Neuromarketing: How Companies Hack Your Brain

my name is marie

and i am a liberated woman i lead my

life as i wish

which is why i've chosen this brand the

skin cream

i can't do without it the sensation when

i apply it it's a real pleasure

when i get home from the gym i often

stop at this burger restaurant

i love it smell and the toasted bread

and it's so nice inside

i reserve my train tickets through this

travel agency there are so many images

there

that make me want to get a return trip

to the sunshine

it's like my bank i recently changed

over to this credit company

i took out a loan for what i need to buy

for the kids

my name is marie and i'm a liberated

woman all these products

because i'm worth it

well marie do you really think you're a

free and liberated woman

do you know the smell of fast food is

deliberately designed to produce an

emotional reaction

the travel pictures are deliberately

chosen to arouse your desires

the bank slogan is specially created to

play on your fears

[Music]

and your body cream has been developed

to spark a desire from within your brain

you didn't realize that of course why

should you

it's all calculated using the latest

technology from neuroscience

like an mri or an electroencephalogram

these new sales methods have a specific

technique to control your brain

it's called euro marketing

but my dear consumers you're not meant

to know about it

neura marketing is a taboo subject among

the companies of the

21st century come on activate your

neurons

we'll introduce you to the best kept

secrets of the major brands

you know well

one marketing company has exceptionally

agreed to show us how

one mass-market retailer studies your

behavior and incites you to buy

we meet up in central paris a typical

looking building

and whoops this is our floor

on the door of somewhat unusual sign and

inside

not a parisian apartment

and it's in this kind of shop that will

ask people to pretend to do their

shopping

it allows us to study their behavior

eric sanglo works for bva a market study

agency whose clients include some

well-known brands that test new

packaging and placements on a store's

shelves

from his observation post eric sangler

tracks the consumer's slightest reaction

in the store's isles they're volunteers

from the public in the street below

each wears a strange looking pair of

glasses worth 20

000 euros

using a system of red dots the glasses

record each movement of the eye to the

nearest millisecond

it's known as an eye tracker

now here you can see she's looking in a

specific area for a product that

interests her

there she's founded and it's what we

call a direct purchase something she

hasn't looked at too

closely

we've also put on the glasses suddenly

we seem to see everything so much more

clearly

they demonstrate exactly which elements

spark our impulse to buy something

without us knowing

and to better understand how the human

brain works

and how individuals reach the decisions

that they

take for example how the shape of the

spoon

in the mashed potato the color

or the design of the mash's image will

capture one's attention

so we'll go some way to explaining the

elements that help us reach a decision

on a subconscious level

playing with your subconscious to make

you buy something is the aim of this new

high-tech marketing

which makes us think of a word that like

marketing begins with an m

manipulation let's check the dictionary

manipulation the state of being

manipulated

shrewd or devious management especially

for one's own advantage

without the subject's knowledge

without the subject's knowledge here

precisely is the new tool of bva

the first neuromarketing device being

developed in france

the electromyograph its inventor is

olivier drewler

a researcher in neuroscience

nestle and l'oreal have already signed

up to test their ads using this machine

it's subconscious but every time you

watch advertising your brain receives

and acts on millions of different bits

of information

they provoke emotions you're not even

aware of

the electrodes on the face and fingers

allow these to be tracked

there's one muscle it's called the

zygomatic or smiling muscle

even if the muscle itself doesn't smile

of course you can detect

an electromyographic impulse that's the

corrugator which is activated during

mostly negative emotions

this method is interesting because it

detects subtle discrete and often

subconscious emotions

the importance of the subconscious as

marketing is not hard to understand

here's an ad for a mcdonald's new line

of hamburger

he's so cute he's so chubby

oh you're too cute some tabasco a bun

scattered with paprika a new red chili

pepper

the reactions of the human guinea pig

are registered by the different curves

now that's more than just an impulse

it's almost at maximum level

we can comfortably say there was a

strong positive emotion

after the test olivier douglas asks the

lady at what point did she feel more

emotional

to me it was then then well actually

it's when we saw the hamburgers

oh really well before there was a little

emotion but the peak comes when we see

the pack shot is the image of the

product it was at this point that the

lady became excited and there was an

emotional peek

i'm a little bit surprised as i thought

it was more the character herself

i didn't think it would be the brand

that influenced me

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the impact is not just coincidence but

