Discovering the Origins of Brand Preference
Shopper Brain Conference | New York City, 2019
Where does brand preference really begin?
At the 2019 Shopper Brain Conference in New York City, this presentation looked beneath attitudes, stated preferences and category conventions to explore the neurobiological drivers that originally helped humans survive and thrive—and how those deeper forces can explain why certain brands become instinctively more meaningful than others.
Drawing on thousands of findings across neurobiology and behavioral science, the session introduced 12 Fundamental Human Motives from which values, meanings and concepts emerge. Rather than treating emotion as an abstract layer of branding, these motives provide a deeper structure for understanding why people connect with particular ideas—and which emotional territory a brand can authentically own.
This changes the starting point for brand strategy. Instead of building positioning primarily around functional differentiation or what consumers say they want, THE WHEEL OF MOTIVES® helps identify the deeper motivational territory from which a distinctive positioning can emerge. Exceptional brands tend not to reinvent themselves continuously; they reinterpret a fundamental emotional territory in ways that remain recognizable over time.
But a motive is more than a positioning idea. For consumers to experience it, the same emotional meaning must travel from strategy into execution.
Words, colors, flavors, sounds, shapes, symbols and materials can therefore become parts of a multisensory language, working together like instruments in an orchestra to reinforce the same underlying motive. What the brand stands for and what people actually see, hear, touch, taste and experience begin to tell the same emotional story.
In this way, emotion moves from something marketers describe or measure into something that can be systematically operationalized—from the biological origins of preference, to strategy and positioning, to the tangible signals and experiences through which the brand comes alive.
The proposition was simple:
To cut through over-communication and commoditization, don't add more noise. Go deeper—to the biological origins of preference, identify the emotional territory the brand can own, and build the entire brand from there.
Read the PDF presentation here: