From the Inside Flap
Many marketers assume that consumers are rational beings who choose products based on their perceived benefits. However, new research shows that much of the decision-making process happens subconsciously, based on the consumer’s emotional and sensory responses to a product. In fact, consumers make gut decisions about products and rationalize their choices later, whether they know it or not.
In Body of Truth, Dan Hill, PhD, explodes the rational approach to marketing and market research, using the latest findings on human cognition and communication to help marketers tap into consumers’ real needs and wants. Hill backs his argument with new technology such as biofeedback and facial coding to measure and record consumers’ true sensory responses to products and advertisements, providing a framework for deve-loping marketing initiatives that elicit the optimal emotional response.
Body of Truth offers a new methodology that more accurately measures consumer desire and helps marketers use that data to craft more compelling and resonating brand stories. It transforms complex scientific concepts into actionable principles that marketers can immediately implement, and presents real-world examples of leading companies that have found powerful ways to communicate with consumers.
In order to build a truly effective marketing relationship, companies must learn to communicate with consumers on the deepest levels possible–physical, sensory, and emotional. Hill shows marketers how to use new techniques to craft brand strategies that create emotional attachments between products and the people who buy them, and how to sustain that brand message across every medium. The practical lessons in this book will make any business or agency more effective in reaching, winning over, and holding on to consumers.
In today’s crowded and homogeneous marketplace, sustainable competitive advantage is more and more a product of how well a company can connect with consumers. By offering effective guidelines for enacting sensory and emotive-based marketing techniques, Body of Truth shows marketers and businesses how to develop and sustain a brand strategy that creates deep and lasting customer loyalty.
From the Back Cover
"Finding out what customers can’t or won’t say is key to improving the customer experience. Dan Hill’s terrific book shows you how to accomplish this challenge."
–Bernd Schmitt
author, Customer Experience Management
"Hill takes marketers beyond the traditional consumer decision process and shows the importance of experiential branding. Not only does he describe the fundamental process of creating emotional connections with consumers, he gives tons of practical examples to show how to do it."
–Roger Blackwell, PhD
Professor of Marketing, The Ohio State University
and coauthor, Brands That Rock
"Body of Truth provides the conceptual framework and tools for marketing professionals to use to connect with consumers on an emotional level. Emotions drive behavior and rational thought validates behavior. I can fully endorse this fact based on personal experience with over 3000 research studies. Dan Hill provides the sensory foundation that sets the framework for influencing emotions. If you can influence the senses you can influence emotions and subsequently drive consumer behavior. How does this benefit marketing professionals and ad executives? It provides you consumer insight that will increase the probability that your marketing strategies will impact behavior and ultimately drive revenue for your firm."
–Lawrence Denaro
Chief Executive Officer, Q2 Brand Intelligence
"Body of Truth contributes a fresh and welcome perspective to the discipline of marketing. Dr. Dan Hill’s work will be enjoyed by all intellectually inquisitive professionals who seek to build better relationships with their customers, employees, and channel partners. Synthesizing recent developments from biology and psychology, the book highlights the primary role that sensory-emotive connections play in creating authentic relationships that drive business results. In the end, Hill reminds us that emotions enrich all of the associations that enliven a brand."
–Mike Kust
Chief Knowledge Officer, Carlson Marketing Group
"Buyers are liars! When it comes to traditional research, what consumers SAY and what they DO are often world’s apart. These revolutionary research techniques help uncover the true behavior behind all the words."
–Rob Wallace
Managing Partner, Wallace Church Inc.
global brand identity strategy and design consultants
