Blindsight The (Mostly) Hidden Ways Marketing Reshapes Our Brains

Ever notice that all watch ads show 10:10 as the time? Or that all fast-food restaurants use red or yellow in their logos? Or that certain stores are always having a sale?

You may not be aware of these details, yet they've been influencing you all along.

Every time you purchase, swipe, or click, marketers are able to more accurately predict your behavior. These days, brands know more about you than you know about yourself. Blindsight is here to change that.

With eye-opening science, engaging stories, and fascinating real-world examples, neuroscientist Matt Johnson and marketer Prince Ghuman dive deep into the surprising relationship between brains and brands. In Blindsight, they showcase how marketing taps every aspect of our mental lives, covering the neuroscience of pain and pleasure, emotion and logic, fear and safety, attention and addiction, and much more.

We like to think of ourselves as independent actors in control of our decisions, but the truth is far more complicated. Blindsight will give you the ability to see the unseeable when it comes to marketing, so that you can consume on your own terms. On the surface, you will learn how the brain works and how brands design for it. But peel back a layer, and you'll find a sharper image of your psychology, reflected in your consumer behavior.

This book will change the way you view not just branding, but yourself, too.

Matt Johnson received his BA in Cognitive Psychology from the University of California at San Diego in 2008, and his PhD in cognitive psychology/neuroscience from Princeton University in 2013. His graduate research focused on autism and the neuroscience of human learning, utilizing both behavioral and neuroscientific techniques. He currently serves as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs at the Hult International Business School in San Francisco, teaching a range of courses in neuroscience, behavioral economics, and neuromarketing. Matt was selected as one of ten Hult Research Fellows globally. Additionally, Matt is an active researcher in the field of behavioral sciences and neuromarketing, and based on his own primary research, produces a range of intellectual contributions.



Prince Ghuman started his first company while attending UC San Diego. He went on to be the founding head of marketing at BuyAutoParts, one of the earliest automotive e-commerce platforms, which was awarded the title of one of the fastest growing companies in America for three consecutive years by Inc magazine. Prince moved on to be the founding chief marketing officer of ZipZap, a cryptocurrency tech startup in San Francisco. Most recently, he held dual roles as the US director of consumer marketing and the global director of B2B marketing for OFX, a publicly-traded FinTech company handling over $100B in international payments. A contributor to major news outlets including Forbes, Refinery29, Entrepreneur, and Washington Post, he was named one of the 'Movers and Shakers' by the San Francisco Chronicle. He is currently a professor of neuromarketing at Hult International Business School in San Francisco.