The most recent issue (at least until I get home and check the mail) of autoweek contained the following column that I thought was appropriate given all of the recent/longstanding discussions about the emotional attachment we have for our cars and the need to modify them.
(08:30 Feb. 09, 2004)
This Is Your Brain on Cars
By RICH CEPPOS
NEWS FLASH! MEDICAL SCIENCE HAS finally provided irrefutable clinical proof that being a car enthusiast addles your brain and causes serious physiological side effects. In a recent study conducted at Ulm University in Germany and sponsored by DaimlerChrysler, men who were “highly interested in cars” were shown photos of all types of automobiles while their brain activity was monitored in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner.
The result: Images of sports cars were shown to activate the male brain’s pleasure center in the same manner as chocolate, cocaine and sex.
Well, duh!
This incredible revelation came to light in a recent story in one of our sister publications, the industry trade paper Automotive News Europe. It chronicled how the emerging science called neuromarketing hopes to unlock the secrets of how consumers make emotional connections to things and what makes them buy those things—in this case, automobiles.
But please, let us not overlook the true scientific value of this investigation. We already knew what your brain looked like on drugs. Now, finally, we know what it looks like on cars. Much the same, it turns out.
And how about that sexual connection? So now we also know that, when a driver utters, say, an off-color cliché about a sports car, such as, “It’s as much fun as you can have with your clothes on,” it’s the addiction speaking, not the person. Show these folks some understanding; there’s no known cure. You might want to give them a big, fat chocolate bar while you’re at it, just to prove you care.
The DaimlerChrysler marketers might have learned a lot more about this affliction of ours—and saved a bundle on all that fancy research—if they’d just spoken to car enthusiasts’ wives, mothers, kids, neighbors, friends and auto-parts store owners. These are the people who must live with this heinous addiction day after mind-numbing day.
Either way, we’ve got a huge problem on our hands. Because now it’s been proven that three highly attractive legal things have the addictive power of a fourth very illegal thing. Worse yet, this basically confirms everything we thought about cars and girls back in high school.
Not surprisingly, neuromarketing has attracted the attention of Those Who Would Protect Us from Ourselves. A consumer group called Commercial Alert, which counts none other than Ralph Nader as the chair of its advisory board—uh-oh—has sounded a red alert. The Alertistas are afraid neuromarketing—which is also being used in the consumer goods industry—will ultimately rob us of free will, and that we will soon become the witless tools of mind-controlling marketers who will render us powerless to resist buying their stuff.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind if marketers did a little better job of building vehicles we really want. I mean, despite decades of utilizing every brain probe from focus groups to demographics to psychographics, we still get treated to plenty of dumb automotive ideas. Like forget-me styling. Bad ergonomics. Einstein-level computer-screen controls. Discount-chain plastic interiors. Not to mention the occasional Aztek.
And powerless? Who cares? Not me.
Not us. We car nuts prefer being powerless, like how we feel standing next to a bright yellow Ferrari 275 GTB or a Murciélago or a 350Z. Cars are good. Sporty cars are better. And two-seaters are the stuff that take you away from it all, just you and the woman of your dreams heading down a long, winding road to a place where everything is perfect. In our fevered brains, we are forever driving sports cars. And we certainly don’t need medical science to tell us how cool that is.
(end of article)
Not exactly a shocking conclusion, but interesting nonetheless.
Now if I could just do something about the weather I could get my NSX fix . . .
(08:30 Feb. 09, 2004)
This Is Your Brain on Cars
By RICH CEPPOS
NEWS FLASH! MEDICAL SCIENCE HAS finally provided irrefutable clinical proof that being a car enthusiast addles your brain and causes serious physiological side effects. In a recent study conducted at Ulm University in Germany and sponsored by DaimlerChrysler, men who were “highly interested in cars” were shown photos of all types of automobiles while their brain activity was monitored in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner.
The result: Images of sports cars were shown to activate the male brain’s pleasure center in the same manner as chocolate, cocaine and sex.
Well, duh!
This incredible revelation came to light in a recent story in one of our sister publications, the industry trade paper Automotive News Europe. It chronicled how the emerging science called neuromarketing hopes to unlock the secrets of how consumers make emotional connections to things and what makes them buy those things—in this case, automobiles.
But please, let us not overlook the true scientific value of this investigation. We already knew what your brain looked like on drugs. Now, finally, we know what it looks like on cars. Much the same, it turns out.
And how about that sexual connection? So now we also know that, when a driver utters, say, an off-color cliché about a sports car, such as, “It’s as much fun as you can have with your clothes on,” it’s the addiction speaking, not the person. Show these folks some understanding; there’s no known cure. You might want to give them a big, fat chocolate bar while you’re at it, just to prove you care.
The DaimlerChrysler marketers might have learned a lot more about this affliction of ours—and saved a bundle on all that fancy research—if they’d just spoken to car enthusiasts’ wives, mothers, kids, neighbors, friends and auto-parts store owners. These are the people who must live with this heinous addiction day after mind-numbing day.
Either way, we’ve got a huge problem on our hands. Because now it’s been proven that three highly attractive legal things have the addictive power of a fourth very illegal thing. Worse yet, this basically confirms everything we thought about cars and girls back in high school.
Not surprisingly, neuromarketing has attracted the attention of Those Who Would Protect Us from Ourselves. A consumer group called Commercial Alert, which counts none other than Ralph Nader as the chair of its advisory board—uh-oh—has sounded a red alert. The Alertistas are afraid neuromarketing—which is also being used in the consumer goods industry—will ultimately rob us of free will, and that we will soon become the witless tools of mind-controlling marketers who will render us powerless to resist buying their stuff.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind if marketers did a little better job of building vehicles we really want. I mean, despite decades of utilizing every brain probe from focus groups to demographics to psychographics, we still get treated to plenty of dumb automotive ideas. Like forget-me styling. Bad ergonomics. Einstein-level computer-screen controls. Discount-chain plastic interiors. Not to mention the occasional Aztek.
And powerless? Who cares? Not me.
Not us. We car nuts prefer being powerless, like how we feel standing next to a bright yellow Ferrari 275 GTB or a Murciélago or a 350Z. Cars are good. Sporty cars are better. And two-seaters are the stuff that take you away from it all, just you and the woman of your dreams heading down a long, winding road to a place where everything is perfect. In our fevered brains, we are forever driving sports cars. And we certainly don’t need medical science to tell us how cool that is.
(end of article)
Not exactly a shocking conclusion, but interesting nonetheless.
Now if I could just do something about the weather I could get my NSX fix . . .
