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Grossi Franco, Cognitive Marketing. The Next Marketing Trend, Presented At The “international Conference On Advanced Research In Scientific Areas” (arsa-2012) Slovakia, December 3 - 7, 2012 - Proceedings Isbn 978-80-554-0606-0 E Issn 1338-98

GROSSI Franco, Cognitive Marketing. The Next Marketing Trend, presented at the “International Conference on Advanced Research in Scientific Areas” (ARSA-2012) Slovakia, December 3 - 7, 2012 - Proceedings ISBN 978-80-554-0606-0 e ISSN 1338-9831 -

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  Cognitive Marketing  (The Next Marketing Trend) Franco C. Grossi University of TriesteTrieste, [email protected]  Abstract   —  My design concept identifies an innovative type of marketing, which would be able to overcome the problems of perception and affordance which germinate and are determinedusingmethodologiesbasedon theproposalson an emotional level.Up to nowwehavetried to influencetheusers byusing onlytheemotional components of the product, falling into a gap betweenperceivedqualityandactual quality.Wearenowtryingtodevelopanew conceptual way of joining ergonomic characteristics of theobjecttotheimageof thebrandtorefer to.Thenistheintentionof making useof thelatest scientific findings related to thestudy of cognitive processes, to those on the generative semiotics, Gestaltpsychology, applications sensory synesthetic, up to new studies onthe evolution of the neocortex (mirror neurons, memes, etc.), incloseconnectionwiththecommunicativevalueofnewmedia. I. I  NTRODUCTION It is known that all marketing techniques are designed to tryto impress and affirm the company's brand in the minds of customers and prospects, and when the brand conquers theminds of the customers, the desired result is approachingalready more than 50%.It is therefore necessary to effectively promote all thosevalues that should be "perceived" by consumers,communicating them to them in an effective, efficient and pleasant [1].I also wish to recall that, from the technological point of view, it has been the today sharing in the creation and use of knowledge by users, which facilitate the spread of the newforms of interactive communication that pervade our era.Philip Kotler [2] divides the marketing of companies intotwo types:  The first, where there is selling what the company hasin production at the time and all the products you findin storehouses. The task of marketing in this case, is tohelp the sales force to sell the current production, because you cannot stop the factories, and takes aclear product-oriented approach.  A second type of marketing, which could be describedas "advanced", concerns the study of what kind of  products and with what characteristics the companyshould put into production in the future. In this case,in short, you are managing to develop the company'sstrategy to be followed so that the company, betweenthree and five years, can have available an offer thatallows to achieve good market positions.The proposed idea is to launch an innovative integratedmarketing, user-oriented, with the methods of theergonomic project applied to industrial design andcommunications, taking into account the components of the human cognitive system, focusing specifically on the"perceived" and on the "affordance" and communicatingthis artifact with the help of semiotics and, in general, withthe Communication Sciences, in order to make sure thatthey are always more "consumers to buy "and notcompanies sell [3].The practice proposal is developed in the following design process:a. Using the Ergonomic Design Methodology. b. Analysis of Cognitive Processes.c. Vision through Semiotics.d. Use of Virtual Reality for the study of the Interfaceand of the Affordance.e. The Holistic Cognitive Marketing Working Plan.II. U SING THE E RGONOMIC D ESIGN M ETHODOLOGY From the etymological point of view and meaning, theEuropean neologism: "Ergonomics" (or Human Factors),composed with two words of ancient Greek srcin “  ”(organization, work) and “  ” (law, rule), seems to relatemore a theoretical study, while the American term "User-Centered Design", (or Human-centered design), is aimed at practical.The field of study of the discipline as an area of researchcan be divided into "physical ergonomics" generally, includinghuman anatomy, anthropometry, physiology and biomechanical characteristics of man, "cognitive ergonomics",understood as study and evaluation of human cognitive processes (sensation, attention, perception, memory, etc..) andtheir interactions with other human beings and elements of thesystem and "Ergonomics of the Organization".  The so called "Applied Ergonomics" (User-CenteredDesign, Interaction Design, etc..), deals more specifically withthe plan activity.We are used to divide Applied Ergonomics in“Polytechnic”, “Medical” and “Cognitive”.The Ergonomics' purpose is therefore to identify a "user-oriented" design with the effect of meeting the real needs of the users regarding products, systems or services.Consequently, the ergonomic action already begins beforeof the real planning work and all the verification operationsare then carried throughout the design process, in a constantresearch work to check the balance between the quality of the product and its characteristics of "usability" and"pleasantness".The ergonomic intervention can be defined of “conception” or “correction”, depending on whether run in a pre-project phase, or on an existing product. Finally, it is to benoted that all these elements have a common property, theyare subjected to a continuous condition of dynamicequilibrium within the space-time variables.The methodologies of the applied ergonomic design aretherefore