Hitting The Me Spot
It’s long been said that branding has much to do with personal identification. You can see this most clearly with teenagers, who plaster brands all over themselves as a way of telling others, and themselves, who they are. It’s not just them, though. We all try to buy products that we think reflect who we are, or who we want to be. This is true whether we’re buying a pair of gloves or a house.
Now, this may not hold for all products. You probably don’t buy finishing nails based on what you think represents you. And there are a lot of factors at play in what house you choose, because there are logistical and financial boundaries on that decision. This is also true for cars–I don’t think everyone who drives a minivan thinks “a minivan is who I am.”
When we can, though, we do seem to like to buy things that reflect how we do, or would like to, view ourselves.
Recently, thanks to psychology’s favourite new toy, the functional MRI, people who call themselves neuromarketers are actually seeing this happen in the brain.
A few years ago, these guys opted to study Coke and Pepsi, because of the “Pepsi Paradox”… which is, basically, that Pepsi outperforms Coke in blind taste tests yet Coke sells better. This is in cases where people have a choice between Coke and Pepsi–PepsiCo has been smart enough to buy a lot of restaurant and fast food chains and so people who drink cola while eating out have a pretty good chance of being served Pepsi.
Many years ago, people claimed that the Pepsi Paradox was due to the difference between a taste test and having a glass of cola. Pepsi is sweeter, therefore it does better in taste tests where participants are drinking a small serving. Sweetness can become cloying in a larger serving, though. Hence the popularity of Coke.
I know from experience that you can tell the difference in taste between Coke and Pepsi. Back in the 80s, when there were Pepsi taste test booths everywhere, I used to do the test and deliberatly pick Coke, just to be annoying. I knew which was which, without fail. Pepsi is sweeter. Or was, anyway–I haven’t had non-diet Pepsi in a long time.
Anyway, neuromarketers say serving size is irrelevant and flavour is irrelevant and that it’s all about branding.
Of course they would say that, being marketers, but they’ve done an fMRI study that showed something interesting. People were put in fMRIs and given Coke and Pepsi, not knowing which was which, through–I’m not making this up–really long straws that could reach into the machine. The drink most people preferred in this part of the test was Pepsi and, in fact, the fMRI showed that Pepsi lit up reward centers of the brain better than Coke did. Again, probably because it’s sweeter. Our brains love sugar.
Part two of the experiment was where people were told what they were drinking, and in this case the majority preferred Coke. The interesting thing is that the reward centers lit up in the usual way, preferring Pepsi to Coke… but then a part of the brain that does conscious, reflexive thought–this is who I am and this is what I like–lit up and people said they preferred Coke. In other words, as science journalist Lorne Frank put it on a recent All in the Mind podcast, “[Coke] is more me.”
Apparently, people are more motivated by a feeling of aptness–this product is me, or is right for me–than by their pleasure centers.
So here’s a fun question: what does this mean for the marketing of books? Before you answer, consider this study.
Summed up, that study basically showed that people got more actual, physical, brain-centers-lighting-up reward from art that they felt reflected well upon them, or that fell in line with their views of themselves as discerning.
We’re talking here about fine art–abstract paintings, to be specific. I don’t know how many buyers of the Twilight series feel discerning while making those purchases. These fMRI studies suggest, though, that to buy those books in the first place and to perceive that they enjoy those books, readers might need to feel that books represent them somehow.
This is where I throw my hands in the air and say I don’t get it. Twilight is a good example, I think, because I know a lot of people who seem ashamed to be reading those books and yet they keep right on doing it. Their spoken message is “These books aren’t me. They’re not who I really am. I just sort of like them and I don’t even know why.”
If that’s true, the books are more Pepsi than Coke, because they’re hitting a reward center with something basic, like sugar. The reward is primal rather than conscious. Yet these books sell as if they were Coke.
Does that mean that Twilight is somehow hitting people in the “me” spot, or does it mean there’s no direct competitor that hits the “me” spot? Because, if there were no Coke, it seems that people would quite happily drink Pepsi. It lights up reward areas, after all.