the results of our brain

being worked on from an early age it's

something you notice by conducting a

little experiment in a class in a

parisian school

good morning boys and girls i'm going to

show you some pictures

under which there are some words

the kids in this class are barely five

years old

euros very good great

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hey

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why to eat

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how can mcdonald's have made such an

impact on five-year-olds

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a simple test in front of one of their

restaurants provides the answer

who decided to go to mcdonald's the kids

the kids

why does the child like it because

there's a toy inside

that's it it's just for the toy he

doesn't even eat he just plays with a

toy

i have three kids that's three toys

oh for the toy definitely uh he eats

hardly anything

does your child get upset if you don't

go to mcdonald's yes

and this is mcdonald's weapon of mass

attraction

this toy which may not look like much

but it's highly profitable

this is a confidential document from a

u.s association of mcdonald franchisees

it shows that 95 percent of families

that visit mcdonald's

do so as a result of their kids

in the game of cat and mouse children

have little hope of escaping the

clutches of mcdonald's

[Music]

the brand has made sure it will

indelibly mark their spirits

[Music]

[Applause]

the man who introduced toys to

mcdonald's has agreed to be interviewed

he lives in a remote part of arizona and

to find him

takes you down many windswept dusty

roads

to be honest we did get lost at one

point

but we did finally find his ranch

[Music]

before retiring with his wife and horses

roy bergold was in charge of world

marketing for mcdonald's

he worked for the fast food giant for

more than 30 years

it started in 1969

so that was a long time ago and we

didn't we only had uh

like i said we had about 600 restaurants

in the united states

and none internationally and now i think

they're in about

i'm not totally sure but i think they're

in about 140 countries now

and i started about 100 countries

the man who knows all the secrets of the

multinational brand agrees for the first

time

to talk money on camera he denies

nothing about the methods mcdonald's

used to become one of the wealthiest

brands in the world

and he explains why ray kroc the company

founder decided to focus on children

if you can get the child at you know

four

five six years old to come to mcdonald's

he's probably going to continue to come

as a teenager and as an adult

and then to bring his kids so ray always

said if you have one dollar to spend on

marketing

spend it on kids marketing giving a

hamburger to a friend the toy was the

first marketing strategy aimed at

attracting children with the clown

ambassador ronald mcdonald 50

gift certificates to everyone it's a

nice way to say

[Music]

advertising featured restaurants

schools it reached its target to

associate mcdonald's

with a brand stamping field good factor

in the minds of future customers

[Music]

that way you're not you're not a

commercial

you're not there telling kids to do

something you're simply giving a message

that's important to that kid and to his

parents and his teachers and whatever

ronald is less than evidence these days

here's the happy meal

a new character that's very successful

mcdonald's has an annual turnover of 47

billion

we just plant the idea of fast food

mcdonald's

in their mind and again that translates

into

i'm hungry i think i'll go get something

fast

that's mcdonald's and that's sales and

that's the way it works

that's marketing muscle and we do know

that if you can be top of mind with a

person

in other words if they think i'm hungry

mcdonald's

that's going to be great that's going to

get you a lot of business so

we really believed in the power of

marketing and how we could be

how we could have the top of mind

awareness of a customer

a little further to the west of arizona

in san francisco

for the first time a suit has been filed

against mcdonald's for using this type

of marketing strategy

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it began with a housewife and mother in

