An interview With Douglas Van Praet, Author Of Unconscious Branding

By Prashant Hari

Douglas Van Praet is Executive Vice President at Deutsch LA, one of the nation’s hottest ad agencies, where his responsibilities include Group Planning Director for the highly acclaimed and coveted Volkswagen account. Van Praet is recognized as an industry leader in unconscious behaviorism and a pioneer in applying neurobiology and evolutionary psychology to business problems.

His unique approach using reverse-engineered behavioral change therapy and neuroscience has produced effective, award-winning campaigns and product launches for leading advertisers of many of the world’s most successful brands. Douglas is also the author of UNCONSCIOUS BRANDING: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing

Douglas recently wrote a few articles where he criticized the Market Research industry. The articles titled “I’m Not Your Consumer: How Research Misses The Human Behind The Demographic” and “Research—You’re Doing It Wrong. How Uncovering The Unconscious Is Key To Creativity” can be found here and here

Based on both the articles, I contacted Douglas to conduct a very quick interview with him, of which the answers are below: