Neuro Design: Neuromarketing Insights to Boost Engagement and Profitability

(2016) he gives a good example of how context can prime us to be receptive to different types of advertising messages. He realized that two of our most powerful drives – to stay safe and to find a partner and procreate – can lead to two opposing behaviour strategies at any particular moment: the desire to be supported by fitting in with the crowd (

science as the starting point, Darren Bridger provides an eminently practical guide to designing for your customer’s brain. Neuro Design is packed with actionable strategies and techniques and is a must-read for every marketer and designer.’ Roger Dooley, author of Brainfluence ‘An interesting book on a topic which should be of great importance to

heavily biased towards things we have just encountered. Studies have shown that when people are primed with a concept – like ‘rudeness’, for example – they are then more likely to interrupt someone, and when primed with the concept of old age, they are more likely to walk more slowly.2 Similarly, people primed with the concepts of luxury or thrift

Research by Microsoft amongst 2,000 people in Canada showed that the ability to sustain focused attention in the face of distractions had dropped to just eight seconds in 2015 – down from 12 seconds in the year 2000, before the explosion of online images, videos and mobile screens.

asking people what they think of something is not good enough. Much of the time people are not consciously aware of the mechanisms in their brain that have caused them to prefer one design over another.

When our brains are offered choices that are too complex to fully research and rationally compute, we fall back on our gut feelings. These gut feelings are often driven by mental shortcuts

tends to use pattern recognition and imperfect but fast rules of thumb, rather than deliberate and rational calculated reactions.

show each page or design for five seconds – this is a manageable time for opening and closing a page under controlled timing.

saliency map. This is a visual map of whatever our brain thinks is worth drawing our attention to.

‘expressivity halo’: ‘people who communicate in an expressive, animated fashion tend to be liked more than difficult-to-read people; even if they are expressing something such as irritation. Because we’re more confident in our reading of them, they are less of a threat.’