The Mating Mind post in FutureLab today is a fascinating read about Neuroscience Marketing about the Mating Mind, if not that it tells us something we fundamentally already know. In The Mating Mind: Is Boosting Sex Appeal the Brain’s Primary Purpose? research is presented suggesting that human brain evolution was largely driven by finding better ways to appeal to the opposite sex.  It's based on Research done by a professor at the University of New Mexico, Geoffrey Miller.

 "…Geoffrey Miller is a man with a theory that, if true, will change the way people think about themselves. His idea is that the human brain is the anthropoid equivalent of the peacock’s tail. In other words, it is an organ designed to attract the opposite sex. Of course, brains have many other functions, and the human brain shares those with the brains of other animals. But Dr Miller, who works at the University of New Mexico, thinks that mental processes which are uniquely human, such as language and the ability to make complicated artefacts, evolved originally for sexual display…

In a paper he has just published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in collaboration with Vladas Griskevicius of Arizona State University, Dr Miller [studied] two activities—conspicuous consumption and altruism towards strangers—to see if these support the “mating mind” hypothesis, as Dr Miller has dubbed his idea. Their conclusion is that they do. [From The Economist - Blatant benevolence and conspicuous consumption.]

Interesting study …. I suppose there's a "metrics" underpinning here as well, if we look at the implications for online advertising and marketing.

"….There’s useful information in this work for all kinds of marketers, both for-profit and nonprofit. Some of the conclusions may be fairly obvious. Long before neuromarketing and evolutionary psychology, marketers knew that men spend money to enhance their reputation (and their appeal to the opposite sex) – expensive sports cars, costly restaurants, and so on all demonstrate that the guy is financially well-fixed and hence attractive. Marketers who give a man a chance to buy something expensive in a visible way can expect an above-average rate of success. Nonprofits looking for donations must, to appeal to males, also ensure visibility – public recognition is particularly important among those who, even unconsciously, are seeking to boost their attractiveness.

The female side of the equation is a bit different. Women, apparently, tend not to spend money conspicuously as an implicit mating strategy. Interestingly, they may be induced to spend their time conspicuously for that purpose. Nonprofits looking for volunteers know that recognition is important, and this research underscores that some recognition should be public and visible to be most effective.

As always, there are a few caveats. These behaviors were most apparent when the subjects had been primed romantically – it would be a mistake to generalize these behaviors to all males and all females in every circumstance. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are age-based differences not uncovered in this research. And this work is bound to be controversial simply because it implies a selfish biological basis for altruistic behavior. When you suggest that both the male executive who writes a hefty check for cancer research or the Junior League member who spends hundreds of hours on fundraising for a new hospital wing are both being driven by a biological imperative, you are bound to catch some flak.

But it's probably true.  So … how can we use this for Web Analytics?  I remember that, last year, I was the web analyst that reported on IBM's home page and many of the stories were brand and educational – things that were featured in the lead space of a site tend to get a lot of attention and clickthroughs just because it's right on / off of the homepage.   But getting good response and engagement metrics on human interest stories was harder to gauge then those that were purely ecommerce related.

Why?  It was difficult to measure engagement because, in many cases, it's impossible to know who the audience that went to the page really is and if they reacted the way you'd hope (as the marketer or creator of the material) might hope.

What this research is saying to me is that if your running a human interest story and your looking for engagement, sign ups, whatever, you need to appeal the story to males and females differently – and to offer males the opportunity to donate, get gadgets and things they can display to the woman.   For woman, on the other hand, you need to show that the story, the time spent, is going to make a difference and be visible to the community and to men.

That's quite a jump from what the article is actually saying – and not everyone is thinking about mating while they're engaging in altruistic activity – but if the research is right – the drive to altruism is really originates out of a sex and mating drive…and if so..what's wrong with that?

In the Web Analytics Association we have a whole track at the Emetrics Summit on measuring conversions for non-profits.  What is a non-profit if not altruistic behavior?  According to the Marketing Mind, the basis of Altruistic Behavior is sex and mating – therefore, our metrics could take this in account by segmenting behavior of a marketing piece for a non-profit by sex and age.

But that's just what I get out of this remarkable study – that, probably, reconfirms what we already know.  The guy that donates huge sums of money to his or her favorite charities are probably motivated by being attractive to the opposite sex as much as altruism and the woman who donates her time to help out in causes she wants to better the world through is probably also interested in having her work seen, being visible.  Is that so surprising?  But it had not been said quite that way before.