Did you know that for a marketer to plant the seed of an idea into one's brain, all they need to do is design a message that's easily consumed by the subconscious brain?

The way marketers craft their messages perplexes Tim Ash. Marketers continue to target the logical or left side of the brain – the part that's "literally asleep 95% of the time," he says. Does this mean we're all missing big-brain opportunities to influence our audiences?

In this episode of The CMO Show, we take a look under the hood of the human brain to explore the neurological side of marketing with Tim Ash, CEO of SiteTuners and cognitive scientist.

"Right now we're designing things that are too complicated and require us to use our conscious brains to process them," Tim says. "[It] takes a huge laborious effort to make those kind of rational decisions… The rational part of the brain doesn't even get woken up most of the time."

A strong believer in the role of conditioning to effect change in our selves, Tim also delves deep into the role of social inclusion and environment in shaping customer behaviour.

"There's no such thing as a permanent sense of self, and your environment, and the conditioning propaganda, whatever you want to call it, has a very strong influence on us. We think of ourselves as active agents and we decide what we do, we decide when we change our own beliefs, and in fact that's not even the case."

Tune in to discover why humans are the herdiest of animals, how to avoid confusing brands for products, and what negativity bias truly means for opportunistic marketers.