Haven’t you ever wondered how advertising works? Why do we respond to its entreaties? What’s going on in our noodles that hurls us out the door to buy that new golf club or new pair of shoes?

For the next two months, we’re going to dig deep into the scientific case for “advertising” (let’s use the term broadly as management does to include ads, Web sites, brochures and other collateral). You need solid research to convince the left-brain rational minds that what you do matters! Does advertising work? With confidence, a resounding “yes!” How? Let’s see.

Because advances in brain imaging allow us to map the brain in action, we now know infinitely more about how the brain works than we did only 25 years ago.

Much of the initial portion of this report comes from Daniel Goleman’s summary of recent research in the most recent edition of Emotional Intelligence. We’ll bet you have this book on your bookshelf but perhaps—just as certainly—never read past page 30. In this “Cliff Notes” version, we’ll outline the core information about how the brain works, then we’ll link it up to “advertising” (branding, advertising and marketing communications).

In developing this report, however, we read four books and over 40 articles from scientific journals. We’ve made every effort to render the report in plain English. If you wish to read our sources yourself, please see the appendix at the end of this article.

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