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Buyology: How Everything We Believe About Why We Buy Is Wrong | 
 enlarge | Author: Martin Lindstrom
Publisher: Random House Business
Category: Book
List Price: £17.99
Buy New: £9.60
You Save: £8.39 (47%)
New (12) Used (3) from £9.60
Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 1241
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1847940110
EAN: 9781847940117
ASIN: 1847940110
Publication Date: October 28, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: brand new, quick dispatch
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| Customer Reviews:
 Not much new; yet very conceited January 4, 2009
A. Christoffersen
buyology presents a few interesting insights, but mostly the narrative is marred by the authors irrelevant and boastful ego trip. Also - I find the book lacking in nuance. E.g. Lindstrom often reports that X has an effect on Y - but not how big an effect, and alternative explanations are not given much thought nor space.
Mostly the book fails because it does not tell us why we react in certain ways. In that respect the book simply shows us that brainscanning can tell us which advertising schemes works. But brainscanning can't tell us in advance how or why this works and that does not. Also the book lacks a discussion of how the brainscanning set-up is different from real-world advertising. E.g. It's all fine that mirror-neurons get credit for the ipod fad, but why only the ipod? Why not all other products?
A better book, with focus on the brain, would be A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives. Also The Political Brain: How We Make Up Our Minds Without Using Our Heads is highly reccommended.
Mediocre - don't waste your time December 26, 2008
J. Erlank (London, UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a pretty lightweight book, and self-indulgent as well.
Most people will learn very little of interest that they probably don't already know. The possible exception to this is facts about the author himself, which are sprinkled throughout the text. Did you know he has an "extremely young, boyish-looking face"? Or that he has "raked-back blond hair"? Do you care?
So anyway, what I have learned is that we don't remember most of the advertisments we see; and we mostly buy stuff for irrational, unconscious or emotional reasons. And by scanning people's brains, you can see how different parts respond to brands and logos. This gives you a bit of insight into hard-to-explain human behaviour, such as smokers who smoke heavily despite the dire health warnings on cigarette packets.
Other amazing things I've learned include the fact that the smell of coffee makes you want to drink coffee.
As far as the book itself goes, Lindstrom fails to produce a decent narrative - it's just a jumble of loosely-connected facts, heaps and heaps of padding, repetition and irrelevant personal details. Plus I spotted a couple of dubious-looking "facts" which I easily found to be incorrect with a quick search of the web.
And as for the author himself - well, after a while he just comes across as egotistical, if not mildy delusional. He's just puffing up a few fairly obvious bits of science into a book he can use to promote his own personal brand.
Oh, and he claims to be responsible for egg yolks being bright yellow. I kid you not.
 Recommendation December 22, 2008
Allan Mulinacci
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As a college student majoring in business administration I found buy-ology by Martin Lindstrom to be filled with great information that we haven't covered in our classes. I'm sure that what I learned from this book I will put to use now and it will also be a valuable asset to me when I enter the workforce.
I like the idea of using studies based on scientific knowledge and I also like the fact that these studies were global.
I've read several books on the subject of marketing and trying to read into the mind of the consumer, but this is the first book to really get to the heart of the matter and to offer scientific data to back everything up.
I enjoyed the book and gained a lot from it. I plan to recommend it to my classmates to use as a good resource
 Good - but you have to look to find the golden nuggets December 16, 2008
Joanne Morley (Leeds, UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
In this book Martin Lindstrom has entered into the minds of consumers. Rather than ask them why they buy, he scanned and wired up hundreds of his volunteers brains so that he could observe which parts of the brain reacted in response to different products and questions. The result... that our subconscious does most of the decision-making.
One of his main findings is that, he seems to have proved that no matter what gruesome images the government plans to put on cigarette packages, it will have little or no effect on reducing the number of people smoking. Why? because the same part of the brain, the nucleus accumbens that deals with addiction and reward, lights up when the subjects where shown "Smoking Kills" packs; effectively wiping the effect it is supposed to have.
He does give you some great insights into how the human brain works when buying things which is useful if you are a marketeer but you have to read through some of the filler content to get there.
Some people say that if we know this kind of stuff then it could be used unethically to get people to buy things they don't really want, but if you take time to understand the subject, it is more a fascinating study into how the human mind works. I think it is worth the read if you want to know more about why people buy and how emotion is involved in buying decisions. Something that is covered in less depth, but in much eaiser way to understand in our book The Brighter Marketing Bible for Small Businesses
Some interesting facts but too wordy December 6, 2008
absolutebookworm (Scotland)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book talks about research which has been carried out to determine what makes us buy things. Paco Underhill wrote "Why we Buy" but his approach has been to study people in supermarkets and understand behaviour that way. This book uses the latest in technology - eg MRI - to assess reactions to things. So there is a kind of bizarre fascination in reading how we really do not understand why we react to things in a particular way - it is all determined by the subconscious. Some very interesting findings are presented. My problem is that reading this book is a bit like going on a treasure hunt. There are some wonderful grains of genius, but there is a lot of fluff around it. I got the impression that this author was padding it out so that he could produce a decent length book and make a lot of money. He repeats himself a lot and engages in a lot of "Did you think X? Well, the next chapter will show you how wrong you were" or "I thought Y, and I set out to prove it". OK, I can see the author is some kind of genius, but this book really should provide more for your money than a few interesting facts dressed up in a long and rambling tale.
If you're interested in marketing then by all means buy this book but be prepared to be bored at least half of the time.
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