How Girl Scouts Prepared this Alum for Neuromarketing
While working as a Los Angeles–based actress for commercials, Lexi Montgomery started noticing something that intrigued her.
“I noticed all the food stylists doing things like polishing the burger buns with oil to make them shine, and I realized all the subliminal triggers these large brands were doing to entice buyers,” she said.
For this international business major, a new career in neuromarketing—creating subconscious triggers to prompt a person to make a positive association with a brand—was calling.
Lexi’s interest in how we connect with brands in an emotional way eventually took the form of The Darling Company, a neuromarketing agency she launched in Miami.
The agency, which offers marketing plans that combine neuroscience and search-engine optimization (SEO), provides clients with information about why consumers think a certain way along with SEO assistance to optimize the reach to those customers.
Today Lexi works with attorneys, doctors, and other business owners who have passed the launch phase.
“Our marketing strategy works for companies that have steady businesses but don’t understand technology and how to use it to find more customers,” she explains. “That’s where we come in; we become a matchmaking service and help them find their perfect customer.”
Lexi credits her experience as a Girl Scout in the early 2000s with her current entrepreneurial venture.
“When it came to cookie sales, I outsold my region for years,” says Lexi, who grew up in St. Louis.
In fact, cookie season was always her favorite time of year.
She even created a cookie sales formula that provided the seed idea for her current company—encouraging people to customize their treats.
“For example, I would propose pairing Trefoils with Thin Mints . . . [to create] a new combination of shortbread, mint, and chocolate.”
Eventually, Lexi connected this marketing approach to her role in helping companies market their businesses today.
“Specifying catering sales to each buyer,” she says, “is exactly what my company does today.”
