By now I hope that you have grasped the established science behind the belief that the unconscious is the key to behavior. The remainder of this book will focus on putting that understanding into practice: How do the minds of people process information, structure their experience, and form the often-unconscious beliefs and motivations that drive their behavior? How can you reach and change the part of the mind that drives their actions so as to move people to your brand? And what things must happen in order for this change to occur? I include many examples of how marketers have answered these questions as well as several thought-starters to springboard inspiration around your brand. This is not about sneaking messages into minds below the radar of awareness. In fact, a prerequisite to this process is conscious awareness of the brand message. To achieve branding on the deepest, most impactful level, both conscious and unconscious dimensions must combine to produce a physiological transformation in people that can generate immediate results and endure over time.
Here is a brief summary of each step in this process.
The mind is what the brain does, it is the brain in action, and it works through a process of pattern recognition. If we want to get attention and shift people’s behavioral patterns, we need to interrupt their perceptual patterns by doing something interesting and different.
Humans gravitate to the known, the safe, and the trusted. Although we are attracted to what is different, we move toward the familiar seeking balance, and rely on predictable patterns not just in our biology but also in our environments.
The prefrontal cortex gives us the unique ability to plan behavior and create new possibilities. It functions like an alternate reality simulator by giving us the capacity to imagine the benefits of a better life and anticipate the consequences of our actions.
We do what we do because of how we feel. We assign value to things through our emotions. Because of the way our brains are wired, emotions influence our thinking more than our thinking influences our emotions.
Consciousness gives us the exclusive ability to rationally reject an idea if it does not make sense based upon our experiences. Often, in order to act, we need to give ourselves logical permission to submit to the emotions and impulses that drive us.
Our minds and our memories work by association. Repetition and emotion strengthen these neural associations so that they become automatic. If we want to change perceptions of anything, we have to change our associations.
Our brains exist for movement. Things that don’t move don’t have brains. Physical actions use more of our brain than just imagining a behavior. The more of our brain we use and the more we repeat an action the more ingrained the experience becomes in our unconscious mind. By physically doing something we also engage more of our sensory systems such as tactile (skin) and proprioceptive (internal, such as muscle) feelings; we see it, smell it, possibly taste it, hear it et cetera. This makes the experience deep-rooted in our unconscious, or second nature to us.