sacramento california

has a four-year-old and an

eight-year-old daughter and a collection

of knick-knacks gathered during their

stops at the fast food chain

for months now she's been in a legal

wrangle with mcdonald's

she wants the company to stop

influencing kids by using presents

i think it's it's disgusting you know

they're going

any way they can to get to these small

children so they can get a hook in them

and keep them as customers for life but

you cannot say

no i mean absolutely the duties

absolutely and i say no all the time i

say i

i say no all the time but i also don't

want them

hearing in terms of marketing that hey

this is cool you should get you know

this meal because you can get this toy

and then you get all the fat and the

sugar and the salt that comes with it

um it sort of normalizes the behavior

for young children it's okay because

barbies

you know label is on it you know they're

not able to think that through and

process it

that in a way that helps them make a

healthy decision so i have to do that

for them

and have to say to a company like

mcdonald's i want you to stop talking to

my kids

lauren i just need a few minutes

okay money param is not alone in this

fight

an increasing number of americans accuse

mcdonald's of taking advantage of

children's vulnerability

in addition the city of san francisco

has now banned toys from being provided

in the happy meals

activate disguise generator legislators

in new york are thinking of doing the

same

at stanford university a pediatrician

has proved the impact of such marketing

on children

tom robinson used an enlightening method

he placed some french fries in

mcdonald's packaging and some

in a plain unmarked box he then asked 60

children to try them

and this is what he found out

overwhelmingly kids thought the food or

their kids pointed towards the food from

mcdonald's

that they thought was from mcdonald's

even though all the food was the same

if they thought a food came from

mcdonald's they actually thought it

tasted better

so not just whether they would choose it

and not just

whether they they wanted it but actually

whether it tasted better to them

yes dear parents educating your little

darlings is made no easier when one

brand shapes their taste buds from the

age of three

to the extent of making them prefer its

products to all the rest

the major brands can do this because

they know how to penetrate deep inside

the front part of the brain the

pre-frontal cortex

u.s researcher samuel mcclure made the

discovery

for several years he's been scanning

customers using an mri

a magnetic resonance imaging scan

the large electromagnetic machine

detects the flow of blood to the

activated parts of the brain

you're going to go in you'll lie down in

this bed and it's going to

slide you in about up to your waist all

right now there are some really

important things because we're measuring

your brain activities you have to stay

really still yeah that's a big deal

in 2004 samuel mcclure conducted an

experiment that gave rise to

neuromarketing

inside the mri the guinea pigs were

given pepsi and coke

without being told which was which a

majority preferred the pepsi

when they were told which brand before

drinking three quarters preferred coke

as soon as you have brand information

the pattern of brain activity

changed entirely we got recruitment of

the prefrontal cortex

which then we believe biases these sort

of more basic structures related to

taste so biases them to actually respond

more vigorously

and make you think that you actually

like this more

by being embedded in our brains at a

very young age a brand like mcdonald's

can make us

become addicted to its products

i'm hungry i think i'll go get something

fast

that's mcdonald's the multinational

doesn't stop there in its attempts to

influence the public

during our investigation we discover

mcdonald's has been using customers

brains to try out artificial flavors

[Music]

we managed to speak to one of those

responsible for these secret studies

on condition of anonymity he revealed

what happened

this is not mind science fiction

we're able to get consumers off that

brand

put them in a brain scanning machine

measure their emotional response

when we presented them with the

fragrance now

that project is still under test

but positionally and theoretically the

brand is

very interested in this concept has it

been applied in some restaurants

it has been applied successfully in some

restaurants

in germany and france and one or two in

the uk can they measure

that changing the fragrance was

successful they did brand perception

research and they saw

seven percent increase in the brand

perception index

now what they're doing is uh looking at

the

distribution chain to work out how they

can implement it fully

we have a document that details the

study

it explains that if the flavor is too

obviously present rational thought will

uncover the ploy that will then become

ineffective

as part of the test mcdonald's

apparently placed some of the odor in

its cleaning products

to subtly be diffused without the

clients realizing what was happening

today it's been proven that a smell that

provokes a positive emotion

will increase sales

procter gamble one of the world's

biggest mass-market retailers

used an artificial perfume under the lid

of one of its washing liquid brands

ariel

as a result sales increased by 70

percent

martin lindstrom knows this kind of

method well

among his clients is mcdonald's

[Music]

