Branding Between the Ears

Have you ever wondered why some brands capture your heart and imagination while others barely register? Why you can feel a genuine bond with a company like Apple or Nike, yet scroll past dozens of others without a glance? In Branding Between the Ears, marketing strategist Sandeep Dayal offers a revolutionary answer drawn from the latest discoveries in cognitive science: great brands don't just appeal to your mind or your emotions—they work the way your brain actually works.

Dayal argues that traditional marketing has long misunderstood how people make choices. For decades, marketers followed models built on rational evaluation—tell customers the features and benefits, sprinkle in a bit of emotion, and they’ll buy. But that model ignores neuroscience. Most of our decisions, as Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman showed, happen unconsciously through rapid-fire mental shortcuts. Dayal contends that branding must evolve beyond logic and emotion toward what he calls cognitive branding—an approach that designs brands to operate like the brain itself.

The Mystery of Iconic Brands

Dayal opens with a striking metaphor: chart-topping songs and legendary brands share a kind of magic that feels accidental. Just as no one can predict a hit single, marketers often fail to reproduce the lightning that makes a brand unforgettable. Yet, advances in brain science now reveal that this “magic” has rules. Our brains crave patterns, emotional rewards, and meaning. Iconic brands—from Guinness to Google—activate both conscious and subconscious circuits that trigger trust, comfort, and happiness. The book’s core argument is simple but profound: a brand will only thrive if its design mirrors how the human brain processes experiences, memories, and emotions.

The Evolution of Cognitive Branding

After witnessing the collapse of early dot-com giants like Pets.com and Webvan, Dayal realized that catchy value propositions alone would never change hearts or habits. When McKinsey’s clients struggled to convince consumers to shop online, Dayal discovered behavioral blind spots—people weren’t resisting logic; they were trapped in psychological routines. This insight launched his lifelong pursuit to understand how people really choose. Drawing from neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics (Thaler’s concept of “nudges,” Kahneman’s dual-system theory, and Beck’s cognitive behavioral therapy), Dayal crafts a new field: cognitive branding, a fusion of art and brain science designed to help brands connect deeply with the subconscious mind.

The Three Elements of Cognitive Brands

According to Dayal, cognitive brands are made of three fundamental elements—vibes, sense, and resolve. Together, they form what he calls a brand’s “viser” (from the French viser, meaning “to aim”). Brand vibes build trust and emotional chemistry by showing empathy or shared values (“I know how you feel” or “I believe what you believe”). Brand sense helps consumers instinctively or deliberately believe the brand’s message—aligning with subconscious biases (System 1) or logical reasoning (System 2). Finally, brand resolve connects the brand to a person’s deeper pursuit of happiness and motivates them to act—to buy, to stay loyal, and to love.

When these three align, brands become irresistible. They tap into emotional memory, logical validation, and the human need for fulfillment. This combination explains why, as Dayal writes, “brands that rock our world work the way our brain does.” Unlike old-school ladders of functional and emotional benefits, cognitive brands create sensations that feel authentic, familiar, and meaningful—so consumers don’t just remember them, they re-experience them every time.

From Science to Practice

Throughout the book, Dayal brings robust science to the messy world of marketing. He introduces the four functional modules of the mind—the Associator (instinctive choice), the Deliberator (analytical evaluation), the Learner (memory and wisdom), and the Conator (motivation and action). Brands must touch all of these to succeed. He combines stories from real companies with vivid human examples—like an ice salesman in Mexico who freezes his credit card in an ice cube to curb spending, or a mother in Indonesia whose anxiety about her child’s picky eating turns PediaSure into a source of reassurance and joy. These examples make the science tangible and human.

Why It Matters

“Branding Between the Ears” is both a diagnostic and a roadmap. It reminds you that building a brand isn’t about catchy slogans—it’s about shaping how people feel and think on the deepest level. In a world of infinite choices and short attention spans, understanding the brain is no longer optional; it’s survival. Cognitive branding gives marketers the tools to build trust ethically, design messages that sync with instinct, and create experiences that make consumers happier. Ultimately, Dayal argues that great brands live not on billboards or screens, but right between your ears.

