How Apple and Nike have branded your brain | Your Brain on Money | Big Think

Powerful branding can not only change how you feel about a company, it can actually change how your brain is wired. “We love to think of ourselves as rational. That’s not how it works,” says UPenn professor Americus Reed II about our habits (both conscious and subconscious) of paying more for items based primarily on the brand name. Effective marketing causes the consumer to link brands like Apple and Nike with their own identity, and that strong attachment goes deeper than receipts. Using MRI, professor and neuroscientist Michael Platt and his team were able to see this at play.