smallis is the only sense we have which

is bypassing the rational part of our

brains

and go straight to the emotional part of

the brain and even though i would tell

you

that they're manipulating that smell i

would still not be able to say hey i

don't want to be affected by it

because that smell goes straight to the

emotional part of my brain

so the rational field cannot say hey

don't be affected by it

we know what you're thinking from now on

you'll never look at a mcdonald's

employee in the same way

by experimenting on its customers brains

and using a perfume that will make us

buy more

is the company really respecting its

ethical charter

[Music]

on its website the company claims

we operate our business ethically sound

ethics is good business

we ask mcdonald's directly but the

company refuses any comment

in three successive emails it denies the

charge and states

mcdonald's has never conducted any neuro

marketing studies

and yet we tracked down the company that

surveyed consumers in

mri machines on behalf of mcdonald's

it's called neurosense and is based in

london

on the internet it lists its major

clients they include gsk

a pharmaceutical laboratory unilever

and mcdonald's

boss is gemma calvert

various brands and products

her work centers on making sure a

product an advertisement or a smell will

act positively on the consumer's brain

what's known as the reward circuit

it's the holy grail for all companies

this small region which lies deep in the

limbic system

part of the reward network this is the

nucleus accumbens

and it has lots of dopamine neurons so

dopamine is the kind of

feel-good molecule which is in the brain

and it's expressed for example during

sex it's expressed with

cocaine and other pleasurable

experiences such as

looking at products you can activate

the same part of the brain that people

who are taking drugs or something like

that

that's right these are all reward

centers they're pleasure areas of the

brain

which is why people buy them so much

so this is the future that lies in store

for us thanks to neuromarketing

it's what might happen to your brain by

simply walking into a shop

tempting isn't it the website you have

several brands you have mcdonald's yeah

we work for a range of companies um and

across a very broad range of their

products and

uh for a very large number of questions

with those companies

and you are able to see what you do for

this company

of course we have ndas with many

companies just like any other market

research company

what do you mean by i've got to stop

there sorry

restricted by a confidentiality

agreement gemma calvert cannot talk

about mcdonald's

but another researcher will prove far

more enlightening

we meet at oxford university's

department of experimental

psychology

and going into the laboratory we

discover

no actually what we see is this

the professor who specializes in euro

marketing and who took part in the

studies

for the fast food giant before the

interview charles spence says he won't

mention mcdonald's name on camera

listen carefully to what he has to say

he's a little bothered

but what he does say is very interesting

[Music]

i've done involved in a project for one

of the

burger chains we're interested in

launching store fragrance so they

funded a number of projects to try and

say can brain scanning

as one of those techniques help us to

choose perfume a b

or c and their

what the researchers were looking for

was an increase

in the blood flow um in the parts of the

brain uh responding sort of

uh flavor and reward when one fragrance

was paired with mcdonald's imagery so

you showed

the logo of mcdonald's and then you make

people smell the new fragrance

so um for the burger chain uh i'm saying

which one

uh you said you just said it was baghdad

you did no no

all right let's check with mcdonald's

imagery

with mcdonald's imagery uh

there's a question again the researcher

says the majority of people scanned were

women

typically with two children

kids don't forget to want a mcdonald's

principal target consideration

[Music]

then when he doesn't realize he's being

filmed charles pence will give us the

very proof we've been looking for

and here they are mcdonald's small

artificial perfume bottles

one of the mcdonald's fragrances and it

does indeed smell

nice

so it was to diffuse on a

product or store in store that was one

of the other ones

because it doesn't smell uh burger no

exactly

fruity bit floral but healthy for

healthy rebranding

this kind of practice is completely

hidden from the client

something commercial alert a u.s

consumer association has strongly

condemned

jeffrey chester is its spokesperson we

show him the interview

when one fragrance was paired with a

mcdonald's imagery versus one of the

other ones

when mcdonald's is testing its products

to see whether or not it increases the

blood flow to the brain

what it really says is that consumers

are not being given a fair chance have

any choice

so consumers today are being heavily

influenced

by multiple neuromarketing campaigns

that raise questions about how long will

we be able to

engage in truly independent action

mcdonald's still refuses to respond to

our various interview requests

so we had to interview them at a

conference called let's

dare france a forum apparently for

companies who dare

the head of mcdonald's france is there

of course and is about to speak

directly

and the executive vice president for

mcdonald's europe

luckily it's open to the media and yes

that's us down there

yes it's true i started up mcdonald's

here in 1985.