Dayal’s model for designing cognitive brands is built around three interconnected elements—vibes, sense, and resolve. These correspond to how the brain connects emotionally, processes information, and motivates action. By understanding these dimensions, you can architect a brand that feels natural to the human mind rather than imposed from outside.

1. Brand Vibes: Building Chemistry and Trust

Vibes are the emotional bridge between you and your customer. They answer the subconscious question, “Do you get me?” Great vibes come from empathy or shared values. Subaru’s famous 1990s campaign, “It’s not a choice. It’s the way we’re built,” spoke directly to lesbian drivers who felt marginalized. Thanks to marketer Tim Mahoney’s courage, Subaru became more than a car—it became a symbol of belonging. Similarly, the Dollar Shave Club’s raw humor (“Our blades are f***ing great!”) validated men’s frustration with overpriced razors. These brands didn’t start with their products—they started with human angst, showing understanding before selling.

Other brands build vibes through shared values. Ben & Jerry’s uses ice cream as a vehicle for social activism—from “Justice ReMix’d” to “Pecan Resist”—embodying consumers’ desire to do good. Nike did the same with Colin Kaepernick’s “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” In both cases, empathy and values merged to create authentic emotional bonds. As Dayal warns, however, vibes require integrity—Victoria’s Secret lost loyalty when its empowerment message turned judgmental. Betraying your customer’s trust destroys the chemistry that vibes create.

2. Brand Sense: Making the Message Feel Right

Once the emotional connection exists, the brain must decide whether the brand “makes sense.” Dayal uses Kahneman’s System 1 and System 2 paradigm to explain this process. System 1 Easers trigger intuitive acceptance—the “gut feel.” They rely on familiarity, truth, goodness, or ease. When Kraft positioned DiGiorno pizza as “It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno,” it anchored frozen pizza to the mental model of fresh delivery, making the choice feel natural. System 2 Deliberators trigger logical validation—rational evaluation that can redefine beliefs. For instance, the Rainforest Alliance’s “Follow the Frog” ad encouraged consumers to rethink sustainability by visualizing its impact humorously. Both systems work together; Easers make choices simple, Deliberators make them convincing.

PediaSure embodies this principle perfectly. For anxious mothers of picky eaters, PediaSure used System 1 familiarity (“a doctor’s prescription” to reassure) and System 2 evidence (“balanced and complete nutrition in 25 essential nutrients”) to make the brand appear trustworthy and indispensable. It simplified mealtime anxiety by offering cognitive ease—the psychological state where things simply feel right.

3. Brand Resolve: Turning Belief into Action

Even when consumers trust and understand your brand, they might hesitate. Resolve is what gets them off the fence. It ties the brand to personal happiness and what psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan call the three intrinsic motivations—autonomy, competence, and relatedness. National Car Rental tapped autonomy with its “Go Like a Pro” campaign: the protagonist skips the counter because “I don’t want to talk to any human.” PediaSure targeted competence (“so your kids can be all they can be, physically and mentally”), while Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign captured relatedness (“There are some things money can’t buy—for everything else, there’s Mastercard”).

Resolve is powerful because it transforms passive admiration into active commitment. It’s not about manipulation—it’s about helping people reach what Dayal calls their “mantra for happiness.” When brands align with universal human drives and respect ethical boundaries, they become part of consumers’ life stories. Together, vibes, sense, and resolve form the cognitive architecture that makes people fall in love with brands—and stay in love sustainably.

To design brands that fit human nature, you need to understand how the brain makes decisions. Dayal translates Kahneman’s dual-system theory—System 1 (fast, intuitive) and System 2 (slow, deliberate)—into branding strategies that match how people really choose. Together, they explain 95% of human behavior and nearly all brand loyalty.

