Speaking on `How communication affects and enhances the brand experience', Coburn held that a mind is a by-product of the brain at work. Successful marketing processes can thus be better explained he says by understanding consumers brains rather than their minds.

Dwelling on recent scanning techniques for monitoring the brain, Coburn said cognitive disciplies like education and learning have seen improvements because of findings from neurophysiology. How the brain structures and processes information has become crucial in teaching methods now.

The process of brand creation, he says, is to try and get consumers to "learn" appropriate information, both rational and emotional, about a particular product or service. His thesis attempts to define brand in neurophysical terms. Marketeers can improve efficiency of various elements of marketing mix by understanding the systems through which the consumer's brain acquires information.

The Harvard University for example, has opened a "Mind of the Market" laboratory. Using brain scans they are advising car manufacturers on how to design car dealerships, and are moving into brainscan based ad-testing.

Coburn said neural networks in the brains not only encode physical information about a brand (such as colour or nature of the brand) but also encode the emotional associations of the brand. He gave a new meaning to brand definition: "A unique neural network encoding an individuals knowledge and experience of a product or service, including the individuals emotional associations with the brand. The ease of access, richness and intensity of the network measures the strength and value of that brand to the individual."

His advice to the marketeer: to increase a consumer's knowledge of a brand, the marketeer must either strengthen some of the existing network linkages, or seek to get the brain to add additional neurons to the existing network; the new neurons encoding fresh, positive information or emotional associations with the brand. Coburn said competing visual stimuli are present in some TV ads. A brand name or pack shot may be shown on one side of the screen, while a story containing brand attributes may unfold on the other side. Only one these stimuli can be attended to at one time. This is why so often consumers can remember the gist of a TV commercial -- but cannot link it with a brand name.