Downtown Buy-ology

By Joe Borgstrom, Director
Specialized Technical Assistance
& Revitalization Strategy Division
Michigan State Housing Development Authority

I’ve been reading a very interesting book recently entitled, Buy-ology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom. (Support a downtown or locally-owned bookstore) I picked up the book because I am an advertising and marketing geek. What I’ve been reading is a stunning, and sometimes scary, look at how we are being marketed to without evening consciously knowing it. This new field is being called “neuro-marketing.”

Using thousands of brain scans, the book details numerous examples of how different industries are using this type of marketing to make you naturally “root” their brand and how they can leverage our basic needs and wants to belong into purchases. Here are two of the more intriguing (and abbreviated) examples:

- A comparison between Coca-cola and Ford’s sponsorship of American Idol: Coke uses product integration so you associate people reaching for their dreams, thus you want the contestants (and unconsciously Coke) to succeed. Meanwhile, Ford uses nearly the same amount of money on old fashioned 30 second commercials with minimal integration. The result? Much higher brand awareness and retention for Coke over Ford.

- At major stores in New York and Los Angeles, clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch hires models to hang out in front of their stores. This, combined with the dark lighting and loud music give their stores a club-like feel where beautiful people are found. You too can be one of them, if you just buy their stuff.

I'm not a psychologist or sociologist, but I do know what these two examples have in common: The Experience. And not just any experience, an emotional experience. Whether you are rooting for your favorite singer (and vicariously for yourself) or being a person in “the in-crowd,” our emotions play a big part in how we purchase. This particular book has the brain scans to prove it.

So what does this have to with downtowns? A lot. The debate over the ethics of type of research is just heating up. Regardless of how the data came about, I think this validates an approach, albeit a much less scientific one, many communities have been deploying through their Main Street programs for years: Create an emotional connection to our downtowns and their businesses.

Integrating our downtowns, and the businesses in them, into the daily lives of our residents through experiences like festivals and special events (it’s “the place to be”), exceptional customer service (treatment usually reserved for “special people”), or just the general sense of “this is my downtown” (belonging), all have pangs of “neuro-marketing.”

The only real difference, in my opinion, is our downtowns’ approach is authentic. Our retailers do not conduct brain scans on customers to find out excellent service makes someone feel special. To them, that’s just smart business. Our downtowns were not designed to make you recognize a brand. Though, one could argue the businesses, architecture, events, and organizational efforts work together to communicate a “brand” that is like nowhere else on earth.

When it comes to this new age of neuro-marketing, we don’t need brain scans to find out what people want. We’ve included them in the process. They volunteer to help make our downtowns better for everyone. We call it Main Street.