aimed at the anthropocentric realization of anoptimal adaptation of the man-machine-environment system,directing its specificities to the human psycho-physiologicalcapabilities and limitations, through the study of specificinterfaces.In a nutshell, the speculative survey is devoted to the studyof a precise "interface", understood as a set of inputs andoutputs regarding the man-machine-environment interaction.So the real problem is to understand the interaction betweenuser and technology in order to create artifacts on a humanscale.The AUAF (Active User in Advance Feedback) model,that I presented in Paris in 2000 during the 108th Congress [4]of the AES, Audio Engineering Society, is the designmethodology on the creation of artifacts easy to use by users,utilizing, in aprioristic mode, the user feedback.This new reference, which is meant to represent the designmethodology developed in an anthropocentric way (peculiar toErgonomics), need to have, "a priori", active feedback from Fig. 1 The Grossi/AUAF model to be used in ergonomic design users, where users means not only the end users, but allthose who are involved in the process (technicians, operators,etc.., and also the end users).The ergonomic principles require a systemic approach toevaluation as a function of the operator (user), of the use andof the environment, to ensure optimal interaction between thevarious elements that make up the system, and the "modusoperandi" is mainly to administer certain tests to a specificsample of users.With the ergonomic design method are tested, in fact, a priori (using procedures already widely tested) the needs,desires, objections and suggestions (feedbacks) of the usersand the end result will lead to a document with specificinstructions (guidelines) for the designer, who will be able toeffectively decrease the margin of error.Finally Ergonomics also offers the designer the correcttools to satisfy his most important goal, to be able to combinethe aesthetic idea with the validity of the achievements,helping him to resolve the conflict between the need for freedom of expression, inherent in the creative process and theconstraints imposed by the rules, functionality andmanufacturing process.III. A  NALYSIS OF C OGNITIVE P ROCESSES In 1935, Kurt Koffka so defined the goal of the psychologyof perception: "explain why things appear as they appear."For example, the visual perception is not fully explained by the images collected by the eyes, in fact, identical stimulisometimes produce two or more different percepts.The ambiguities are cases in which visual stimuli may beorganized in equally valid perceptually modes.Of course, similar considerations can be developed for other sensory modalities different from vision.Our speculation focuses specifically on the analysis of thedevelopment of the transformation of "sensations" (understoodas sensory inputs) into "perceptions" (such as a decoder of subjective sensations received, allowing the acquisition, processing and representation of sensory information), bymeans of "attention" (by which you make a selection of relevant information) and in the study of the "storage process",understood as a process for the maintenance of mentalrepresentations and of the "Way of Thinking", that allows themanipulation of symbolsand solving problems. Fig. 2 Cognitive Processes:Sensation – Attention – Perception – Storage – Thinking EndUsersAll Users  The formulation of the design process is thereforeexpressed in these anthropocentric terms, by the applicationand adaptation of existing technologies also used in other areas that could be traced back to a clever way of interactionin the context of human cognitive processes.IV. V ISION THROUGH S EMIOTICS Design (especially with regard to Industrial Design),understood as an act semiological is a sign (or rather, a"syntagm", that is, the conjunction of several signs) consistingof:• a work-thing, which acts as a symbol sensitive;• an "aesthetic object" that resides in the collectiveconsciousness and acts as a "meaning".In this context, from the methodological point of view aretaken into account, key in semiotics, different designapproaches.For example, we examine the phenomenon of synesthesia,metaphor that involves the transfer of meaning between two or more sensory systems, such as synaesthesia are the mostcommon: visual-auditive (chromatic-sound), visual-tactile,visual-gustative, tactile-visual (tactile-chromatic), tactile-auditive and tactile-olfactive.This typology, named simultaneous semiosis[4], leads to asyncretic semiotic, which from an expression plan, treated atan homogeneous level varied, a semiotic synaesthesia, whichfor a plane of expression treated in a uniform manner, refers toa plan of content irrelevant to the srcinal semiotic system, butwhich replaces itself in borrowing from another system, thusleading to the superposition of two perceptions (eg "silk  perfume" Calèche of Hermes, synesthesia of the typeolfactory-tactile). Fig. 1 Visualized explanation regarding the use of Generative Semiotics. We also use the methods inherent in generative semiotics,in order to implement an effective communication of the basicvalues of the artifact.The process starts from the analysis of the fundamentalvalues of the identity of the product (Axiological Level),making them later dynamic in the form of stories or tales of complicity, heroism, etc. (Narrative Level) and finally going back to the relevant communication, where the basic valuesand the narrative structures are enriched with backgroundfigures (Conversational Level).V. U SE OF V IRTUAL R  EALITY FOR THE STUDY OF THE I  NTERFACE AND OF THE A FFORDANCE The third millennium opens with the great challenge of global