we had just 17 restaurants then france

now represents

4.2 billion in turnover in a few years

we have not just become the second

largest market after the united states

but we've also learned how to dare when

sometimes it's better to say

sorry than to ask permission it's

quicker especially for the large

multinationals

[Music]

after the speech it's our turn to ask a

few questions

we've sent several interview requests to

your office and since we never received

a reply i'm daring to interview you now

have you dared to use your marketing

techniques in the mcdonald's group

no no i said no we don't use that sort

of technique well the thing is we have

definite information that shows you

placed mothers of children in

mri scans in the uk mainly to test new

odors that might then be used in

mcdonald's outlets

so we know that yes you have used it

i don't know what they might do in

england that's not my responsibility but

it would surprise me a lot actually

because i don't see

the point of artificial smells well

that's exactly what they are

no i don't think that was done in

england i can assure you it was well

you'll need to prove it

ah but i can prove it it was done

through the intermediary of a company

near ascends

and by a university professor called

charles spence who was also involved in

the research

and who confirmed it and provided

documents showing that it was carried

out

well show me the documents

doesn't it shock you to put mums inside

an mri scan to see what's happening

inside their brains

i would be deeply shocked because that's

not the way our company works

and to answer your question at the risk

of contradicting you or not at all your

answer would be great

i categorically

i don't denied it but we're certain of

our facts there's just one professor who

gave you some information

no no no we're absolutely sure of it and

besides neuroscens as the company

is the company that use the mri scans

and they've even put you on their

website

where you're quoted as being clients

excuse me but this interview is over and

i'm asking you to stop

so make an appointment uh you'd agree to

be interviewed of course

all right you've been investigating this

for six months so i would like to give

you detailed answers

let me be precise right now these

measures are not being taken in france

jean-pierre petty seems to not be aware

then the the tests conducted by his

[Music]

company

[Music]

after a meeting france television and

ourselves received a registered letter

from the company

[Music]

it states our information is false and

threatens legal action if we broadcast

it

but a few days later mcdonald's suddenly

agrees to an interview

we're told to meet them in a smart

central paris hotel

our interviewee is pierre vocek who is

the head of brand strategy in europe

we believe that he's responsible for the

mcdonald's surveys

[Music]

has the company ever used

well in 2006 we had a problem raised by

a consumer who told us we had an odor

problem in a restaurant

so yes we tried to find a scent that

could solve this problem and

which wasn't a food smell so we decided

to find a scent that

could suit the mcdonald's brand

okay

[Music]

