The Power of Instinct summary

The traditional rules of persuasion state you should overwhelm your audience with information, aiming to bombard and thus capture their conscious mind. We needn’t look any further than social media today, where brands feel compelled to maintain constant interaction with their consumers, to see this approach in full swing. However, the sheer volume of advertisements we encounter each day – ranging from 4,000 to 10,000 – means that most messages fail to stick.

While the traditional rules for gaining a competitive edge suggest seemingly common sense strategies such as being the cheapest, offering feature-filled products, or targeting finely sliced market segments, they overlook a crucial element: their audience’s unconscious mind.

Modern neuroscience has revealed that our behaviors are significantly more influenced by unconscious forces – such as perceptions and memories – than hard facts or objective information. In fact, perceptions and memories are far from intangible imaginings or vague recollections; they are concrete and measurable. Interactions that leave a lasting impact can reshape our brain’s pathways, creating strong associations with the related brand or idea. Our minds operate by drawing from this complex network of perceptions, memories, and associations to reach intuitive – not intentional – conclusions swiftly.

Therefore, to actually sway your consumers in today’s world, it’s essential to target their unconscious minds. Successful brands use their consumer’s network of neural connections to their advantage, creating a larger mental presence, leading to what is known as instinctive brand preference. Instinctive brand preference is when your audience automatically and repeatedly chooses your brand without conscious deliberation – when their perceptions, memories, and associations make it nearly impossible for them to even consider an alternative.

The new rules of persuasion tell us that success in the marketplace comes not from actual superiority but from perceived superiority. In the following sections, we’ll explore three specific strategies for speaking to your consumer’s unconscious minds, skyrocketing your brand’s impact and influence in the process.