Research on the human mind is all the rage now.
I got my degree in Biology before it was fashionable. In those days, most of my Bio-major classmates were pre-med students.
Now, with so much current research on the human brain, interest in the mind-body-spirit connection, and the search for ways to achieve wellness without sabotaging our very efforts (read: avoid drugs and needless surgeries), my background is quite in vogue. And the latest medical technology, which enables us to observe what is physically happening in the brain, leaves little to speculation or opinion.
All this very nicely qualifies me for my current career: marketing.
Harvard Business School Professor Gerald Zaltman says that 95% of our purchasing decisions happen in our subconscious:
“What we really think is largely hidden from us. In other words, most of what we know we don’t know we know. Probably 95% of all cognition, all the thinking that drives our decisions and behaviors, occurs unconsciously — and that includes consumer decisions. That’s not to say that the 5% we’re privy to is unimportant — just that marketers overemphasize its importance, because it’s so visible and easy to access.”
(How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market)
In the past few years, I’ve read a lot of books on marketing. Now many of the books on my sizeable reading pile are about the human brain. Feels like I’ve come full circle.