When do we help someone? Helping is something social, and we often need help from others. Maybe you want help from a colleague on a rapport that’s due this Friday or maybe you want your children to clean their own mess up. Or maybe you want visitors on your website to fill out a Usabilla, Qualaroo or Hotjar survey. The point is, we need help from others and we don’t like asking for help, because it basically says that we’re not competent enough to perform the task on our own. Neuromarketing to the rescue!

Logo animation used to be hot. Over the last couple of years, companies have decided to back away from logo animation, and remove gradients and fillings. You’ve probably seen the logo evolutions of companies like Coca Cola, Pepsi and Shell – who all trimmed down the logo to the mere essentials.

Chocolate bars, everyone has at least one in their kitchen cabinets, for those rainy evenings on the couch. Yes, (nearly) everyone loves chocolate, but some companies thrive and others…well…have a harder time trying to sell their chocolate bars.

Economic theory predicts that people’s spending activities do not vary with environmental conditions, such as seasons and weather-related factors. As neuromarketers, we know better than that. It’s hardly surprising we all pay more for ice cream during the summer and the sales of ice cold beers skyrocket when there’s more sunlight. The price dynamics of these nondurable goods make economic sense in the light of increasing demand. However, you wouldn’t expect to find such patterns in durable goods like art, but that’s not what science discovered…

Imagine you’re buying something at the vegetable market, organic carrots for instance. The price tag says it’s $2.00 for the carrots, which is twice the price you would pay for in the supermarket. You decide it’s too much and want to walk away. And then the owner of the market stand comes up to you and says: “Hold on, for you, the price is only $1.00!” How would you feel in this case?

Web shops are awesome. You have a 24hr delivery, you can read someone else’s review about their experience, and it’s super easy to compare prices between stores.

What’s less awesome about shopping online, is the fact that you can’t hold the product. You have to trust the reviews and wish for the best. And that’s where a lot of web shops can book a lot of progress. You need to make sure that product pages are displaying the product so eloquently that it feels like you’re practically holding the product. Then you’ll be able to remove the barriers from buying online, as opposed to offline.

With neuromarketing, whether something is winning or losing conversions for you boils down to the absolute details. As specified in the overview article we recently published, some small changes can lead to big differences. Whether it’s a small change in pricing, the way you position your ads or the way you frame social proof, it all boils down to the details. And this new finding is no different than the others.

An advertisement has a lot of components you need to think about: size, placement, the tone of voice, the logo, the photo, the offer and much more. It’s mind-boggling. And yet, most advertisements are created on nothing more than a gut feeling, with no scientific background whatsoever. And alas, the effectiveness of an advertisement is mostly measured on their overall click through ratio (CTR). Thus, we don’t really know which components of the advertisement are working well, and which ones need improvement.