what happened

images to see if the two would match

inside mris right

yes yes we agree on in mris i want us to

be

clear that we're in agreement

we agree we did a study that simply

compared a smell with an image of

mcdonald's to see if they matched

can you confirm whether or not in 2006

through the neuroscience company whether

or not mothers were placed in mris to

taste some smells and images of

mcdonald's

they were put there to test images in

mris

some in mris thank you mr boyzek for

admitting that

so you say it all led to nothing no

it was not successful at all we tested

three odors in restaurants

consumers said they couldn't notice

anything so we stopped

you see a perfume like that is used in

several places it has to go through the

air conditioning system

we didn't want to do that for reasons of

hygiene

the information we have is that it was

placed in cleaning products

exactly we wanted to do that instead of

having that slight chemical smell we

wanted to put it in hygiene products

but it proved impossible because it

meant the companies who provided the

cleaning products would have had to

radically change their formulation

so we left it do you regret it today

are you asking me what i think of

neuroscience yes yes

i have no regrets if you ask whether at

the time we thought it would be harmful

no

not one person thought it was wrong but

does new

marketing offend you today

by trying to compare a smell with a

brand and whether it was bad

by placing people in mris

listen when i saw it i was greatly

surprised i i did find it surprising

did i think there was a huge ethical

problem at the time no

no if i understand you well mister

what you're saying here and now is that

mcdonald's will never use neuromarketing

techniques again is that right

yes yes in any case as long as i'm here

i can say yes

more and more companies are specializing

in euro marketing these days

i was born with the power to read your

brain activity

i'm a g neuroscience is the study of the

brain here's a promo for one of the best

known

this is how it works your brain's a

series of complex networks it's based in

california and it's called neurofocus

for an interview but since we were in

the neighborhood anyway we rang their

doorbell and brought a hidden camera

with us

nice to meet you and we uh you know i'm

sorry but we don't work this way

so what do you mean well we can't

accommodate you if you just

show up on our doorstep so actually you

said that you don't want to communicate

with french tv

no no that's not the case we're simply

too busy is it correct that you're

working and subconscious of people here

oh absolutely that's what we do we test

people's

subconscious responses to stimuli that's

the nature of our business

we work for a hewlett packard uh we work

for google

microsoft i'm i'm only going to talk

about the client list

that is approved so okay but listen to

me

yeah okay i am very busy right now i've

explained our position

and i don't have any more time to spend

with you i'm sorry

you see the package that she's holding

in the house

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don't worry they can't see between you

and me we measure them

and yet this is serious stuff neurofocus

is even associated with eric

candle the noble laureate for medicine

[Music]

the crisis is impacting the consumer's

wallet

but companies don't want to see their

sales fall

encouraged by their marketing

departments they call them businesses

such as these

in complete secrecy they scrutinize the

brain patterns of their clients

to play on their emotions their urges

and their subconscious

[Music]

their aim is to push them to buy even

more

these techniques aren't very ethical

which may explain why the companies that

use them

are reluctant to give interviews

[Music]

but one euro marketing consultant allows

us in on one of their training sessions

[Music]

this frenchman lives on the west coast

of the states and set up his own

business called

sales brain

his customers today are businessmen from

oregon

some own restaurants others sell

agricultural material or even washing

machines

good morning what if you

could discover a buy button inside the

brain of your customers

what if you could learn what it takes to

actually push that by button

inside the brain

and what if all it took to do this was

two hours of your time this morning

patrick romwe doesn't use mri scans his

company has developed a method that

merges neuroscience and sales techniques

but guess what the thinking portion of

the brain

is really a decision influencer but it

is not the decision maker

it's not the boss but the actual

part of the brain that triggers the

decision is called the reptilian brain

and the reptilian brain is the top of

the stem and the portion that unite both

hemispheres make sense

we decide at the level of a crocodile of

a reptile

why because exercises to help patrick

romwe teaches his clients to touch the

primary instincts

to incite the act of buying and the

reptilian brain is the realm

of the pain and the fears it's really

the realm of the subconsciousness

so your job if you want to be successful

is not to stop

at the wish and the wants and the needs

of your customers but really to drill

inside the iceberg

until you'll find their pain and then to

develop a business whose

objective will be to eliminate that pain

oh you go with me a four-hour session is

enough to convince the businessman

we came really close right we are right

second it does kind of freak me out

it freaks me out that that's why i do

things and those who get really good at

it

can get me to do this by utilizing those

techniques

oh yeah absolutely

but that's business i'm sure an argument

could be made

that um it's manipulation but um

it's what is it's what's driving our

world

there's always a danger of manipulating

people

but on the other hand when the method of

decision making is public

it's also the knowledge of the consumer

to understand what companies do

to sell their products now i want you

to keep your eyes on this little locket

but can one be aware of it when you talk

directly

to our reptile brain you can

hardly keep them

patrick vramosa's life is spent

traveling all around the world to spread

the word of neuromarketing

for several years he's been coming back

to france at the request of big

companies

here is a niece a few hours before he's

due to give a speech to a large french

company

but this time we're not allowed to

record what will happen

[Music]

