The Science of Shopping

Does this apple suggest health, freshness, & cleanliness to you? Manufacturers & retailers hope it does.

I was just reading Martin Lindstrom's Wall Street Journal article, "Selling Illusions of Cleanliness", which got me thinking about the dark side of marketing, "the full range of psychological tricks and schemes that some companies use to prey on our most deeply rooted fears, dreams and desires in order to persuade us to buy their brands and products".  Mr. Lindstrom is a marketing and branding consultant whose new book, Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy is already in  the library catalog. I have been meaning to read retail anthropologist Paco Underhill's manifesto, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping for some time now, so the discovery of this new book is just impetus to read more about this topic, especially as I gear up for seasonal gift shopping!

A search of related subjects (or similar items) brings up titles such as:

A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America by Lizabeth Cohen

Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine

Buy ology: Truth and Lies about Why We Buy byMartin Lindstrom (his previous book)

Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case for a More Joyful Christmas by Bill McKibben

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Another article about Lindstrom you may enjoy:
Repentant marketer Martin Lindstrom confesses his sins