Body of Truth: Leveraging What Consumers Can't or Won't Say (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Marketing departments have a huge problem..." (more)
Key Phrases: emotive scripts, sensory marketing, leopard brain, New York, Walt Disney, Mark Twain (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

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 developing 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.

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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 267 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (August 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471444391
• ISBN-13: 978-0471444398
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #798,484 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful read!, January 28, 2004

By	D.B. Hart (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews

I thought Hill's book was a marvelous exploration of the new vistas currently being opened by marketing research. I was especially sympathetic to the central premise that consumers don't really largely make their decisions "rationally." I know a lot of lip service is paid these days to acknowledging that consumers aren't the rational agents supposed by classic economic models, but this book actually takes this proposition seriously enough to go on to suggest how to USE it. I mean the book explains how understanding that people make purchase decisions to a large extent for irrational, emotional reasons can be used to your advantage in a business environment (and is ignored at your peril).

Plus it's really well-written. A great read!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It changed my thinking about consumer research., April 2, 2004

By	Joseph S. Zagorski (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews

You might think a book about measuring sensory responses to advertising stimuli would be either A) dry and boring or B) a soft-peddle pitch to get you to buy some expensive consulting gig rigged for sensory measurement...but this book is neither. It's a well-written, entertaining, thought-provoking and practical guide to re-thinking your approach to message development. Dr. Hill shares his experience and rich data with you in an easy-to-read book that breaks down his thinking in short, chewable chunks. I carried the book with me in my briefcase for a week, biting off 5-10 pages at a time between appointments and finding myself itching to get back into it at every available interval. All along the way, I was scribbling notes in the margins and underlining lots of material in anticipation that this would be a book I'd refer back to again and again in my travels with clients and creative types. Dr. Hill's "story line" approach to brand building is something I was able to put into play immediately upon finishing the book. I had a large campaign I was working on for a client and was able to integrate some of the "story line" thinking into our presentation in a way that made me sound like a visionary in consumer research! The client was impressed, the campaign turned out great and now we're anticipating additional work. More than just fad research, this book has staying power. And the examples Dr. Hill gives in each chapter create a veritable checklist for creating ad campaigns that not only circumvent conventional thinking, but resonate with the audience. I highly recommend "Body of Truth" to anyone in advertising, especially the creatives who are responsible for building brands and getting the message through in a cluttered media environment.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, March 15, 2004

By	L. Chu (Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The subtitle is so very intriguing: "Leveraging what Customers Can't or Won't Say." I had expected something more in-depth into the theory and, more importantly, into the application of the concepts and findings. As a previous reviewer has said, if you are new to the topics of how the mind works, emotional branding and use of story, then this may be a decent introduction. But if you are even somewhat acquainted with these topics, then you may find this book disappointingly lacking.