communication, which also influenced the economic processes, so today there is an increasing discussion regardingthe "Knowledge Economy" for the fact that the majority of companies do not produce anything, but base the its activitieson the transfer of information and the development of newknowledge.The new types of communication systems do nothing butextend what is our nervous system in a complex network, theso-called "global village" [5], which extends the whole societywith the communicative and creative process of knowledge.Communication, understood in its broadest sense as asharing of knowledge encoded in symbolic interactions, todayassumes a new significance, thanks to the "new media" and tovirtual reality, allowing the expansion of our extended sensesin the McLuhan's global village.In particular, speculation about virtual reality begun in thetwentieth century, evoked at first, fantasy worlds and was theobject of attention, especially by writers, directors and artists;dawn of the third millennium, the sense of this technologystrengthens and leads to a more scientific epistemological position, which arises from the consideration of how the perception of the virtual environment is captured by the mindthrough the interface of the "extended body".As part of this step outside-inside, the individualimplements the so-called "embodiment", in other words usestechnological artifacts to increase its scope for action in thevirtual environment, summarizing in this specific context thespatial perception with psychomotor action.He also changes, with virtual reality, the learning model,which from "symbolic-reconstructive", mediated throughwriting, the press and the "old media", returns to "perceptual-motor", adopting the approach by Ethology and developmentalPsychology, in an anthropocentric view.The virtual environment, which is transparent to thecognitive system, is perceived through a continuous"mapping", which merges with the interactivity favored by the"affordances" of technological artifacts.   A. The Interface Between user and artifact is established a relationship of two-way communication.The user utilizes the artifact, which produces an effect.The exchange device (also including the encoding anddecoding) of information between user and artifact is called"interface".  B. The Affordance An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment,which allows an individual to perform an action. [6]More generally the term affordance, in the context of human–machine interaction, refers to just those action possibilities that are readily perceivable by an actor.[7]VI. T HE H OLISTIC C OGNITIVE M ARKETING W ORKING P LAN The design methodology described is addressed to thesatisfaction of the user needs [8], leveraging the "reasoning"(Logos and Ethos) and not just on instant emotions (Pathos).  A. The Emotional Marketing  The result that it was wanted to achieve with the emotionalmarketing was the rising, at a cognitive psychological level, of a suggestion which led the user to purchase.The mode of action was characterized, in fact, by anapproach designed to activate a pool of brain circuitssubjecting the "target users" [9] to environmental stimulispecifically designed and targeted.The involvement could also be maximized by asynaesthetic activation of more senses, simultaneouslyinvolved.In a nutshell, the involvement of the customers was done by exploiting their natural suggestibility.Suggestion disables the manner in which environmentalstimuli are received and internalized and, consequently,intervening on these mechanisms they were capable of channeling, within the circuits genetically determined, themental outputs which would have been hampered by previousexperiences.This is because such information would reside, accordingto many researchers, the two main reservoirs of memory, the"Biographical" and "Socio-Environmental" [10]The "Biographical Memory", relating to the geneticheritage (Genotype [11]), has been studied with morescientific quality; the "Social-Environmental Memory" one,had been identified so far in the "Phenotype [12]", in other words the sum of a series of factors and experiences, whichthe individuals incur in the course of their lives. New studies, following the verification of behaviorsdesigned to maximize the response to the increasingly massivestimulus from the current society, are intended to beimplemented by the reactions of our body to fight the overloadof stress to which it is subjected and in order to adequatelyregenerate itself.According to Richard Dawkins [13], for example, theincrease of information transmitted, determines the appearanceof a new replicant, called "meme [14]", able to propagate itself continuously, both in time or in space [15].Some researchers have advanced then the hypothesis thatour mind could be constituted by a "genetic hardware" and a"memetic software" [16].The natural home of memes was so named "memoma",which would appear in the socio-environmental memory andmay be subject to anomalies inflicted by external agents, withinfectivity capabilities, called "psicovirus".Memes and memetic psicoviruses may be inoculated andreach the cerebral apparatus through the natural canals of thefive senses [17].Another important field of study, regarding our assumptions, is that related to the explanation of theoccurrence of the synaptic connections [18].The most recent theories regarding this subject divide intothree decision-making components to the establishment of such connections: the genetic one, another about experience,environment and biography and, then, the random one, whichis becoming increasingly important for the purposes of influencing the consciousness [19].A targeted management of psicovirus temporary [20]administered in a penta sensory mode, would make possiblethe consolidation of memes inside the socio-environmentalmemory, with an efficacy depending on their degree of intensity and their time of action.This is why that the suggestion, taking into account themanner in which the stimuli were produced [21], it would produce a percept, in other words, an absorbtion and aninternalization, which could also be very different from thereality that surrounds us.This explains the mechanism by which it was designed theway of emotional marketing.  