Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

Have you noticed all the headless manikins out there? If icons impact choices as the neurology of attraction suggests … what influence do headless displays have on our spending habits?

I asked yesterday ... in several stores at the mall near my home.

Retailers exhibit headless manikins to save money, one clerk claimed. That got me interested. Could concealing brains on their models … not also transform buyers'  brains into coconut husks? Do stores flaunt brainless financial IQs ... simply so we’ll spend more? What do you think?

I asked about the brainless bodies in store after store. One man suggested I ask corporate and decided that headless manikins represented top management where he worked. Another woman said it’s the trend and added nobody thinks about why it’s so. Do you?

After a surprised look and rather long pause one man suggested it’s likely because managers hope to sell more clothes to all types of faces … rather than stereotyping certain clothes with certain facial shapes or shades.

I've never thought about it one woman shot back … but I’ll ask the manager … and she called a brainy boss to her rescue. It’s less complicated that you think a clerk said from an upscale children’s clothing store. It’s less complicated in a classy store to emphasize little bodies without heads. She described how headless kids fit better into the window displays too.

Other clerks blamed the media and some attributed it to savings through less materials used to save costs.

One man grinned and said … Never noticed … guess it’s a guy thing. He then went on to share how he walks straight to what he needs ... locates the cheapest price tag ...  and buys it before he hightails it out of the mall. My wife notices things like that though ... he added ... as if to appease.

Interestingly … nobody I spoke to … had ever given their decapitated displays a second thought before … although several suggested my question made them think. One part time clerk’s curiosity may lead us to an answer soon. She plans to investigate my question for an essay in her fashion program … and hopefully she’ll publish her findings.

Unlike the headless horseman who terrified people in Sleepy Hollow … I’m still surprised to see beheaded displays slip unnoticed into store after store. What happened to the brainpower for better decisions that comes from visual intelligence?

Have we morphed into headless consumers … the way manikins melted away their brains for fashion fads? What’s your take on the headless craze?