The mammalian brain

Most brands chase the wrong thing. They spend millions on awareness campaigns. Then wonder why sales stay flat.

They pivot to relevance. “We need to be more relevant to Gen Z!” Still, nothing moves.

Here’s what they miss: Awareness and relevance are Level 1-2 games. Ownership is Level 3-4.

And your mammalian brain (the part that actually buys things) doesn’t speak English. It only understands ownership.

The Three Levels of Brand Existence

Awareness: “I’ve heard of you.”

Awareness means people know you exist. That’s it.

Jaguar has awareness. Everyone knows the leaping cat. The British luxury. The heritage. Yet they sold 3,073 cars in the US last year. That’s 0.04% market share.

Awareness is binary. You’re either known or unknown. It’s also cheap to buy. Run enough ads, get enough impressions, and boom, awareness.

Problem: The human brain processes 11 million bits of information per second but can only consciously handle 60. Everything else gets pattern-matched and ignored. Your awareness campaign? Filed under “another car company” and forgotten.

Chase Hughes calls this the mammalian brain at work. It doesn’t care about your tagline. It cares about survival. And knowing you exist doesn’t help it survive.