10 Ways to Engage the Buying Brain During the Holidays

Our friends at NeuroFocus are always mindful to how the mind reacts to marketing. For the holiday season, they’ve provided 10 tips to ensure seasonal displays and more are optimized for maximum mental engagement.

To the buying brain, the barrage of holiday messaging can come across as so much noise. Overwhelmed by the clutter of competing messages and displays, the brain tunes out all but the most clear and relevant ideas. How to ensure that your efforts make the mark? Follow these 10 best practices for making your shoppers’ buying brains happy and engaged this holiday season.

1. Resist the temptation to overwhelm the senses.

Especially for Grandma and Grandpa, whose brains have to work harder to suppress sensory clutter, it pays to minimize distractions. When using music, scents, and sounds, keep them soothing and pleasant for the Boomer brain.

2. Use mirror neuron activation to pull consumers in to your space.

Mirror neuron activation is what happens when you see someone doing something — such as drinking a glass of eggnog—and the part of your brain that would be activated if you yourself were drinking eggnog, is also activated. Women’s brains in particular respond to mirror neuron activation.

3. Parting with money triggers pain activation in the brain.

Make sure your salespeople are as polite and friendly as possible during the holiday rush to make this process less painful for the beleaguered shopping brain.

4. Be judicious in your use of red.

It is a very powerful color and will trigger a strong response.

5. Keep the sharp edges hidden, when possible.

These trigger an avoidance response in the brain, and during the holiday frenzy, this is the last thing the brain wants to encounter. Rounded corners and softened edges put the brain at ease so the focus can be on your products.

6. Keep your message authentic.

The brain detects insincerity every time.

7. When feasible, arrange displays and graphics in groups of no more than five elements.

The brain can instantly process a group of images of five or fewer items. More than that and cognitive processes must be engaged to take in the stimuli, taking more energy for the brain to manage the input.

8. Keep your stores clean and neat.

Your female shopper’s brains are especially on the lookout for signs that your store is not hygenic or safe.

9. Keep your communications consistent during this frenzied time.

Check the language for your promotions on all your platforms—in the store, on the package, in advertising, and on social media—so the brain does not have to work hard to take in inconsistent information.

10. Brains amount to 2% of our body weight, but account for 20% of our energy consumption.

Make life easy for these energy hogs, and try to keep everything as simple as possible. Give your shoppers’ brains a delightful holiday season!

For more information at http://www.nielsen.com