The definitive book on sensory branding, shows how companies appeal to consumers' five senses to sell products.Did you know that the gratifying smell that accompanies the purchase of a new automobile actually comes from a factory-installed aerosol can containing "new car" aroma? Or that Kellogg's trademarked "crunch" is generated in sound laboratories? Or that the distinctive click of a just-opened jar of Nescafe freeze-dried coffee, as well as the aroma of the crystals, has been developed in factories over the past decades? Or that many adolescents recognize a pair of Abercrombie & Fitch jeans not by their look or cut but by their fragrance? In perhaps the most creative and authoritative book on how our senses affect our everyday purchasing decisions, global branding guru Martin Lindstrom reveals how the world's most successful companies and products integrate touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound with startling and sometimes even shocking results. In conjunction with renowned research institution Millward Brown, Lindstrom's innovative worldwide study unveils how all of us are slaves to our senses--and how, after reading this book, we'll never be able to see, hear, or touch anything from our running shoes to our own car doors the same way again. An expert on consumer shopping behavior, Lindstrom has helped transform the face of global marketing with more than twenty years of hands-on experience. Firmly grounded in science, and disclosing the secrets of all our favorite brands, Brand Sense shows how we consumers are unwittingly seduced by touch, smell, sound, and more.

A humorous yet practical five-step guide to ridding ourselves-and our companies-of the bureaucratic bottlenecks and red tape that plague every office

How often in your life do you spend time following a rule or a procedure that makes no sense, offers little or no advantage, and slows you down in the process? In a world of work governed by a system of well-intentioned rules, that's something that happens all too often.

In this book Martin Lindstrom - a global leader in branding and expert in organisational culture - takes you behind the scenes at companies which are paralyzed and demoralised by a breakdown in common sense. Lindstrom shares a five-step process for identifying and repairing these lapses, showing that restoring common sense always cuts costs, boosts engagement and increases customer retention.

The stories in THE MINISTRY OF COMMON SENSE are entertaining, troubling, eye-opening and recognisable to anyone who works in or leads an organisation of any size. It's easy to get blinded to problems right in front of you - but setting up your own Ministry of Common Sense will mean less time wasted on unnecessary things, less mistakes and misunderstandings, and a better way of working for all.

Where's the common sense? During the COVID-19 pandemic, the TSA is allowing passengers to board planes with unlimited amounts of hand sanitizer, while maintaining its 3.4-ounce limit on all other liquids. You need a chainsaw to pry open your new pair of headphones from their package. Your eighth Zoom meeting of the day keeps freezing, and if you hear "No, wait; no, you go first" again, you will implode. But first you have to sit through an endless PowerPoint presentation that everyone claims they've read - no one has - that could have been summarized in one page. What has happened to common sense? And how can we get it back? Companies, it seems, have become so entangled in their own internal issues and beset by reams of invisible red tape (and frozen screens) that they've lost sight of their purpose and culture. Inevitably, we pay the price. New York Times best-selling author Martin Lindstrom combines numerous real-life examples of corporate common sense gone wrong with his own ingenious plan for restoring logic - and sanity - to the companies and people who need it most. A must-read for today's executives, managers, and office workers, The Ministry of Common Sense is funny, entertaining, and immensely practical. "Essential reading for all of us who feel bogged down in workplace bureaucracy and wish to improve our quality of life at work." - Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global

Most anti-smoking campaigns inadvertently encourage people to smoke. The scent of melons helps sell electronic products. Subliminal advertising may have been banned, but it's being used all the time. Product placement in films rarely works. Many multi-million pound advertising campaigns are a complete waste of time. These are just a few of the findings of Martin Lindstrom's groundbreaking study of what really makes consumers tick. Convinced that there is a gulf between what we believe influences us and what actually does, he set up a highly ambitious research project that employed the very latest in brain-scanning technology and called on the services of some 2000 volunteers. Buyology shares the fruits of this research, revealing for the first time what actually goes on inside our heads when we see an advertisement, hear a marketing slogan, taste two rival brands of drink, or watch a programme sponsored by a major company. The conclusions are both startling and groundbreaking, showing the extent to which we deceive ourselves when we think we are making considered decisions, and revealing factors as varied as childhood memories and religious belief that come together to influence our decisions and shape our tastes.

