Top salespeople have often used lunch as a way to help bond with a customer and close a deal. Getting the customer out of the office allows for relaxed conversation and freedom from ringing phones and similar interruptions. Going beyond those obvious benefits, though, there's research that shows messages are more persuasive when accompanied by…

In difficult economic times, it's tempting, even logical, to watch your purchases carefully. Most people recognize the need to keep up external appearances…

Our decisions aren't always as rational as we think, and choosing a presidential candidate is no exception. Researchers at Texas Tech have found an innate…

Emotional ads are processed quite differently by the brain than those that appeal to logic, according to a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience,…

Lots of us say we love our favorite products. We love our Droid. We love our iPad. We love our comfy sweater. We love our bank. (Well, banks and airlines…

The poll I ran earlier this week in Is Your Brand Evil produced results that, in retrospect, were predictable. Fully half the respondents thought that…

In Martin Lindstrom's excellent Brandwashed, the underlying theme is that brands and other advertising imagery can exert an unhealthy influence on consumers,…

Book Review: Brandwashed, Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy by Martin Lindstrom (branding expert and author of Buyology)

Could having many connections on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook cause you to lose more weight than, say, running on a treadmill? The answer…

The University of Akron is sponsoring an advanced marketing research conference on October 7, “Understanding the Consumer Mind.” It's part of Akron's Suarez…