System 1: Cognitive Ease and Intuitive Choice

System 1 is our mental autopilot. It decides quickly, relying on feelings, familiarity, and bias rather than reason. Brands win here by reducing friction. The “anchoring bias” makes us compare unknowns to familiar points; Kraft’s DiGiorno succeeded by saying frozen pizza was as good as delivery. Similarly, ACT II popcorn linked itself to the joy of movie nights—the smell, the lighting, the reel—all sensory anchors that made “microwave popcorn” feel nostalgic and safe.

Dayal lists eight System 1 “Easers”—shortcuts that make brand choice effortless: make it feel familiar, true, good, and easy. Everlane used the transparency effect by showing exactly how much each item costs to produce. Consumers trusted it because “what you see is what you get.” RxBar did the same with its ingredient list (“3 egg whites, 6 almonds, 4 cashews, and no B.S.”), although Dayal later critiques its name “Rx” for misleadingly implying doctor approval.

System 2: Deliberation and New Wisdom

When instinct isn’t enough, System 2 steps in to think, evaluate, and decide. These processes create new neural rules—ultimately feeding back into System 1 as habits. Brands use System 2 Deliberators to reshape thinking in four ways: amplify value, lower risk, provide reasons to believe, and change context.

• Amplify value: Show benefits that feel too good to ignore. Uber’s launch created “smack-in-the-face” value—cheaper rides, no waiting, easy payments—turning deliberation into reflex use.
• Lower risk: Help customers face fear safely. Xarelto’s heart medication campaign said, “Because you didn’t have a heart attack—Not Today,” reframing danger as calm relief.
• Provide evidence: Chipotle’s post-E. coli recovery campaign “Behind the Foil” showed real kitchens and fresh ingredients, proving trust through transparency.
• Reframe context: Patek Philippe turned its watches from luxury to legacy—“You never truly own a Patek Philippe; you merely look after it for the next generation.” That one line changed value perception forever.

System 2 isn’t slow—it’s strategic. It helps brands persuade customers who need proof or a new mindset. Together, Easers and Deliberators explain both impulse purchases and long-term devotion. When you trigger both, consumers don’t just buy—they believe.

Dayal insists that branding happens not on screens or shelves but “right between your ears”—through the sensory and narrative experiences we store as emotional memories. From sight to smell, our senses activate the brain’s pleasure circuits (dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins) and form associations that live for decades. A brand’s job is to choreograph those sensations and stories into a coherent experience.

The Power of Storytelling

The brain remembers stories far better than lists. When you tell your customer a structured narrative—complete with emotion and action—they recall it effortlessly. Google’s “Reunion” ad, where two elderly friends separated by India–Pakistan partition reunite through Google Search, uses this principle masterfully. The story activates empathy, nostalgia, and joy while demonstrating Google’s purpose six times within the narrative. That’s emotional branding rooted in memory science. (Compare with Donald Miller’s Building a StoryBrand—Dayal goes deeper by linking stories to neural cognition.)

Multisensory Branding

Every sense matters. Vision provides belief ("I see it; therefore it’s real"), touch builds trust, sound shapes rhythm, smell evokes nostalgia, and taste connects to pleasure. Burberry’s stores use tartan interiors, season-specific scents, and subdued lighting to immerse shoppers in the brand’s heritage. Coca-Cola’s “Small World Machines” campaign united Indian and Pakistani audiences through interactive touchscreens—virtual handshakes that created empathy and joy. These experiences prove what neuroscience knows: activating multiple senses multiplies emotional connection.

Practical Sensory Triggers

Even subtle sensory cues can influence choice. A warm handshake (touch) can increase cooperation; slow background music (sound) boosts supermarket sales by calming customers; certain scents (smell) trigger memories of cleanliness or comfort. Singapore Airlines infuses its flights with a signature fragrance, “Stefan Floridian Waters,” and P&G’s Tide scent mixes citrus and floral notes to recall maternal care and cleanliness. The taste of champagne conveys celebration—the feeling brands use strategically in luxury hospitality.

