Clotaire Rapaille

Dr. Clotaire Rapaille began his career as an academic, studying political and social sciences at The Paris Institute of Political Sciences and social psychology at Paris-Sorbonne University.

One of Dr. Rapaille's students urged his father, a Nestlé employee to attend one of Dr. Rapaille's lectures. In his lecture, Dr. Rapaille covered Paul D. MacLean's theory of the reptilian brain and Konrad Lorenz's theory of psychological imprints. After Dr. Rapaille's lecture, the student's father convinced Rapaille that his psychological approach could help Nestlé sell instant coffee in Japan.

Skeptical, Dr. Rapaille took the challenge. Soon, he saw how Nestlé's approach had ignored imprints (the process by which people establish strong emotional connections at an early age, which affect the psyche and influence decision making into adulthood). Without any early association with coffee, the tea-drinking Japanese consumers were unlikely to buy Nestlé's instant coffee.

Dr. Rapaille's work has since revolved around the way psychological imprints and the reptilian brain inform consumer decisions as people develop these associations on a cultural scale. Rapaille refers to the basic metaphors consumers unconsciously adopt to see products and the world as "culture codes."

Rapaille has advised American presidential candidates and corporations worldwide, touting huge successes that improved the fates of Fortune 500 Companies and more.