How Customers Think – Gerald Zaltman

Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman has carved out a nice little career by exploring the psychology of consumerism. The foundation of Zaltman’s approach is his metaphor elicitation technique. Metaphors are linguistic keys to some of the darker workings of our mind, and Zaltman shows how these can be used as a Rosetta stone to unlock consumer’s true feelings towards brands and products. A fascinating approach suffers a little from Zaltman’s dry and overly academic writing style, but it’s a very worthy candidate for the list.

The Culture Code – Clotaire Rapaille

If Zaltman is a little stodgy and academic, Rapaille is an unabashed French nouveau-riche pop-psychologist who has used his decidedly qualitative approach to dig down to the cultural common denominators behind our brand relationships. The Culture Code looks for those labels cultures apply to some of the best known brands in the world. Being French, Rapaille brings an occasionally charming European cultural arrogance to his subject (i.e. in France, the culture code for cheese is “alive”, but in the US it’s “dead”). The Culture Code is an easy and interesting read and while you might have some quibbles with Rapaille’s findings, he has plenty of willing customers amongst the Fortune 500.

Buy-ology – Martin Lindstrom

Lindstrom’s ego is almost matched by the insight he brings in his latest book. Lindstrom is the self-styled guru of brand perception and has written before on how our senses interpret brands. In Buy-ology, he goes one step further and launches an extensive brain scanning research project to see exactly what happens in our brains when we think about brands. For example, do the warning labels on a pack of cigarettes have any impact on our desire for a smoke? Does product placement really work? (The answer, in both cases, is no, according to Lindstrom) Don’t worry about getting caught in academic jargon here. Lindstrom keeps it light and readable.

Why Choose This Book? – Read Montague

Baylor University neurologist Montague was behind the original Pepsi Challenge fMRI test and in this book, he takes on no less a challenge than explaining how we make decisions. The writing style’s a little uneven, as Montague tries to balance his academic background with a writing style overly determined to appeal to a wider audience. That said, Montague knows his stuff and the insights here are solid and supported by both his own and other’s research.

Predictably Irrational – Dan Ariely

Dan Ariely follows in the footsteps of Behavioral Economists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and looks at some of the common irrational biases of humans. For example, why does a 50-cent aspirin eliminate a headache better than a 5-cent generic brand, even though the pills are identical? And why would offering your mother-in-law 300 dollars for a fabulous meal be an unforgivable social transgression, yet be expected in a restaurant? The territory has been covered been covered before, but Ariely deals with a highly interesting topic with a nice, light touch.

The Mind of the Market – Michael Shermer

Last but not least, Michael Shermer delivers what I consider to be a tour-de-force on this topic. Shermer’s approach is well grounded in evolutionary psychology (he labels it evolutionary economics) so he and I share a common approach to understanding consumer behavior. He strikes the right balance in his writing, delivering solid information with worrying too much about how it might play for a wider audience. This is probably my favorite on this list.

If these 6 titles whet your appetite, here are some other titles you might consider:
Driven by Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria
Why We Buy by Paco Underhill
The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
The Advertised Mind by Erik Du Plessis
Brain Rules by John Medina

Next week I’ll share another 11 books, as well as some reader suggestions. Feel free to keep the suggestions coming!


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