The marketing way of the future, according to Jonah Sachs, consists in “messages based on empowerment, which make the audience the hero and remind them of how full of potential they are.”

we can remember without being aware we are remembering, and that even memories we are unable to recall consciously are capable of exerting a measurable influence over our behavior.

Something priced at £9.99 or $9.99 will always strike a majority of shoppers as cheaper than something costing £10 or $10, and research has shown that between 30 and 65 percent of all prices end in a nine.22 And it is not just price, the left-digit bias applies to any transaction involving numbers.

demonstrated not only that emotions are more important than thoughts in influencing shopping behavior, but also that emotions can be successfully engineered without consumers ever becoming consciously aware of how their minds are being manipulated.

only after the signal has reached the amygdala and triggered this immediate “excitement” emotion that it uses the “high” road to access memory, before returning to the amygdala with a more informed response

Mindless shopping and the left-digit bias

rational shopping decisions occur mainly in the cerebral cortex,

When it comes to shopping, there could be no such thing as free choice or random behavior. However much we may like to believe that we are acting independently and spontaneously, we are really driven by unconscious brand priming.

The brain achieves this astonishing economy of energy by carrying out the vast majority of its operations via the automation of many thought processes in one of three main ways—all of which have significant implications for the way people shop.