Chapter 18 focuses on promoting ‘legitimacy’ and
‘sustainability’ to conquer the customer’s trust as the customers brain wishes to have a clear
conscience for whatever and whenever they buy. Customers are not interested to become partners
of the firms who do not treat their stakeholders respectfully. The authors quote the example of
Orange, which apparently received several cancellation requests from customers unhappy with the
suicides happened in its parent company, France telecom.

4. The book presents a judicious mix of concepts from neuromarketing, marketing and corporate
strategy to educate the readers on not only building successful marketing initiatives but also on
creating sustainable long term growth strategies by satisfying long term needs of the consumers.
The book is written in a very reader friendly style, each unit starts with a brief introduction on what
the readers would see in further chapter. It also presents key points at the end of each unit which
summarizes the previous units for better understanding of the readers. Though the book is targeted
for marketing fraternity , I would recommend it for students and professionals of all managerial
functions as it provides actionable insights into various managerial functions such as managerial
communication, team building, interpersonal communication and, of course, marketing and
branding.
Reference:
Domasio, A (2005) Descartes’ Error, Penguin, New York