Daniel Brainin

Brain Health Revolution Report on CBS News


No field in science is experiencing sucn explosive growth as brain science. Once thought to be fully matured by adolescence, neuroscientists now assert that brain development continues until around the mid-20s. But even that may be proven wrong.

Why should this matter to marketers -- the main readership of this blog? Because increasingly understanding how the brain works across the full lifespan is considered important to marketers -- so much so that a new subbranch of marketing called neuromarketing has cropped up.

What we are learning about the brain is radically altering our view of the mind throughout the seasons of life, especially in the final decades of life. For instance, brain scientists have now determined that the brain has a previously undetected plasticity that enables it to "rewire" itself in the latter years of life when it was formerly thought brain power inevitably waned like a battery about to expire.

Posit Science, a San Francisco startup is betting on the proposition that brain fitness is about to become big business. The company has developed a computer mediated program that field trials indicate can reverse age onset cognitive decline among 70, 80 and even 90-year-olds by an average of 10-plus years and by as much as 20 and even 30 years. Daniel Rosenberg reports.

This week the lead story on CBS News Sunday Morning was about breakthroughs in brain science that will change how we age as well as how we treat neurological conditions. CBS correspondent John Blackstone reported the piece, entitled Think Again: The Human Brain. Much of the report focuses on the Posit Science Brain Fitness Program which has been shown to significantly improve brain function in studies among people 50 and older. Participants in the studies are interviewed, as are prominent scientists. Click here to see the video.

Similar stories on the same scientific breakthroughs also recently were published in The Wall Street Journal and Technology Review . This month on Entrepreneur.com, futurist Faith Popcorn identified “Brain Fitness” as a top new trend. Posit Science predicts that this subject will be increasingly in the news, as more science studies are released this year that underscore what kind of activities actually rejuvenates the brain.

Rubbermaid wanted to get across how wide their range of products are in a 30 second spot. The solution was one word: pinball. A guy pulls the spring on a pinball machine and we see the ball bounce off different kinds of Rubbermaid products inside the machine, until the ball falls between the flippers, (Rubbermaid kitchen brushes,) and into a Rubbermaid garbage can. The spot ran on Citytv.Citytv

I developed a promotion for Maxell Canada that extended Maxell’s iconic ‘Man in the Chair’ branding in a slightly surreal way: a man sitting on a chair on the roof of an urban building throws a CD like a frisbee, which hurtles through the sky to be caught by a woman on a beach – only now it’s a DVD, representing the two products that Maxell wanted to highlight.

Based on this taste of television, Maxell Canada decided to create their own brand sell, and invited agencies to pitch. They chose my spot, which starts off with the ‘Man in the Chair’ getting windblown in a laboratory test of their cassette tapes in the 80’s, followed by a more current ‘Man in the Chair’ getting literally blown off the screen in a laboratory test of their DVD’s. Both spots ran on MuchMusic.

Europe’s Best is a company that makes and distributes frozen fruit and vegetables. I won their business with a series of ads, the most successful of which was voted TVB’s Best in Category Award for Branded Products A family has dinner in a kitchen. We see the ease with which the frozen vegetables are made before Mom, Dad and Son sit down to eat. Mom and Son watch with some alarm as Dad hoovers his vegetables like a hungry child, after which he pushes his steak around his plate like a petulant child, until Mom says sharply, “Jack. Eat your steak.” The spot ran onCTV


other interesting links:
Diversity in Broadcasting

Television Bureau of Canada

International Year of Older Persons

After ten years at CHUM Television, where I worked as an Account Executive, Marketing Manager and Producer on the way to becoming Director of Business Development & Commercial Production, I currently hold the position of Executive Creative Director at ZoomerMedia, a multi-media company that encompasses a suite of Print, Broadcast and Digital properties.