Niche Marketers

Excerpt from PBS’ “The Persuaders” with Douglas Rushkoff – Clotaire Rapaille about Reptilian Marketing Watch the entire program www.pbs.org “Can marketers really get inside a consumer’s head to influence the choice they will make? For market researcher Clotaire Rapaille, the answer is yes. He believes all purchasing decisions really lie beyond conscious thinking and emotion and reside at a primal core in human beings. As chairman of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide, he helps Fortune 500 companies discover the unconscious associations for their products – the simple “code” – that will help them sell to consumers: “When you learn a word, whatever it is, “coffee,” “love,” “mother,” there is always a first time. There’s a first time to learn everything. The first time you understand, you imprint the meaning of this word; you create a mental connection that you’re going to keep using the rest of your life. So actually every word has a mental highway. I call that a code, an unconscious code in the brain.” This interview was conducted on December 15, 2003. When we [are] born, we have the reptilian brain. The reptilian brain is there already. It’s part of survival; it’s breathing, eating, going to the bathroom. But then, in relationship with the mother, we develop the second brain, which is the limbic brain — emotions — and these emotions vary from one culture to another. In the relationship with your mother, you’re going to imprint, make mental connection about what means love …

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