Tag: brands

• The Ads of Your Dreams and Evolving Culture

  A group of dream researchers are calling for the regulation of commercial dream manipulation, so Jeff and Anthony take a look at whether we need to worry about brands incepting our dreams. Then, a new study suggests that human culture may be driving evolution faster than genetic mutations. Anthony and Jeff examine the ramifications of looking at global culture as the next evolutionary step. [more]

  June 18, 2021Episodes

• Logo Mindstorms

  Humans assign value to brands. Brands represent wealth, strength, and yes, sex. We are our brands. And for some rhesus macaques in a lab, one brand, Adidas, represents monkey genitalia. The researchers paired dominant male faces, subordinate male faces, and female hindquarters with some brand logos, then paired scrambled images with other brand logos. “We know how social rewards can be processed differently compared to primary rewards like food or water,” the study’s first author M. Yavuz Acikalin in the Stanford Graduate School of Business told Gizmodo. “Essentially, what this is looking at, ‘is can monkeys also associate the rewards with arbitrary stimuli, and create associations more directly though conditioning.’” Jeff and Anthony discuss monkeys and business. [more]

  March 14, 2018Episodes