B. The Cognitive Marketing  We noticed that has been abused for too long the"emotional brain", suggesting messages that leverage theinstinct of survival (fight / run) and that stress the user. Nobel Prize Professor Rita Levi Montalcini, which dealswith the ontogeny of the brain, says that unfortunately muchof our behavior is still led by the archaic brain, limbic, locatedin the hippocampus, which has practically not evolved fromthree million years today, and that does not differ much between homo sapiens and lower mammals and is related toemotions.And the archaic brain is so clever to let us think that allthis is controlled by our thoughts, when it is not.The archaic brain saved the Australopithecus, but it willlead the Homo Sapiens to extinction.  The other brain (neocortex), however, is the cognitive one,much younger and which was born with the language andwhich for 150 thousand years he has lived an extraordinarydevelopment, especially by virtue and through culture.And it is the culture that we want to refer to thedevelopment of cognitive marketing, connecting the customer directly with the brand, as a set of values and not more onlythe purely emotional aspects of the product (or service).It is, in short, to be able to "put in motion" the brain of theuser, so to adequately communicate to them what we call"personal branding", through which an individual, company, product or services are characterized in a unique, recognizableand unique.On the other hand communicating a brand is not easy, it isnecessary to understand the values, turning them into awording which represents the competitive advantages [22] andillustrates them with:• clarity, communicating easy and effective• distinction, in other words, specialization• consistency, repeat several times the same conceptsIn the face of this is necessary convincing the company todo everything possible to become the first in a field, and if thisis not possible, inventing a new sector in which to be the first[23] and it is more important to be a leader in the minds of consumers that in the market.To do this we need to be able to make the customers"think", so that they are capable to perceive what is actuallythe reality, as opposed to the emotions that often lead todisappointment. Now something about the plan Strategy.Take for example the market for the SMEs (Small andMedium Enterprises)An example of assumptions; SMEs will be able to meet thechallenge of the markets only formulating specific projects incombination with other companies because:a. Only by developing niche markets (specific projects)and then meeting the specific needs of the users will be able to increase their volume of work and beefficient and competitive; b. Only dividing their narrow expertise in a supply chain,company can be flexible using the knowledge of all participants;c. Only acquiring research and development by all willguarantee access to technological innovationsnecessary to maintain a high position in the market;d. Only by optimizing the creative process (ergonomicsand design) in communion with others, company willtake advantage of necessary approval and then sell the product / service.e. Only sharing the costs of the marketing campaign andcommunication will produce results of high thickness.Guidelines of the Strategic plan [24]:1. Definition of the market (the product demand / serviceoffered, the definition of the overall market, marketsegments)2. Competition and external factors (competition profile,future competition, other external factors)3. Marketing strategy (definition of strategies, tactics andoperational plans)4. Market Research5. Sales forecasts6. Communication Plan7. Support materialLet us see now the Working PlanHere's the plan of work that relates to the post-strategic part of cognitive marketing.  ErgonomicsIt is to study the needs of the target group using theergonomic design.As already expressed above it will investigate the usabilityof a product (or of a system, or a service), taking into accountthe following criteria:  effectiveness, in other words the accuracy andcompleteness with which users will reach the intendedobjectives;  efficiency, ie the amount of resources committed inrelation to the accuracy and completeness with whichusers will achieve their goals;  satisfaction, which is identified in comfort and in theacceptability of use by user.  Cognitive Processes The research on the target group should include analysis of how to activate the actions of attention and storage by theuser, in order to determine the optimum "medium" throughwhich sending information.It is, in fact, to consider the fact that human beings makecontinuous emotional assessments so sudden that usually wedo not even realize the process that generated them.Faced with a given decision, the emotional systemconsiders certain options as particularly attractive, or to berejected on the basis of information encoded or rather "marked" during the past emotional experiences.To break this vicious circle, it is then necessary to ensurethat the customer will put into action his neocortex.To synthesize, for designing with the help of cognitivescience we mean:  Planning with view to solve problems.