US$ 199.95

20 pages, 8 actionable results, 9 charts, 10 demonstration images, 67 references
Overview: Koinophology is the scientific study of cultural values demonstrated as emotional valences regarding physical features and stems from John H. Koeslag's studies of mating strategies; Mates are chosen due to regularity of physiologic features defined through ethnic generations, hence what is beautiful to a Navajo may not be beautiful to a Croatian.
Because beauty is culturally defined, certain physiognomies and physiologies drive different non-conscious emotional responses within cultural groups and cross-culturally. Extreme examples are labeled "prejudice", "bigotry", "sex appeal", and all are used extensively in advertising and marketing. Perhaps their greatest and longest running use is to create stereotyped characters in mass media.
Knowing what produces positive and negative emotional valences – desirability, worthiness, beauty, attractiveness, horror, disgust, rejection, conceit – within specific audiences is valuable information for marketers creating integrated campaigns. An image of a man and woman talking causes non-conscious positive and negative cultural biases to be applied to the image and any associated content. If the image is a video with a sound track, cultural values dictate acceptable male and female vocal registers to produce desired responses in viewers.
In a single cultural environment with little to no integrated marketing, using cultural stereotypes was often all that was required to create successful cross-channel content in the past. The emergence of integrated marketing – wherein the audience is deluged by a 360É near-continuous information stream from any number of simultaneous channels – requires modern marketers to understand where koinophologic boundaries lie.
Koinophologic boundaries take the shape of simple questions that this study demonstrates can be answered scientifically. How much of a smile is enough of a smile? How wide a nose is too much nose? Can ears be too big to sell cars within a specific cultural audiences? Does age play a factor in both the creative and interpretive process? This paper reports on a 2010 study undertaken to determine how koinophology might serve marketers. It is hoped that this and future studies will determine if faces and bodies translate into marketing dollars, and if physiognomic and physiologic elements can be optimized for specific marketing responses.