"My theory is very simple: The reptilian always wins."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/interviews/rapaille.html
A most fascinating interview about cultural imprint and its role in marketing. Clotaire Rapaille, whose resume includes some illustrious names in the corporate world, talks about how marketers have to give products a certain je ne sais quoi and not just price or quality advantages in order to get loyalty. He has this concept of a "code" in which each culture is based, and with which people from that culture have been subconsciously imprinted. Cracking the code is challenging, but doing so gives marketers access to the sub-cortical "reptilian" brain, which handles raw emotion, childhood comfort, and primal drives, and to which they can directly appeal.
