Latest studies in neuromarketing (for additional info pick a copy of Martin’s Lindstrom’s – Buy-ology: Truth and Lies about Why We Buy from Amazon.com here or Amazon.co.uk here) indicate that when it comes to marketing campaigns there is a reason why some fashion and beauty companies choose beautiful models to represent the brand.

One of the reasons is that they hope customers will want to be like the model presented and thus will choose to buy companies products. Neuromarketing suggests a deeper cause and explains it as a mirror gene. We naturally mirror someone or something when we see it. The brain thinks: “I like the look of that cover girl. I want to be like her. What cosmetics she uses. What clothes she wears.” You then go and buy that stuff in order to be like the image.

But the tricky part is when you get to the shop to get that stuff you want. Australian researchers analyzed the behavior of female shoppers aged between 18 and 26. They were looking how attractive or unattractive staff affects sales. And the results are very interesting; they found that attractive staff could potentially discourage female customers, as they might perceive them as “direct social threat”.

“Women are biologically competitive and the perception that another female is a direct social threat affects their behavior”, explains Bianca Price from the University of South Australia. The reason advertisement is working is because women may not consider celebrities a direct social threat, but a girl in their local shopper could very well be.

So what could a retailer do to leverage this potential problem? The key, Price said, is to hire “women of all shapes and sizes – someone for each of your potential customers to relate to”.

We think this should be a concern to all retailers when looking at the overall retail brand strategy. There is a good example when strict ‘looks policy’ created controversy and aided Abercrombie & Fitch to achieve cult following among clients. But it worked with combination of many other sales techniques aided to bombard customer senses and increase brand appeal and recognition.