How much do we know about why we buy? What truly influences our decisions in today's message-cluttered world? An eye-grabbing advertisement, a catchy slogan, an infectious jingle? Or do our buying decisions take place below the surface, so deep within our subconscious minds, we're barely aware of them?
In BUYOLOGY, Lindstrom, who was voted one of Time Magazine's most influential people of 2009, presents the astonishing findings from his groundbreaking, three-year, seven-million-dollar neuromarketing study, a cutting-edge experiment that peered inside the brains of 2,000 volunteers from all around the world as they encountered various ads, logos, commercials, brands, and products. His startling results shatter much of what we have long believed about what seduces our interest and drives us to buy. Among the questions he explores:
Does sex actually sell? To what extent do people in skimpy clothing and suggestive poses persuade us to buy products?
Despite government bans, does subliminal advertising still surround us - from bars to highway billboards to supermarket shelves?
Can "Cool" brands, like iPods, trigger our mating instincts?
Can other senses - smell, touch, and sound - be so powerful as to physically arouse us when we see a product?
Do companies copy from the world of religion and create rituals - like drinking a Corona with a lime - to capture our hard-earned dollars?
Filled with entertaining inside stories about how we respond to such well-known brands as Marlboro, Nokia, Calvin Klein, Ford, and American Idol, BUYOLOGY is a fascinating and shocking journey into the mind of today's consumer that will captivate anyone who's been seduced - or turned off - by marketers' relentless attempts to win our loyalty, our money, and our minds.

That gratifying new car smell is actually a manufactured "new car" aroma. The sound of Kellogg's cornflakes crunching in our mouths is created in sound labs. Singapore Airlines has patented the smell in its cabins. Branding has reached a new frontier. In the future brands will have to appeal to the neglected senses: touch, taste, and smell. In this fully updated new edition of Brand Sense, Martin Lindstrom shows how it can be done. Drawing on the most extensive worldwide study ever conducted of the sensory perceptions of consumers, he shows how a two-sense product can become a five-sense phenomenon. With a foreword from Philip Kotler, this groundbreaking book provides innovative branding tools for evaluating where a brand is on the sensory scale, analyzing its sensory potential and giving it a clear pathway to optimize its sensory appeal. Companies like Cadillac, Apple, Mercedes-Benz, Nokia, Louis Vuitton, Nestle and Disney have all recently adopted a sensory approach, and have seen their brands sizzle under this new direction. Anyone who wants a competitive edge can't afford to neglect this book. It's guaranteed to optimize the value of any marketer's budget in the most visionary way.

The New York Times Bestseller named one of the "Most Important Books of 2016" by Inc, and a Forbes 2016 "Must Read Business Book" 'If you love 'Bones' and 'CSI', this book is your kind of candy' Paco Underhill, author of Why We Buy 'Martin's best book to date. A personal, intuitive, powerful way to look at making an impact with your work' Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow Martin Lindstrom, one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World and a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, harnesses the power of "small data" in his quest to discover the next big thing. In an era where many believe Big Data has rendered human perception and observation 'old-school' or passe, Martin Lindstrom shows that mining and matching technological data with up-close psychological insight creates the ultimate snapshot of who we really are and what we really want. He works like a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, accumulating small clues - the progressively weaker handshakes of Millenials, a notable global decrease in the use of facial powder, a change in how younger consumers approach eating ice cream cones - to help solve a stunningly diverse array of challenges. In Switzerland, a stuffed teddy bear in a teenage girl's bedroom helped revolutionise 1,000 stores - spread across twenty countries - for one of Europe's largest fashion retailers. In Dubai, a distinctive bracelet strung with pearls helped Jenny Craig offset its declining membership in the United States and increase loyalty by 159% in only one year. In China, the look of a car dashboard led to the design of the iRobot, or Roomba, floor cleaner - a great success story. SMALL DATA combines armchair travel with forensic psychology in an interlocking series of international clue-gathering detective stories. It shows Lindstrom using his proprietary CLUES Framework - where big data is merely one part of the overall puzzle - to get radically close to consumers and come up with the counter-intuitive insights that have in some cases helped transform entire industries. SMALL DATA presents a rare behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to create global brands, and reveals surprising and counter-intuitive truths about what connects us all as humans.

Marketing visionary Martin Lindstrom has been on the front lines of the branding wars for over twenty years. In Brandwashed, he turns the spotlight on his own industry, drawing on all he has witnessed behind closed doors, exposing for the first time the full extent of the psychological tricks and traps that companies devise to win our hard-earned money. Brandwashed is a shocking insider's look at how today's global giants conspire to obscure the truth and manipulate our minds, all in service of persuading us to buy. Lindstrom reveals eye opening details such as: how advertisers and marketers target children at an alarmingly young age - starting when they are still in the womb, what heterosexual men really think about when they see sexually provocative advertising, how marketers and retailers stoke the flames of public panic and capitalize on paranoia over diseases, extreme weather events, and food contamination scares, the first ever evidence proving how addicted we all are to our iPhones and our Blackberrys, and how certain companies, like the maker of one popular lip balm, purposely adjust their formulas in order to make their products chemically addictive, and much, much more.