If you know what’s going on here and can explain it to me, please speak up. I am genuinely confused. I also want to know if I’m going to have to hit the “me” spot to sell my own books and, if so, how I do that. It’s not in the substance of the book, remember, any more than it’s in the formula for Coke. It’s about branding.
Should I be trying to give people the impression that my books would be “them”? Is that done through how the books are marketed?
Or is it done through how I represent myself? Because, um, one of the reasons I decided not to be serious about music was that you’re exactly selling yourself most of the time, especially if you’re female. While women at my weight have made it in music, for example, it’s so rare that it’s news when it happens. Your odds of success are far better if you’re rail thin. Supposedly music is something you listen to, maybe even with your eyes shut, but actually music seems to be a sexual fantasy and whoever provides it had better be good jack-off material or no one will be buying. I realize this isn’t true of people who genuinely love music, but you know what? Though nearly everyone says “I like music”, most people don’t really seem to care about it all that much. Which is fine–it’s just misleading, because you think, hey, there’s a huge audience for music when actually there’s a huge audience for sexual fantasy and a very small audience for music.
It would be unfortunate, I think, if the selling of books went any further in that direction. I do wonder, though, if that’s the future–especially with book trailers and the way everyone knows exactly what Stephanie Meyer looks like because her author photo (same one, always) is everywhere.
Books give people something to fantasize about besides the author (that is, the characters), so maybe what the artist looks like won’t become as important as it is in music. But maybe people like to buy a package–I read these books, which represent this fictional world, and they are by this author, who is this kind of person with this fashion aesthetic and who lives this kind of life. All of this is “me”.
I know, by the way, that there’s been a lot of talk about this essay online. I agree, in many ways. I prefer that people who are promoting themselves do it through honest expression and content, not through inane repetition of their name and product names. I prefer that the internet be about things besides sales. But I also bet you a trillion dollars that Ms. Johnson is not struggling through life, agentless and with a day job, trying to find her way to her audience. In other words, it’s easy for her to say.
Current Bedside Reading: Lisa Sanders, Every Patient Tells A Story
Commentary: What’s awesome here, besides the book itself, is that Lisa Sanders was a technical advisor to House and yet she clearly hates House. The character, I mean, not the show. She thinks he’s a dreadful doctor.
My iPod Is Singing: “I took No-Face by the beak.”
Comments
rilla (Jul 12, 2010)
As soon as I started reading this post, I wondered whether you had read the non-branding manifesto.
My boss for the Wu series is keenly aware of branding and marketing since he is also a marketer. It’s not something I would ever have considered before working for him. In fact, my co-author and I have had plenty of discussions with him about how the quality of the story should be a better selling point than whatever marketing campaigns he employs. It’s a difference of opinion based on what we value. The authors would prefer to see “the product” be really really fun and compelling. The marketer would prefer to see “the product” as a brand that people will desire.
This combination is actually quite promising. Since the writers do want it to be something of which we’ll be proud, it’s as good as we are capable of making it. Since the marketer wants it to be an enticing product, people have heard about the book, and often have purchased it, through measures that are not usually implemented.
As for the cover art, I’m reminded of the Robert Jordan series, The Wheel of Time. The original printing run of these books had a typical fantasy art cover. It had pictures of the characters traveling, journeying,battling, etc. Then they published a batch of them with cover art that just had the names of the books in bold face and a small graphic that visually represented the literal meaning of the title. The Path of Daggers, had a small image that looked like a bed of nails. The Crown of Thorns, a picture of the crown, etc. I HATED these covers. They were not what I had come to associate with his “brand” and not what I associated as “me.”
On the other hand, my favorite covers of J.D. Salinger’s books are the ones with a plain white background, and the title in all caps, a reflection of his particular “brand.”
Cover art is an important part of connecting a reader to the book, the buyer to the product. I hope, though, that the author remains outside of the packaging.
Gayleen (Jul 12, 2010)
The thing about the quality of story is that saying a book is “good” doesn’t really tell people what to expect… and people’s ideas of what’s good can vary wildly. Also, is it “It’s a great yarn and a fun ride” kind of good or “It’s Very Serious Literature that is good for you, like over-cooked brussels sprouts.”?
