Harvard Business Publishing

Most of us walk through life with an average memory, remembering for the most part the things that we should and glossing over the rest...or allowing our smart phones to be the safety net.

While the Internet is now often blamed for our shoddy memories (who needs to remember anything when you can just Google it?), the Internet's memory system actually mimics the human brain. So-called "caching" technology for example, replicates short term memory, temporarily storing useful information and then discarding it when it is no longer needed.

But the Internet also stores vast amounts of information (for better or worse), much more than we expect the human mind to store. Yet it turns out that the human mind is also similar to the Internet's immense ability to remember.

Recently, researchers discovered that the human brain is capable of remembering a lot more than what was previously believed, but very little of that information sees the light of day. Featured in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the September 8th issue, the study is a great (albeit not particularly breezy) read for those interested in truly understanding what our brains are capable of.

Much like caching information online, the brain essentially stores information in various intermediary stages in our minds, making it more readily available when needed. But it has long been thought that very little is actually stored long term. Well, it turns out that far more may be stored but very little may be recalled. So the problem--as with the Internet--is not about storage but about search and retrieval.

Our amazing memory system is made stronger by the fact that recalling memories is not much different than experiencing them. Sports psychologists have recently learned the power of "mental practice," where athletes practice not on the court, but in their minds. Recent neurological studies have shown that those practice sessions are encoded in memory in the same way as actual practice.

For online marketers looking to reach new and existing customers, this means we need to recognize and understand how to give people an incentive to recall information. Marketing must make an impact and that impact must be long term. To be truly effective, you need to differentiate yourself from the clutter and associate your message with other memorable things that the audience either has an affinity for or has personal experience to draw from.

Consider how Disney associates its product with childhood fantasy; Mountain Dew does so with extreme sports; or how Apple associates its brand with innovative design. Each association has the potential to strike an emotional chord with the companies' customers, linking the brand to the customers' own personal experience and that encourages better recall and incentive to act.

Ultimately, marketing needs to persuade purchase decisions -- and by marketing with recall in mind, you may have a better chance influencing your customers' decisions. Remember the Energizer Bunny? Initially, it wasn't successful because of source confusion and actually increased recall for Duracell until Energizer finally associated their brand closer with the bunny to create an enduring (and endearing) connection with customers - which is remarkable because at the end of the day, they're not selling warm and fuzzy bunnies, they're selling cold, hard, disposable batteries!

It is more important to have your ad remembered over time, than seen many times. Remember the old advertising adage of "reach times exposure"? Well, what we have learned about the brain sheds new light on this. Remembering an ad, it turns out, is just as valuable as seeing it.

So don't try to get into someone's head; don't even try to stay there; try instead to be recalled and recalled often.