your client doesn't want to talk about

it no my client doesn't want to talk

about it as once again euro marketing in

france is a bit of a taboo subject

people in france often confuse

manipulation and conviction

careful now the logic of the next

argument is not that easy to follow

you need to understand how to push your

proposition a little

by saying that if your glass is now half

full

your glass is more than half full you

shouldn't say that it's more than half

full

while making your client understand that

it's not half empty

[Music]

[Applause]

that if your glass is half empty it's

actually half full

patrick rambo refuses to name his client

today

but we think that a company that it's

telling its sales forces about neuro

marketing

is not just any old business so we look

around nice and find out that

230 salesmen are staying in a large

downtown hotel

they're here to take part in the

conference hosted by

patrick ramwasey their employer is arca

a subsidiary of the credit mutual bank

these bankers jobs are to sell financial

products to companies as well as to

public institutions such as local

communes or health authorities

slogan is the bank with a human face

so how does newer marketing fit into

this with a hidden camera we approach

the salesman as they're leaving the

conference

i was wondering what you learned this

morning and what benefit is it to you

what i retain mainly is the reptile

brain that purchasing is linked to the

subconscious

well i've learned that we need to

anticipate what the brain

really wants and i've learned how to

understand

what the brain wants without them

knowing

do you think the applications might be

contentious

well yes of course because it's almost

like manipulation a bit

it's a good technique because it can be

applied to

finance and other products

[Music]

well anyway i really enjoyed the the

conference it was very good

okay thanks

we're probably naive but to us the

credit mutual france's fourth favorite

bank

used to be this i've got some bad news

oh yeah well what would you do if father

christmas doesn't exist are we talking

about

you're dreaming you don't think they're

selling financial products just because

they're good for you

well yeah credibility

more than ever the bank to talk to the

credit mutual may be

the bank to talk to but not necessarily

the bank to get interviews from

it refuses interviews adding via email

this conference

his only goal was to open people's minds

about a subject which might be of

interest to salesmen and besides we

don't see any ethical problems

we call one of those responsible up by

phone and then everything

seems clearer

it might be counterproductive for us to

appear as if we practice

neuromarketing purely to enter into our

customer's brain

you know what i mean

[Laughter]

well why is that then well

it's to be able to almost subliminally

touch someone who

might be right there right right in

front of you

okay i'm still intrigued because

one can manipulate people by the way you

behave

by the way you speak in exactly the same

way

the product doesn't change though it's

just the way you deal with your

customers

well that's the uh that's all the newer

marketing traffic

in france a philosopher who follows the

trends of consumer society has risen up

against this use of neuroscience for

purely commercial ends

from the moment neuroscience is involved

it allows one to intervene directly on

the reptilian layers of the brain i

receive or i give

those at the levels of the reptilian

brain what makes neuromarketing work

today is the use made of the immediate

reaction

that's because there's a reaction that

can be very easily manipulated

when you know how to take advantage of

this you can manipulate people as if

they were

puppets you press the button and it

provides a reaction

that's what's so worrying about it

in theory there are laws limiting this

kind of practice

marketing studies using mri scans are

actually banned by law

in france

public health rules in the civil code

only allow experiments on human beings

for strictly scientific

or medical purposes

what happens before the advertising when

i'm showing this logo before i've seen

the ad

10 times and after i've seen the ad

more than 10 times there are long-term

functional changes in the brain so who's

the ultimate client what i say is

i work for market research groups

after the speech and still on camera

arnold petra reels off a list of his

clients

sfr maaf insurance

cartier and sncf french railways

petra doesn't wish to talk about this

last client again it's a matter of a

confidentiality clause

but why would french railways use newer

marketing

we tracked down someone who was involved

in the survey he was an intermediary

between the railways and arnold petra's

belgian company

he described the experiments on

condition of anonymity

[Music]

