BUYOLOGY

The Truth & Lies About Why we Buy

Martin Lindstorm Storms IBA Live & in Person

Department of Marketing, Institute of Business Administration,

Karachi is pleased to announce that best selling author and one of great branding gurus of modern era, Martin Lindstorm will grace the Seminar "BUYOLOGY" at IBA on 15th March 2009 . This is for the first time that Mr. Lindstorm is visiting any Pakistani Business school. He would address the session with latest branding insight from his enriched experience around the globe as well as the intensive research conducted for his latest book "Buyology, Truth and Lies and about why we buy". The book is about Neuromarketing, defined by Martin Lindstrom in Buyology, as the science of understanding the unconscious decisions our brains make when we encounter advertising. The success of the book can be observed from the fact that in a short span of time, the book has been translated into more than twenty five languages. Earlier, his book "Brand Sense" was acclaimed by the Wall Street Journal as one of the five best marketing books ever published. His other works include, Brand Child, Brand Building and Click, Bricks & Brands.

He has been featured in Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, TIME, The Economist, New York Times, Business Week, The Washington Post, USA TODAY, Fast Company, and more.

Martin Lindstrom has written five books, including works with industry icons such as Don Peppers, Martha Rogers, Paco Underhill, Patricia Seybold and Philip Kotler.

It all began, when Martin Lindstrom was 11 years old.
In the summer of 1982, eleven-year- old Martin built his own little land out of Lego building blocks. He designed the miniature village, planted it with bonsai trees, scooped out inch-wide canals and constructed numerous houses and ships out of Lego. Martin's built his "Legoland" in his parents' backyard. Once completed, he sat and waited, anticipating a flood of visitors to come to look at his creation. But, not a single person showed up.

Conscious that something more than brilliant design was needed to attract visitors, Martin decided to advertise. So, he managed to persuade the local newspaper to print an ad for him. The next week, 131 people streamed through the garden gate. This simple phenomenon was what revealed to him the power of marketing and advertising. A couple of months later, at the age of 12, Martin opened his own, first advertising agency.

Today, he runs several business such as the Lindstrom Company and Buyology Inc.; he serves as advisor to companies such as Microsoft, Mercedes Benz, The Walt Disney Company, The McDonald's Corporation, Nestle, GlaxoSmithKline, and Proctor & Gamble; he has written five books, the most recent of which is "Buyology-Truth and Lies about Why We Buy"; writes newspaper columns; conducts brand seminars and symposiums across the world, and runs a video blog. He also spends 300 days of the year away from home.

Project Buyology –From an Obsession to A Brand Epiphany
Martin tells the story of a boy, a highly devoted fan of the Apple brand. This boy is someone who took a 15 hour flight, from California to Sydney, to attend the opening of Apple's latest store. And this wasn't the first time he'd made such an effort to attend the opening of his favorite branded store. Why did this boy catch Martin's attention? Was this boy alone, unique in some way? Actually, it was the fact that he was NOT alone that piqued Martin's interest. Alongside him, were 4000 other customers, who had camped outside the store the entire night before, to be there for the store opening the following morning. When the boy was asked what he hoped to get in return for his efforts, the boy excitedly replied, "a t-shirt!"

A week later, in the same location where the Sydney Apple store opened, thousands of people again gathered, but this time, they were devout Catholics, gathered to witness the arrival of the Pope Benedict. As Martin puts it personally,
"If you had just landed on planet Earth from somewhere in space, with no idea of what humans worship, you might easily draw comparisons between the thousands of Apple fans and the thousands of Catholics who were converging simultaneously on Sydney. Yes, the Catholics identified themselves as pilgrims, and Apple fans would describe themselves as loyal customers. But is this distinction merely a matter of semantics? Each member of the group, in their own way, was driven by the community of faith in which they were a part."
The possible correlation between brand loyalty and religious devotion became an obsession for Martin. Thus, in 2004, Martin launched Project Buyology – a research project that employed over 2000 research subjects (all of the Christian religion) across five countries, over the course of three years.

The aim?
"To examine whether the same brain activation evident in the brain of a devout Christian, when exposed to faith-related triggers, was also evident in the brains of fans of emotionally powerful brands like Apple, Harley Davidson and Guinness when they were exposed to the iconography of their brand preferences. "
The research project didn't use the traditional measures we're familiar with – questionnaires, focus groups, etc., none were used. Instead, Martin employed the tools of Neuroscience and brain scanning technology to spawn what has now become known as Neuromarketing. The idea was to analyze the brain itself, and see how we physically respond to triggers, or tools employed by brands, such as
• Vision statements
• The power of stories
• The importance of Symbols
• The influence of Mystery
• The practice of Rituals
• A sense of community

On the basis of this research, Martin Lindstrom now presents his findings through his latest book, namely "Buyology – Truth and Lies About Why We Buy" to tell us how we as customers, as consumers, biologically respond to branding gimmicks and tools, and how increasingly, marketers over the world are becoming more and more skilled at manipulating us. He now travels the world to present his findings in a brand symposium, speaking to students, academicians, businessmen and executives alike.
Registration Fee:
• Individual Guests/Alumni Rs. 5000/-
• Corporate Package Rs. 20000/-
Registrations would be given on first come first serve basi