By weaving sensory and narrative triggers together, brands embed themselves in our minds at a biochemical level. As Dayal writes, “What we see, touch, smell, and feel says everything.” The most unforgettable brands aren’t just recognized—they’re experienced viscerally, remembered emotionally, and loved subconsciously.

If understanding the brain gives marketers immense power, Dayal warns, it also gives them immense responsibility. Just because you can influence subconscious behavior doesn’t mean you should. The book’s final chapters form a moral wake-up call: the same psychology that sells razors and cars can also manipulate voters and trap consumers in debt.

Dark Patterns and Misuse

Dayal exposes how digital brands exploit cognitive biases through “dark patterns.” He cites the Trump 2020 campaign’s deceptive donation boxes—prechecked to extract recurring payments and framed to guilt supporters (“Uncheck this box and we’ll tell Trump you’re a defector”). The problem isn’t persuasion; it’s coercion. Using psychological triggers like confirmshaming or loss aversion (“time’s running out!”) manipulates rather than respects the brain’s natural shortcuts.

Ethical Framework: The Three Imperatives

To keep marketers honest, Dayal proposes three tests for ethical branding:

• Canonical Imperative: Would you want someone to do this to you?
• Categorical Imperative: Would society benefit if everyone did this?
• Sunshine Imperative: Would you be comfortable if your practice appeared on the front page of the New York Times?

These principles echo Kant’s moral philosophy and modern transparency ethics (compare to Martin Lindstrom’s Brand Sense on consumer trust). Brands like PediaSure pass all three—they promise balanced nutrition backed by evidence. Others, like RxBar’s misleading medical cue “Rx,” fail the canonical test because they suggest doctor approval that doesn’t exist.

Power with Restraint

Dayal argues that ethical cognitive branding isn’t anti-marketing—it’s the future of sustainable trust. The goal isn’t merely to sell more but to improve lives. Manipulative tactics may win short-term gains, but they erode long-term loyalty. “With knowledge comes responsibility,” he writes, urging marketers to use cognitive insight to empower rather than exploit. Brands that respect consumer well-being—those that make people happier rather than dependent—will earn what Dayal calls “top of heart” as well as “top of mind.”

Dayal concludes with a glimpse into the next frontier: neuromarketing, behavioral economics, and human-centered experimentation. He invites marketers to evolve their mindset—to stop applying old rules to new science. “Fire yourself,” recommends one of his workshop participants, meaning: let go of what you think you know.

From Neuromarketing to Cognitive Labs

Future brand building will integrate direct brain research. Eye-tracking, facial coding, galvanic skin response, EEG, and fMRI data will show which messages spark emotion or trust. Companies like New Balance already use neuroscience to analyze ad engagement within days. But Dayal cautions that while these tools reveal reactions, they can’t explain meaning—the context that gives emotions purpose. True insight still comes from curiosity and qualitative depth, through interviews, metaphor elicitation, and cultural observation.

Thinking Beyond the Five Senses

He reminds us that human perception extends beyond five senses—to balance, motion, and even new technological sensations introduced by virtual and augmented reality. As experiences become immersive and AI personalizes stimuli, marketers will design brands not just for screens but for mind-space—creating what Dayal calls “augmented cognitive experiences.” Disney’s rides, Singapore Airlines’ sensory signatures, and Apple’s holistic user design are early examples of this evolution.

Evolving the Marketer’s Mind

Cognitive branding demands humility and experimentation. Many companies, trapped in rigid processes and Gantt charts, keep producing “sea-of-sameness” strategies. To break free, Dayal urges firms to create Cognitive Science Application Labs—spaces that translate behavioral research into real-world testing. Success now depends less on perfectly managed campaigns and more on learning loops that blend art, psychology, and ethics.

Ultimately, Dayal’s message transcends marketing. Understanding the brain reshapes how we communicate, empathize, and build purpose. As he concludes, “The future of branding will remain right between our ears”—a call to marketers everywhere to not only think scientifically, but to lead humanely.