10 April 2020 Marketing Contributions to Neurodesign

It can be said that the aspiration of Marketing to capture the attention of the largest number of people to form a captive and loyal audience to brands has contributed to the advancement of other areas that aim for the same impact. Research on consumer behavior, coupled with discoveries from neuroscience in recent decades, has enabled an increasingly accurate interpretation of how the human brain reads and connects with everything around it.

 

One of the areas that has benefited from these discoveries is that of Design. The derivation of studies in neuroscience, marketing and psychology have substantiated what is currently configured in Neurodesign, and its essence is to understand how the human mind acts when facing visual stimuli, in order to better create products in an empathic and easily assimilable way.

 

What is Neurodesign?

With the advances in the studies of neuroscience, some areas linked to human behavior started to feed on its discoveries to apply them in their own areas. Combined with the knowledge that comes from Marketing and Psychology, what has today become Neurodesign has been outlined. The objectives of this confluence of knowledge are:

 

– to be able to capture the public’s attention in a more natural way;

– to take people to conditionings of well-being when getting into contact with the product;

– to establish an affinity relationship with the target audience, becoming present in its imagination.

                                                                                     

Below, I present some contributions from marketing that have directly impacted the manner applied to the creative act of designers.

 

Order of brain reading:

Studies have shown that the brain assimilates more easily when it gets into contact with images first and then resort to written information. Therefore, it was agreed that images should be inserted on the left, while the text on the right. This respects the natural order of the gaze and its better understanding. Transferring to the design universe, we can infer that the layouts and even packaging are designed following this logic.

 

Tactile awakening:

Make use of the senses to draw people’s attention is a sure strategy for both marketing and design. The human brain connects better to what it can experience through touch. Because of this, the cosmetic industry, for example, invests in samples which allow people to apply the product to their skin before acquisition. Designers must pay attention to this condition when idealizing their projects. What tactile sensation will it awaken at the touch?

 

Focus in the center

The human brain has been found to give primary attention to everything that is positioned in the center. And to be able to reinforce this attraction power, it is enough to include the element in a circular shape. The figure of the circle, by itself, is already a strong aggregator of attention. Whenever the intention is to accurately attract people’s eyes, choose to centralize the main element; preferably by placing it in a circular context.

These are some of the examples of how Marketing has offered important useful contributions to be applied to the work of designers who seek to awaken certain conditions in their audience. Feeding on knowledge that offers a greater understanding of human behavior allows the creative process to be directed with a focus on the desired results, and not merely in an attempt to convey something.