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Showing posts from February, 2021

BIOLOGY OF BUYOLOGY

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  Buyologists say that a consumer is emotion-driven. Is this just a gut feeling or has it anything to do with real biology? Thanks to Antonio Damasio for giving the world the fabulous idea of  Somatic Markers.  A visual or verbal cue used in communication arouses an emotion in a person that could be good or bad. Let's assume for our understanding that a product creates a positive emotion in a person. An emotion is a physical and mental experience. It brings about a change in heartbeat, the flow of neurotransmitters, triggering of the endocrine system and changes in muscle tone, and all these lead to a pleasant mental state. It can be real, experienced through your senses, or imagined by your mind, or to simply put it in a neuroscientific lingo, it could be through the 'body-loop' when it's sensory or through the 'as-if-body-loop' when it's imagined. Each emotion linked to a product/service leaves a  Unique Neural Fingerprint (UNF)  in your network, which is...

VIRAL MEMETICS

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  It would be interesting to you if I say that the Darwinian  'Natural Selection'  also applies to your ideas. They take birth from you; they change over time and evolve to become even more effective replicators. In short, it's the viral propagation of  memes Dawkins talked about  'meme'  as any cultural entity that exhibits self-replication. The concept is today extended to the social media platforms as our thoughts and ideas find their replication through multiple forms/formats.   In essence, memes are cultural analogues of genes.  Today, they have acquired the ability to spread through social media platforms and exhibit infectious qualities. They very much spread through social interactions the same way viral infections do. Audiences are either susceptible, infected, recovered or re-infected by memes. You are susceptible if you are not yet exposed to the meme. If you are already exposed, and you are no more interested in it, then you have recov...