I never know what to think when someone tells me something is well-written (unless I know the person and have some idea what other books they consider well-written.) Even then, I know that I can read a book, consider it well-written, and have been bored throughout because it’s just not a topic/setting I care about.
Maybe where branding comes in is in translating “it’s fun and compelling”. I consider a really hard crossword puzzle fun. Some people consider sky-diving fun. So maybe branding is showing someone sky-diving and having a great time, or showing someone quietly and happily doing a crossword puzzle. That’s the contribution. It’s clarification of the subjective.
I dunno.
RecoveringSTVStaffer (Jul 13, 2010)
I like to say neuromarketer as neuromarketeer – cause it makes them sound more dweeby!
“Come on everybody, let’s sing the neuromarketeer theme song!”
Gayleen (Jul 13, 2010)
…which just sounds like a long, soft buzz. Strangely, you feel different after you hear it.
RecoveringSTVStaffer (Jul 14, 2010)
now I want to purchase things, for some reason…
Thunderhowl (Jul 14, 2010)
It was a weird sensation when I read the first Twilight book. It was like I could recognize parts that would appeal to someone who [i]wasn’t[/i] me almost as though I were in a lab and watching their fMRI* while they were reading it. It was decidedly odd, because I’d read that section, see how it would appeal to someone else, and yet not respond to that trigger myself.
Reading Twilight actually made me feel like I was a scientist watching some weird pop culture phenomenon unfolding in front of my lab. It was a little disturbing and a little exciting all at the same time. I got that exact same feeling during the first few episodes of True Blood, and now after watching two seasons I’m hooked on True Blood. Coke vs. Pepsi indeed, eh?
*(I LOVE YOU for this analogy by the way. It perfectly sums up how I felt reading the book).
Gayleen (Jul 15, 2010)
I get the Twilight thing (in an observer sense–it does not appeal to me) when pre-teens are reading it. Adutls, not so much. I don’t say this to denegrate the adults who do read it, because plenty of them are bright people who happily admit this is junk food for them. My confusion is over where their emotional satisfaction lies. I would have thought these books would speak to pre-teen/early teen fantasy lives, but they clearly speak just as strongly to women between 30 and 50 and There’s something I’m not getting. Is it midlife crisis–wanting to go back to the teen years and make different, more exciting choices? Or is it a nostalgia for the kind of books they read as pre-teens? I was never a teen romance reader, but I would probably be delighted if someone were writing a new, modern series of books that reminded me of the Three Investigators or something. *shrug*
James Brown (Jul 15, 2010)
If someone was doing modern retakes on the Three Investigators, I’d be nailed.
I read the first Twilight. I’d come downstairs, and confront Raven in an aggreived tone “Why am I reading this? There’s… there’s no /story/ here. It’s just… AAGGH.” and I’d throw up my hands and go read it some more. I finished it, at least in part to see if that would ever change. It didn’t. It was, from a technical point of view, well written. Perhaps well crafted is the better term. But there was no significant plot, no significant character development, no significant anything, really.
In part, I think that’s the appeal of the book(s). There’s no surprises, there’s no real substance. It’s junk food. It was “good” if junk food is what you’re looking for. If you want a meal though, steer clear. Kind of like Dan Brown that way.
ps: House is a dreadful doctor. Raven delights in pointing out the stupid things they do, in their convoluted path to the cure.
James
tiran (Jul 15, 2010)
Your readers are too intellectual. The first thing I thought when I read the title of “Hitting the Me Spot” was not branding. It was “Is this going to be TMI and will I be able to look her in the face later?”
For those of you who have read ANY of the Twilight books, I would say the marketing was sucessful. After all would you have pick it up if there wasnt all this fuss?
And how do reprints with adult covers (Harry Potter, Terry Pratchett) fit into this?
gayleenfroese (Jul 27, 2010)
Tiran, again we see your love of the single entendre.
Those reprints of “children’s” books in “adult” covers are designed to protect adults from the shame they supposedly feel at being seen with a children’s book on the subway.