Based on the single largest neuromarketing study ever conducted, Buyology reveals surprising truths about what attracts our attention and captures our dollars. Among the long-held assumptions and myths Buyology confronts:

• Sex doesn’t sell - people in skimpy clothing and provocative poses don’t persuade us to buy products.

• Despite government bans, subliminal advertising is ubiquitous — from bars to supermarkets to highway billboards.

• Color can be so iconic that the sight of the robin’s egg blue of a certain famous jewelry brand significantly raises women’s heart rates.

• Companies shamelessly borrow from religion and ritual — like the ritual, made up by a bored American bartender, of drinking a Corona with a lime — to seduce our interest.

• “Cool” brands, like iPods, trigger our mating instincts.

The fact is, so much of what we thought we knew about why we buy is wrong. Drawing on a three-year, 7 million dollar, cutting-edge brain scan study of over 2000 people from around the world, marketing guru Martin Lindstrom’s revelations will captivate anyone who’s been seduced —or turned off— by marketers relentless efforts to win our loyalty, our money and our minds.

Packed with entertaining stories about how we respond to such well-known products and companies as Marlboro, Calvin Klein, Ford, and American Idol, Buyology is a fascinating tour into the mind of today’s consumer.

"Through extensive and expensive research, Lindstrom provides an adequate primer on what neuroscience studies can tell society — particularly marketers — about how selling (and more important, buying) works. Whether considering the roles of sex, religion, product placement or contradictions in consumer habits between what they say and what they do, Lindstrom explores how brain-scan studies reveal an avalanche of information about what works and what doesn't. Though the information is intriguing, Lindstrom's disregard for the potential abuses of such information (such as marketers purposely manipulating people to buy products that are harmful, of which there is a proven track record) makes his enthusiasm suspect. Don Leslie provides a good voice for nonfiction material, using a congenial tone with good emphasis to keep the listeners engaged. His gentle but deep voice creates the impression of an older person imparting knowledge upon the youth, which may also lend some authority to the text. A Doubleday hardcover. (Oct.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Martin Lindstrom is one of the world’s most respected marketing gurus. His previous book, BRAND sense, was acclaimed by the Wall Street Journal as one of the ten best marketing books ever published.

Paco Underhill has been profiled in The New Yorker and Smithsonian Magazine, has written for American Demographics and Adweek, and lectures widely on retail anthropology.