BrandMillion - Neuromarketing

BrandMillion is a search site that rewards consumers for their brand awareness by giving a portion of its advertising revenues to consumers who search for a brand name advertised on the site.

BrandMillion, brandmillion.com, are trademarks of Partheeva Technologies LLC. Partheeva is an Internet media and Web development company founded by Raj Lakkaraju. It is based in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.

The concept basically links subliminal advertising and consumer behavior, creating a new concept mainly recognized as neuromarketing.

Neuro linguistic programming or NLP was popular in the late 80s and 90s and is still an active player in marketing and advertising sectors. NLP was further popularized by Anthony Robbins

Subliminal advertising is a technique of exposing consumers to product pictures, brand names, or other marketing stimuli without the consumers having conscious awareness. Once exposed to a subliminal marketing stimulus, the consumer is believed to decode the information and act upon it without being able to acknowledge a communication stimulus

The interesting point is that actually, one doesn't need to have subliminal messages that flash across a screen. Even advertising in its current state can influence purchase decisions - why? Because hypnotic language is all around us. We as individuals have our own individual definition and opinion about those high-level and unspecific words - when we hear many of those long enough, our mind starts to wander about into different directions. This then is the time when hypnotic suggestions are possible.

Although similar to neuro linguistic programming or NLP, in neuromarketing, it’s not uncommon to see a big leap from actual research data to a questionable business conclusion. It turns out that neuroeconomics research can be similarly be used. That is to say that “familiar brands evoke faster, more positive responses in the brain than lesser-known brands”.

Neuroeconomics puts medical and marketing expertise into efforts to understand the consumer's mind. The concept is to better understand the minds and needs of people and accordingly create markets which are more oriented towards satisfaction of these needs. By doing so companies could avoid flops in launching new products or services

At its launch on June 1, 2006, BrandMillion.com gave consumers a new way to think about brands and a new expectation from advertisers. That new expectation: “If a brand wants a position in my mind, I deserve to be paid for the space.”

BrandMillion rewards consumers for their brand awareness by giving them rewards, including products for brand searches, and soon to come, a portion (20 percent) of its advertising revenues.

The method for rewarding users seems quite odd. To put it in a nutshell, consumers are asked to enter a brand name into the site search. A search result of “Hurray, Brand not found" means the consumer's high brand awareness will earn him or her a reward when an ad is placed for that brand. Basic economic analysis suggests that an early user would be wise to search for thousands of brands and hope to be in the first position for some of them.

It sounds easy, but consumers work for their brand awareness rewards. Tracking their rewards means clicking through on each of the ads, which gives advertisers an opportunity to reach consumers with additional brand messages. Consumers however must be 18 years old to receive rewards from their brand searches.

Advertising on the BrandMillion site, provides businesses with the opportunity to reach consumers with brand image advertising and sales offers for the products and services that consumers have entered in the site search.

Individuals, merchants, or agencies may submit an ad for a product or service that they offer. Following approval and publication on BrandMillion.com, a percentage of the ad value is rewarded to the consumer (a BrandMillion.com site user) with the first search record. The process repeats itself for subsequent searches and ad placements.

We are aware that familiar brands evoke a more positive reaction in the brain than unfamiliar ones. Now consumers can earn ad dollars for their intellectual space, their minds.

That is to say, advertisers buy space in other media such as television or magazines for external ads that allow them to achieve a position within the customers’ minds. What BrandMillion has done is to simply, and brilliantly, allow the ad money (reward) to continue to flow–directly to the consumer. Every incremental user, though, has a lower possibility of a quick reward.

As the busier the site gets, the smaller the chance of a reward. The chances of winning any rewards reduce, if other consumers have entered the same brands earlier. Subsequently the entries are pushed further down on the list and one has to wait for future ad placements to earn a reward.

In addition to the self-defeating nature of the reward system, the basic branding theory seems a bit flawed - rather than building brand awareness, BrandMillion requires the user to enter the properly spelled brand name.

While I suppose that could reinforce brands that pop into the consumer’s mind, the brands that need help are the ones that aren’t at that level of awareness and this is where BrandMillion has to reinforce itself. Well, that is a different issue altogether.

However, for more information on BrandMillion's Advertising Guidelines or to search for brands and earn rewards, visit www.brandmillion.com