what the sncf was testing on customers

brains was its online ticket sales site

french railways told us its main target

or targets and it

invited its website users to surf the

internet

you may be looking for a train ticket

from paris to brussels or from

paris allele online and you're invited

to sign up to buy a ticket

what we do is to evaluate how easy or

difficult it may be

so you use the mri scan to sell tickets

oh yes and we try out different versions

on the computer top right are the web

pages that have been tested

in the center is the image and color of

the zones of the brain

that have been more active during the

experiment

so you check whether the reward circuit

has been activated by a web page

precisely the reward circuit french

railways ask them to test one page with

a background picture of a pine tree

and then one without the pine tree

[Music]

we tested reaction to various perfumes

that resembled pine trees

and in the part of the brain that

recognizes smell what's known as the

olfactory

cortex we noticed some activity so in

parts

for the imagination it worked in other

words it did smell of pine a little

so on top of the page there's something

about strasbourg for the christmas

holidays

so if the smell makes your imagination

think of christmas and christmas trees

all the better

as it makes the offer tangible they said

they wanted people to buy tickets more

easily without hassle and find the

information they needed quicker

times have changed on the railways the

days of steam are long gone

and buying your fare from a human being

at the ticket counter

may soon disappear too everything seems

to be happening far quicker these days

more than 60 million tickets are sold by

sncf each year on its website

the seat which is quite remarkably

interested in what your brain is up to

is also france's leading

online travel agency and that's

something french railway seems quite

determined

to get into your skull everyone should

know that sncf also sells airline

tickets we have all the solutions plane

tickets car rental

voyages sncf.com is more than just about

trains

you'll soon get used to it voyages

sncf.com will take you further than you

might have thought

we asked the head of the sncf travel

agency yves tirod

if they hadn't gone just a little bit

over the top

what i'd like to know is what kind of

study you conducted and how precisely

you conducted it to establish what

people liked

or didn't like well first we asked

different types of customers because

well

travel sncf.com is a special site

in a way it's the site of all the french

people it's a site visited by about 80

percent of french internet users

well you'd like to be inside the

customer's head to know exactly how they

feel when they visit your site wouldn't

you

what we wanted to know was if the

customer's brain spontaneously reacted

positively or not to the site

so you did your marketing by placing

some of your customers and mris to see

their reaction in their brains

is that right i'm not explaining myself

well

we know that this technology exists but

it's not a technology that we use in

travel sncf.com you've never used it

no are you sure

maybe in belgium on our site well we

have proof that you used it in belgium

and customers

underwent mri scans sncf is written on

these documents

so you can see that the sncf has

practiced neuromarketing and has put his

clients

in an mri for their site

there are several things here the

technology

we may have used it experimentally once

it's possible but you agree that there

is evidence you use neuromarketing in

belgium

placing people in mris to see their

reactions to your site

it's not impossible there may have been

tests in an experiment one day

but in no way do we want to generalize

the use of these methods

so why did you do it

well listen we did it because now

everyone does it

but we decided not to use it regularly i

don't think everyone does do it because

it's illegal in france

let me quote you article 16 14 of the

civil code

i quote brain technique can be used only

for medical purposes

or in forensic cases and this is neither

one nor the other

which is why we don't do it anymore is

it a taboo subject in france apart from

being illegal

i don't know it's the first time

anyone's asked me about it

you mean the first time a journalist is

asking you about it because the topic

was started by someone

so they must have told you about it

no of course but again it's extremely

marginal i don't want our viewers to

think that it's a widespread practice if

that is not the case

but my question is is it taboo

i don't know what to tell you i don't

know

a pledge safety

consumers do not be afraid the neuro

marketing experts are working on your

behalf

sincerity for a better world

a world where hamburger chains put a

smile on your children's faces

where bankers know how to soothe all

your anxieties

and where beauty creams fill you with

desire

[Music]

no matter what the product tomorrow

you will be satisfied by simply just

opening your wallets