Fuck sex, it's FEAR that sells!

You want to sell something? Turns out dead Bruce Lee playing ping pong isn't the answer. A zombie Bruce Lee in a turban with a bag of dynamite, however, might do the trick.

Anna Papadopoulos of ClickZ has published her review of Buyology: Truth and Lies about Why We Buy a new book by Martin Lindstrom. The author's intriguing observations into consumers are all based on "Neuromarketing," a term coined by market research professor Ale Smidts in 2002, which refers to a new field of marketing that explores consumers' sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli.

It's a lot of scientific gobbledygook and hoo-ha that leads to some of the following discoveries:

• Fear sells, sex doesn't. Lindstrom claims that political fear-based advertising is effective because it taps into our primal concerns of survival. Sex-based advertising, however, overwhelms us physically, so all we take away is the sexual part and we disregard the brand associated with it.
  
  
• Pass the cigarettes, please. Did you know that global cigarette smoking has increased 13 percent and that warning labels are part of the reason? Warning labels stimulate the nucleus accumbens, a region of the brain that increases cravings. Tobacco companies have actually been able to increase sales even though cigarette advertising has been banned in most countries.
  
  
• Forget product placements. 99 percent of product placements are completely ineffective. What about the 1 percent? The only effective product placements integrate into the content in a completely meaningful way. If the addition or removal of your brand would affect the environment's context, you're probably on the right track. Think of "American Idol." AT&T is a good integration, Coca-Cola is ok, but Ford isn't good at all.
  
  
• Logos are meaningless. In many cases, it's preferable to not even have a logo on your advertising.
  
  
• Advertising agencies should hire rabbis, priests, and imams as consultants. Brands should try to create rituals that are similar to religious rituals. Think about green bean casserole and Thanksgiving. The two are so connected that one of the key ingredients, French Fried Onions, probably wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for this holiday and the classic American dish.

So maybe all of this recent talk of an imminent attack on American soil in the next 4 years is a good thing... Apple should take advantage of it to sell more iPods.